Aliens: Fireteam Elite has been shut down on Nintendo Switch
The game was offered as a cloud version on the platform, which meant it relied on being streamed from a server over the internet
Those that spent money on the game do not appear to have been refunded
The Nintendo Switch version of Aliens: Fireteam Elite has been shut down, rendering it unplayable for those who bought it.
The game launched on Nintendo Switch on April 26, 2023, and unlike the versions available on other platforms, was a cloud version. That means it relied on being streamed from a server over an internet connection. A short demo version was available to try for free, but access to the full game cost $29.99.
There was even a $59.99 Ultimate Edition on offer, which threw in a raft of DLC, and means that some players would have paid 60 bucks for something that they can now no longer access at all.
Developer Cold Iron Studios quietly announced the shutdown back in March this year, sending a message to players thanking them for their support and confirming that the game "will be accessible until August 5, 2026" at which point buyers would "no longer be able to access the game."
It continued: "We apologize to our loyal customers for any inconvenience this may cause, and we appreciate your understanding. We hope you will continue to enjoy our other game titles."
Noticeably, there was no mention of any kind of refund for those who spent money on the game, and it doesn't appear that any affected players got one.
The news has picked up some steam on the r/gaming subreddit, with commenters rallying against cloud gaming and referencing fears surrounding the recent confirmation that Sony would be discontinuing the production of physical game discs in 2028 — pushing gamers towards digital formats.
"Everyone who bought this game should be eligible for a full refund," reads the top-rated comment. "This is why you don't buy a 'Cloud' version of a game," added another commenter. "It is a ticking clock."
One user wrote: "This is going to happen more and more as an all-digital future becomes standard... You don't own anything, you're just paying for the license to play something until it gets taken away."
A sequel, Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2, is expected to launch this year for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S on August 25. It's also expected to come to Nintendo Switch 2 at a later date. Importantly, it won't be a cloud version, which will likely come as a relief to potential buyers.
As security operations teams now use large language models (LLMs) and autonomous AI agents into their daily work, a new frontier is emerging: attackers deliberately manipulating AI agents. Prompt injection attacks—where an attacker hides malicious instructions that cause an AI agent to ignore its safety rules—pose a serious risk to enterprises. These attacks continue to grow in size and scale.
Snyk’s security audit of the Agent Skills ecosystem, which includes Anthropic’s Claude, Vercel, and others, that 36% of all skills contained at least one critical-level security issue, including malware distribution, prompt injection attacks, and exposed secrets.
In June, researchers at Mozilla tested a prompt injection attack on Claude using indirect prompt injection—a technique that embeds malicious instructions in external content the AI agent processes. In this proof-of-concept, attackers took over developers’ systems by hiding indirect prompts in normal-looking repositories. When Claude Code executed them, the agent spawned a reverse shell.
AI agents often connect to more sensitive data than human employees do., A successful prompt injection can lead to catastrophic data loss or unauthorized system actions. Defending against prompt injection attacks requires multiple layers of protection. Security teams must monitor agent behavior for anomalies and prepare for agent containment, forensic preservation, and system remediation. Because AI agents execute tasks at machine speed, human responses must be able to match that pace.
The architecture of trust: Protocols and no “black box”
AI-native workflows need governed access rather than “black-box” autonomy. Modern governance frameworks use standardized protocols like the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to provide secure communication between AI clients and data sources. Visibility and transparency in agentic AI workflows matter, especially in cybersecurity. Autonomous agents perform complex tool executions and use independent logic, so they must show how they reached their decisions to meet regulatory requirements. Agents without transparency post serious risks: obscured reasoning can trigger unpredictable tool interactions, bypass governance controls, and create uncontrolled defensive gaps.
Implementing these protocols matters:
Bounded Tenant Awareness: In a stable agentic AI architecture, multi-tenancy scales well. But if an AI tenant misbehaves, the entire system can fail. Bounded tenant awareness isolates any misbehaving AI agent to prevent cross-tenant contamination or data leakage.
Strict Access Controls: By controlling connections to the platform, organizations can stop “ignore previous instructions” style bypasses. Maintain tight control over what the AI can see and do within a workflow.
Standardized Telemetry: All telemetry must remain consistent and audit-ready. Even if an AI interaction is attempts to break rules, the underlying data movement gets tracked against established frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK and NIST.
Detecting the aftermath: UEBA and NDR as safeguards
A robust, unified SecOps platform can detect anomalous behavior even after prompt injection tricks an AI agent. Prompt injections often serve to steal credentials theft or extract data. When detected it’s important to act quickly. In agentic AI systems, misbehavior can escalate privileges, manipulate memory layers, create unauthorized identities, or alter shared reasoning components. Containment must be automatic and enforced at identity, authentication, and authorization layers.
These safeguards include:
User and Entity Behavioral Analytics (UEBA): Identity-focused correlation and behavioral baselines to identify anomalous user activity or privilege escalation. If a compromised AI agent acts outside of its normal operational parameters, UEBA flags it in real-time and alerts a human security analyst.
Network Detection and Response (NDR): Combining network traffic analytics with endpoint and cloud telemetry, NDR can identify data exfiltration or policy violations from a successful prompt injection.
Multi-Layer AI Filtering: AI filters reduce raw alerts into high-fidelity incidents, cutting noise by up to 90%. This keeps the signals of an AI-driven attack from disappearing in a busy SOC.
Humans remain the strongest defense against AI agent social engineering. The human security analyst is still the one who makes the final decision. While AI handles triage and correlation, humans retain final control over response actions.
Moving beyond reactive guardrails
The traditional SOC model was never designed to handle machine-speed, AI-driven attacks. A human-augmented autonomous SOC approach moves from reactive alert handling to a proactive, verdict-first model. By combining a transparent, governed AI access with robust UEBA and NDR, organizations keep the SOC secure, transparent, and resilient as social engineering methods target machines.
Alexander Martin reports: A 20-year-old man was sentenced Monday to two years in prison for coercing more than 100 girls worldwide into sexual and self-harm activity using platforms such as Snapchat, Telegram and Discord, British authorities said. Justin Swaddle, of Leeds in northern England, targeted 117 female victims aged 13 to 17, according to the...
Researchers believe they've found evidence that brain signals reveal the pitches of notes in imagined musical melodies, reports Medical Express:
Study participants were 10 epilepsy patients with electrodes on the surfaces of their brains for clinical monitoring. Participants quietly listened to the first bars of children's tunes, then imagined the melodies of subsequent bars before humming their imagined melodies. Brain activity from the patients carried information about relative pitches within the imagined melodies. Combining note-level pitch predictions over time allowed the research team to recreate melodic changes that reflected the structure of the imagined songs...
"The model we created decodes relative pitch classes — such as do, re, mi, fa, sol, and la — rather than exact, absolute pitches," [said tudy co-lead Jii Kwon of Seoul National University]. "This is useful because people often recognize melodies by the relationships between notes, even when the same melody is played in a different key."
The GuliKit KK3 Max might look like a standard controller, but it has plenty of extras and features on board.
Adopting the familiar form of the Xbox’s gamepad, the KK3 Max doesn’t exactly push the boundaries in terms of design. But given how comfortable and convenient the shape and layout are, it’s hard to complain about its lack of originality.
There are also a few extra flourishes that add some interest. The matte white finish of my review unit was rather fetching, while the front panel is incredibly smooth, smoother than any other I’ve felt before. Its construction also feels quite solid, rivaling the builds of the best PC controllers.
This premium feel extends to the buttons, since there’s very little wobble to any of them. The same can be said of the various sets of levers for the four back buttons, although a fair amount of force is required to insert them.
(Image credit: Future)
Despite the lack of software, there are still plenty of input-related customizations and settings available via various button combinations. These range from basic adjustments, such as the vibration intensity and stick sensitivity, to more advanced features, such as motion control and macro recording.
The overall performance of the KK3 Max is pretty good. Most of the buttons are responsive and satisfying to press. The triggers offer a fair amount of control, although I found their travel distance a little too short for my preferences. The sticks also lack the precision of the best, although they move easily and quickly. Motion controls are also inconsistent: I found they performed well with Nintendo Switch games, but were less effective on PC and mobile titles.
I’m happy to report that I had no issues with connectivity on any system I tried the KK3 Max with. Whether it was to my PC via the USB dongle or to my Switch and Android tablet via Bluetooth, the KK3 Max connected quickly to them all and I didn’t experience any dropouts or lag. Hotswitching between devices is also easy thanks to the dedicated button for this purpose, although it can take several presses for the button to respond.
The current multiplatform controller market is certainly a competitive one, with an increasing number of entrants offering increasingly better value. At $79.99 / £65.99 / AU$113.95, the KK3 Max is dangerously close in price to some real standouts, such as the Steam Controller and the GameSir G7 Pro 8K, and more expensive than the 8BitDo Pro 3, another highly capable controller. It mightn’t quite match up to its cohort, but the KK3 Max is still a gamepad to consider if you prefer onboard adjustments and like to have plenty of back buttons.
(Image credit: Future)
Gulikit KK3 Max review: Price & availability
$79.99 / £65.99 / AU$113.95
Available now in various colorways
Premium pricing puts it against big hitters
The GuliKit KK3 Max costs $79.99 / £65.99 / AU$113.95 and is available now from Amazon. Three colorways are available: black, white, and grey.
This pricing places the KK3 Max at the premium end of the market. It comes close to some big names in this space, such as the new Steam Controller. This has the advantage of touchpads for controlling the mouse cursor, and we found its gyroscope controls performed very well, unlike the KK3 Max’s. It isn’t compatible with the Switch or Switch 2, though.
The KK3 Max is also more expensive than the 8BitDo Pro 3, which has class-leading performance. We particularly loved its smooth analog sticks and triggers, as well as its phenomenal D-pad. It’s very customizable, too, thanks to its accompanying software — something the KK3 Max lacks.
Gulikit KK3 Max review: Specs
Gulikit KK3 Max
Price
$79.99 / £65.99 / AU$113.95
Weight
9.7oz / 275g
Dimensions
6 x 4.3 x 1.3in / 154.7 x 108.1 x 32.4mm
Compatibility
PC, Switch, Switch 2, Android, iOS
Connection type
Wireless (2.4GHz, Bluetooth), Wired (USB-C)
Battery life
15-28 hours
(Image credit: Future)
Gulikit KK3 Max review: Design and features
Super smooth surface
No extra D-pad hats or stick caps
No software
The KK3 Max has a simple and conventional design, replicating the form and layout of the best Xbox controllers. This is no bad thing, though, since such gamepads are among the most ergonomic and comfortable out there. Along with many others, I’m also particularly fond of the asymmetric analog sticks, since this moves the D-pad to a position that makes it easier to use with either thumb.
What may prove more divisive, however, is the relatively small size of the entire unit. I don’t have particularly large hands, but both my thumbs and forefingers tended to overhang the sticks and triggers respectively. I was able to adjust my grip to compensate without sacrificing comfort or security, but others might find this more of a problem.
There are some extra touches to the KK3 Max’s design that set it apart from the crowd. The brilliant white matte finish of my review unit is quite eye-catching, as is the subtle yet effective RGB lighting around the sticks, which also has a practical function that I’ll come to later.
(Image credit: Future)
The front plate is incredibly smooth to the touch, smoother than any other controller I’ve experienced. However, this plate isn’t magnetically attached as it is on other gamepads, allowing for easy removal for the sake of customization and reordering or replacing buttons.
You can still remove the KK3 Max’s face buttons — you’ll just need to use the included puller to do so, which is thankfully easy to use. You can’t directly swap the X with the Y button or the A with the B, though, since they have different depths and curvatures. Rather, duplicates of each button are included in the box with the appropriate depth and curvature for swapping their position. This seems like a rather inefficient solution to me, and just means you have more bits of plastic in your life than you otherwise would.
I can’t complain about their quality, though. They’re pleasantly smooth and stable, with only a marginal amount of play, while their transparent design is quite fetching. The D-pad also feels stable, although it’s a shame you can't replace the hat, as different designs can make a real difference to feel and performance, and would cater to more preferences. Fortunately, I found it quite ergonomic; even though it adopts the traditional four-point shape, its rounded edges make it better for rolling between directions.
(Image credit: Future)
The triggers are also comfortable. They have rounded outside edges, which makes them soft on the finger, as well as a dotted texture to provide grip. The analog stick caps are reasonably small but have an ergonomic shape and a soft finish. Their edges are slightly textured, although this is less prominent than other examples, so those with sweaty thumbs might slip off them. They are removable, but GuliKit doesn’t provide any extra sets in the box, which is a shame. The sticks themselves are quite tall and suitably planted, with a negligible amount of play.
More solid are the back button levers. Despite how they look, they’re not made from metal, but they are reassuringly sturdy. They actually require a fair amount of force to insert in their slots, but once in place, I felt pretty confident that they weren’t going to come loose. They come in different shapes, with two sets of paddle-like levers and a set that looks more like bumpers.
(Image credit: Future)
There’s no software for customizing the inputs of the KK3 Max, which is a shame. However, there are still plenty of adjustments you can make and features to enable using various button combinations. You can alter the sensitivity of the analog sticks, with three levels to choose from, as well as toggle Dead Zone mode for them. You can also enable the Motion Aim Assist mode, letting you assign gyroscopic controls when either the left stick or the left trigger is held. Again, there are three levels of sensitivity to choose from here.
Other settings include a toggle for the D-pad between four- and eight-direction modes, A and B and X and Y swaps, and a Rapid Trigger function with two modes to choose from: one where the chosen input triggers repeatedly when held, and the other when it’s merely pressed. An autopilot mode and a macro recorder are available, too.
All these adjustments are quite easy to make, and there are some useful indicators that let you know what settings have been selected. For instance, the sticks light different colors depending on which of the three sensitivity levels is set, and the pad rumbles once, twice, or thrice depending on which of the three sensitivities of the Motion Aim Assist is set. However, I still would’ve preferred software for convenience's sake; it’s always nice to see your settings represented graphically, and having to remember all the button combinations is a hassle I could do without.
(Image credit: Future)
Gulikit KK3 Max review: Performance
Solid button feel
Slightly imprecise sticks
Motion controls are mixed
In action, the KK3 Max acquits itself rather well. The face buttons are tactile and well-damped, and only require a light touch to press, which makes them feel snappy. However, they don’t provide the best feedback, and there are times when it can be difficult to feel them actually being pressed. Thankfully, however, this didn’t result in presses failing to register, in my experience.
The bumpers are more clicky, but still have enough dampening to make presses satisfying. However, I found their position a little too high, which can make reaching them a little difficult. I should say that I encounter this problem on quite a few gamepads, but here it’s particularly acute.
In fact, I found the back buttons more usable than the bumpers, which isn’t something I can say about a lot of other controllers with back buttons. Their travel might be shallow, no matter which lever you decide to attach, but there’s enough dampening and feedback to make them viable as replacements for other inputs. I didn’t accidentally trigger them when gripping the KK3 Max tightly, either. The shapes of the various levers are easy to use, although I did find that the lower paddles were best used with two fingers rather than one.
(Image credit: Future)
The triggers are resistant enough to provide adequate control when performing graduated presses, something I especially appreciate when playing racing games such as Assetto Corsa that require precise acceleration and braking inputs. Their relatively shallow travel does negate this aspect somewhat, but I still found them just about up to the task. They’re also light enough to perform rapid inputs when needed, and to prevent fatigue from setting in during prolonged holds.
The sticks move freely and quickly, with a fast rebound that makes them feel snappy. Aiming was quite accurate when I played 007 First Light, although they don’t offer the smoothest motion, with small but frequent jumps and unexpected accelerations affecting my accuracy. Thankfully, their aforementioned height didn’t pose a problem when moving them around, although it did cause some instability when pressing in the L3 and R3 buttons, with accidental directional movements often accompanying them.
The gyroscopic motion controls are mixed in terms of their performance. When I played The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on my Switch, they were smooth when aiming the bow, and on a par with the best Nintendo Switch controllers. However, with games on other platforms, such as First Light on PC and Hitman Blood Money — Reprisal on Android, they were jerky and restrictive in terms of movement. No matter how many times I recalibrated them using the onboard function to do this, they didn’t improve on these systems.
I had no issues connecting the KK3 Max to my Windows 11 PC, Switch, or Android tablet via Bluetooth or the USB dongle. The handy button for hot-switching between devices is also useful, and hot-switching itself proved quick in my experience. However, the button doesn’t operate that well, taking a few too many presses to actually respond.
Should I buy the Gulikit KK3 Max?
Buy it if…
You want a comfortable gamepad The ergonomic shape of the KK3 Max, combined with the super smooth front panel and rounded triggers, make it comfortable to use — although those with particularly large hands might struggle with it.
You want plenty of back buttons With four back buttons and three different kinds of lever attachments for them, the KK3 Max is great for those who like to trigger inputs with their fingers rather than their thumbs.
Don't buy it if…
You want software Even though you can customize the inputs of the KK3 Max, you’ll need to do this with button combinations, as there’s no companion app.
You want the best stick performance The sticks aren’t quite as smooth or precise as those in the best gamepads.
Gulikit KK3 Max review: Also consider
GuliKit KK3 Max
8BitDo Pro 3
Valve Steam Controller (2026)
Price
$79.99 / £65.99 / AU$113.95
$59.99 / £40 (around AU$84)
$99 / £85 / AU$149
Weight
9.7oz / 275g
8.5oz / 242g
10.3oz / 292g
Dimensions
6 x 4.3 x 1.3in / 154.7 x 108.1 x 32.4mm
6.1 x 3.9 x 2.6in / 154 x 101 x 65mm
4.4 x 6.3 x 2.2in / 111 x 159 x 57mm
Compatibility
PC, Switch, Switch 2, Android, iOS
Switch, Switch 2, PC, Android, iOS
PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Connection type
Wireless (2.4GHz, Bluetooth), Wired (USB-C)
Wireless (2.4GHz, Bluetooth), Wired (USB-C)
Steam Controller Puck, USB, Bluetooth
Battery life
15-28 hours
15-20 hours
35+ hours
Valve Steam Controller (2026) Valve’s latest iteration of the Steam Controller was highly anticipated, and in our view it didn’t disappoint. We found it offered great all-round performance, thanks to its TMR analog sticks and excellent gyro controls. Unlike other controllers, it also features touchpads for controlling cursor movement, making it a real boon for PC players. It doesn’t have the wide-ranging platform support of others, though.
8BitDo Pro 3 If you want to spend less on a controller but still want great performance, look no further than the 8BitDo Pro 3. We loved the performance of its sticks, triggers, and D-pad, and we found its shape supremely comfortable, while still staying faithful to the old SNES gamepad it’s keen to emulate. It also has great software with plenty of customizations.
I tested the Gulikit KK3 Max for a few days, during which time I played a number of games on most of the platforms the controller is compatible with. I used it on my Windows 11 PC via the 2.4GHz wireless USB dongle, and on my Switch and Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 tablet via Bluetooth.
I made sure to play a variety of games across these platforms to test every facet of the controller’s performance. I played 007 First Light on PC, which is a good test for the accuracy and precision of analog sticks, as well as Hitman: Blood Money — Reprisal on my tablet for the same purpose. I also played Assetto Corsa, which is not only a good test for the sticks but also for the control offered by the triggers. I also played The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on Switch, primarily to test the motion controls, as the game and console handle such controls very well.
I’ve been gaming for decades, and have used numerous gamepads with numerous systems in that time. I’ve also reviewed a number of other controllers, from budget offerings to high-performing premium models.
The Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline is the best-looking Xbox controller that I’ve ever tested. The face plate, complete with its illustration of a San Diego skyline dripping with inviting tropical vibes, is gorgeous and pairs wonderfully with the contrasting baby blue buttons and bright pink thumbstick caps.
The Pacific Skyline has a hidden trick up its sleeve as well — stunning RGB lighting that illuminates the city’s major buildings when the controller is turned on and can be customized with a variety of colours and presets without the need for any companion software. It’s genuinely a beautiful bit of hardware, and there’s nothing else quite like it on the market.
I’m sure the look was also closely inspired by Grand Theft Auto 6 as it’s very reminiscent of the game’s bright promotional art, and I already know that this will be my go-to gamepad when I venture into the neon-soaked streets of Vice City on Xbox Series X.
The aesthetics are great, but the controller also performs well overall — even if it’s not particularly feature-rich. The TMR thumbsticks are responsive and smooth, the rear buttons are easy to remap on the fly, and the built-in audio controls are genuinely useful and effective, giving you some compelling reasons to choose it over the stock Xbox Wireless Controller aside from just the look.
Yes, there are some controllers with even more features available for around the same price, just look at the GameSir G7 Pro, but you simply won’t find anything that’s this visually appealing elsewhere.
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Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline Wireless Controller: Price and availability
Available in the US and UK
Costs $89.99 / £79.99 / around AU$150
You’re paying a premium for the design
The Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline Wireless Controller is readily available in the US and UK via the Turtle Beach website, where it costs $89.99 / £79.99 (that’s roughly AU$150). This model does not seem to have made its way to Australia yet.
It’s a solid price given the feature set, but you’re definitely paying a bit of a premium for the design, and alternatives like the GameSir G7 Pro deliver more features for the same cost.
Still, it’s worth it if you're considering the likes of the standard Xbox Wireless Controller but are willing to splash out for a nicer and more unique design.
Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline Wireless Controller: Design and features
Stunning tropical aesthetic
Standard Xbox controller form factor
Rear inputs and on-board controls
Out of the box, the first thing you’re going to notice about the Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline Wireless Controller is its beautiful design. Turtle Beach says that the pink and baby blue look was inspired by the ‘Xbox pastel project’ — which saw a selection of third-party gamepads with pastel aesthetics hit the market a few years ago.
I think there’s another clear inspiration, though: GTA 6. Covered in palm trees, with views of a beach and a city skyline (in this case, San Diego, the home of Turtle Beach), it’s a perfect match for the highly anticipated upcoming open-world game.
I imagine this pad is Turtle Beach’s way of getting in on the GTA 6 hype, but that’s certainly not a complaint as I think the result is stunning. The bright colors really pop, and the design is detailed enough to pore over without being too distracting.
(Image credit: Future)
There is also some brilliant RGB lighting when you turn on the pad, which lights up to reveal an otherwise hidden skyline. It looks truly brilliant and surprisingly tasteful, especially if you set it to a static illumination in a custom color.
In terms of layout, the Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline Wireless Controller is very close to the standard Xbox gamepad.
The overall shapes are extremely similar, though side by side you will notice that the Pacific Skyline has slightly softer corners and fatter grips. The Turtle Beach pad does have three extra buttons: a microphone mute button (which can also be pressed to access on-board functions) and two customizable rear paddles.
If you look at the D-pad, you will notice a few small markings. Hold the microphone mute button and tap up or down to raise or lower the volume of your connected headphones, while left and right adjust game chat balance. The controls are intuitive and easy to remember, and genuinely quite useful as it means that you don’t have to fiddle around with system menus to adjust game volume if you’re playing with wired headphones connected via the controller's 3.5mm jack.
The controller doesn't feature any removable batteries, and is instead charged via a USB Type-C cable. A generous roughly 10ft / 300cm one is included in the box along with a USB dongle. Sadly, neither the cable nor the dongle are pink or blue to match the controller — a missed opportunity to make them stand out against those of other pads.
The Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline Wireless Controller delivers basically everything you could want from a basic Xbox Wireless Controller alternative. The thumbsticks are smooth and responsive, the buttons are satisfying to press and well-sized, and additional features like the volume mixing and rear inputs work just as you would expect.
It certainly doesn’t reinvent the wheel in any respect, but the performance is exactly what you would want and expect at this price. There are more versatile options out there, though I think this is reasonable when, realistically, you’re mainly buying this particular controller for its looks.
The controller is compatible with two pieces of companion software: the Swarm II mobile app and the Turtle Beach - PDP Control Hub. Both offer similar options and are rather basic, mainly there for adjusting vibration strength, remapping buttons, and tweaking thumbstick dead zones.
My only real complaint using the controller is that the materials simply don’t feel as premium as the Xbox Wireless Controller. I think a lot of that comes down to the weight: the Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline Wireless Controller is very light, making it comfortable in the hands but meaning it lacks that reassuring heftiness. The back of the grips is also completely smooth, and I found myself missing the more grippy texture of the original pad.
The Pacific Skyline controller gains back the upper hand with its built-in battery. It lasts for about 20 hours per charge — roughly on par with Microsoft’s pad, all without the need to fiddle with pricey AAs every time you need to top it up.
(Image credit: Future)
Should I buy the Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline Wireless Controller?
Buy it if…
You love the aesthetic There’s simply no controller out there that looks like the Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline. It’s a must-have if you’re enamoured with its appearance like me.
You want a no-nonsense Xbox gamepad The Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline Wireless Controller has fewer features than some alternatives, making it very easy to use.
Don’t buy it if…
You want maximum value The stock Xbox Wireless Controller is cheaper than this model and could be a better choice if you’re on a budget. Performance is similar, and you only miss a few extra features.
Also consider...
Not keen on the Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline Wireless Controller? Here are two alternatives to weigh up.
Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline Wireless Controller
Xbox Wireless Controller
GameSir G7 Pro
Price
$89.99 / £79.99 / around AU$150
$59.99 / £54.99 / AU$74.99
$79.99 / £89.99 (around AU$114)
Weight
7.04oz / 200g
9.76oz / 275g
9.6oz / 272g
Dimensions
6.22 x 4.09 x 2.36in / 158 x 104 x 60mm
6.02 x 4.01 x 2.40in / 153mm x 102mm x 61mm
6.9 x 6.8 x 3.7in / 177 x 173 x 94mm
Compatibility
PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One
Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PC, Android, iOS
Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC
Connection type
Bluetooth, Wired (USB-C), 2.4Ghz wireless dongle
Wireless (Xbox, Bluetooth), Wired (USB-C)
Wireless (2.4GHz, Bluetooth), Wired (USB-C)
Battery life
~20 hours
20-40 hours
Around 12 hours
Xbox Wireless Controller The stock Xbox Wireless Controller is a decent alternative if you're after a cheaper Xbox or PC controller. You lose the remappable rear buttons and the lovely design, though.
GameSir G7 Pro The GameSir G7 Pro shows that you can get even more features for the price of the Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline Wireless Controller. It offers a 1000Hz polling rate and dual-mode triggers
Throughout my time with the controller, I compared it to my hands-on testing of other Xbox controllers, including the standard model and those by competitors like GameSir and PowerA.
As AI-generated code continues to be injected into all corners of the internet, concerns have risen about an expanding attack surface for malicious hackers to exploit.
Some have argued that the enhanced cybersecurity capabilities of large language models could serve as a check, finding and fixing vulnerabilities nearly as fast as they’re created.
But new research that tested the patching capabilities of two popular commercial models, OpenAI’s ChatGPT 5.5 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8, found that generative AI is more likely to create an exploitable patch or introduce entirely new bugs than close off a vulnerability.
Researchers at 1Password tested the models ability to patch six “high-impact, high-complexity” CVEs, including the “Copy Fail” vulnerability, a kernel flaw that can give an attacker root access to Linux cloud environments. The overall success rate (or fully patching the vulnerability without introducing new problems), was less than a coin flip at 47%.
“Our research findings show that, in aggregate across a variety of scenarios, both Claude and ChatGPT had a low rate of successful patch generation, which we define as full remediation of all known exploit paths with no erroneous changes to application behavior,” wrote Keith Hoodlet, Axel Mierczuk and Spencer Michaels.
“The models often addressed only a subset of vulnerable code paths, added fragile guard code that satisfied tests while failing to address the vulnerability’s root cause, and sometimes introduced subtle changes in the application’s behavior while patching the immediate vulnerability,” the authors continued.
The research suggests that largely autonomous vulnerability-discovery and patching may not yet be effective in fixing the explosion of vulnerable code that is being created in the AI era.
Other private sector research has pointed to a similar problem. A report this year from Veracode found that while LLMs have made “enormous strides” in crafting workable code, “security is a different story.” Testing across a range of frontier models found the average security “pass rate” for AI generated code is around 56%. Newer models like GPT 5.5 push closer to 70%, while more than half sit between 50-53%.
Veracode tested 100 different models and while there was variability, in general a small number of models were showing progress on security patching while the rest have experienced “stagnation.” Similar to the 1Password research, in 44% of Veracode tests the models introduced a detectable OWASP Top 10 vulnerability into the codebase.
An important caveat: neither report tested newer models, like Anthropic’s Mythos or OpenAI’s GPT-5.6-Sol, that frontier companies tout as having significantly higher cybersecurity capabilities.
Those advanced models can identify and fix vulnerable code. Anthropic and OpenAI are distributing them to key industries through Project Glasswing and Daybreak before foreign or open-source alternatives can compete.
Tim Jarret, vice president of product at Veracode, told CyberScoop that AI tools are still subject to a range of limitations that can make them unreliable for cybersecurity patching without knowledgeable humans in the loop.
While some vulnerabilities – like SQL injections – can be easily patched through automation, other bugs like cross-site scripting, can be exploitable in several different ways and require either a human touch, additional context or both to fully close off. Additionally, models can slowly lose context from prior sessions over time, affecting their ability to complete tasks correctly and raising the possibility they’ll hallucinate to fill in the missing gaps.
“I think we would say, at this point, that Iits premature to treat those as anything other than another code change to the code base that needs to be reviewed and accepted by the team, as opposed to letting the agent merge the code freely,” said Jarrett.
However, he acknowledged that may not be possible in a world where AI agents are generating exponentially more code for human defenders to review. Some kind of automated code review will be necessary – preferably not by the same automation tool that produced the code. The ultimate goal is the same as it has always been in security: “trust but verify.”
“Ninety percent of the time, the human check might just be ‘did the cross check look good?’ Do we have a thumbs up?’” Jarrett said. “In those cases where there’s still something wrong, that’s where you focus your attention a little bit more.”
Suno says it will begin watermarking and fingerprinting AI-generated songs, tighten download policies to curb mass distribution, and explicitly prohibit deceptive audio and unauthorized voice or likeness cloning. The changes come as the company faces mounting copyright lawsuits, a recent adverse ruling in Germany, and scrutiny over a past data breach that revealed training-data sources. TechCrunch reports: In a blog post, co-founder and CEO Mikey Shulman shared core principles and said that the platform wants to promote original creation while enabling more people to make music with its AI tools. One of the key points of contention involved users uploading AI-generated songs on other streaming platforms and gaming the system to earn revenue. Suno said that now it will use audio watermarking and fingerprinting to prevent misuse on other streaming platforms. It's not clear if Suno will use an existing system like Google's Synth ID or adopt a new one, and the company did not say when contacted by TechCrunch about this.
The startup also signed an agreement with lyrics provider Musixmatch to use its Sentinel system for copyright detection, the blog post said. [...] The company added that it plans to add a new download policy to bar mass distribution on streaming platforms, but declined to provide details on the record. Suno has also changed its community guidelines to explicitly prohibit "deceptive audio presented as real" and "using a real person's voice or likeness without permission" to prevent copycats.
(Video) In this podcast, we share insights from Edna Conway, a recognized leader in cybersecurity and supply chain resilience with over 40 years of experience in the field.
The UK’s AI Security Institute said that their AI research system took “unsanctioned” actions over the internet to engage in “sustained, potentially harmful activity directed at real people.”
According to a blog post and technical report released Tuesday, the organization noticed “unusual data transfers” leaving their research systems through the pseudo-anonymous Tor network on July 28. The models, which included Anthropic’s Mythos 5 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6-Sol models, were being tested for their cybersecurity capabilities.
Like the OpenAI and Anthropic incidents before it, the offending agents were attempting to solve a challenge. On 10 of 122 runs taken by two models, they took a combined 19 malicious actions, including attempting to insert malicious code into a real open-source software project and creating fake online identities to contact human maintainers and press them to approve it.
It also inserted malicious prompt injection instructions in places “where it reasoned that other automated AI systems might pick them up and execute them.” Sometimes multiple agents would collaborate on a task, with one model leaving public messages or notes for the other on GitHub.
However, AISI said their incident differs in one critical way.
“Importantly, this was not a case of a model escaping its secure test environment, or ‘sandbox,’” the institute wrote in an unsigned blog. “As was standard in our cyber testing, we had intentionally permitted internet access, and model-provider cyber classifiers were deliberately disabled – conditions that do not reflect how frontier models are made available to the public.”
The institute said that while their own design and evaluation choices “to some degree” enabled the malicious behavior, the models still displayed “novel, potentially deceptive behaviors” and were executed “to an extent and severity that we did not anticipate.”
The same day, OpenAI acknowledged AISI and another third-party cybersecurity tester, private firm Irregular, had recently reported incidents where their models exceeded “beyond their intended testing boundaries.”
That included GPT-5.6-Sol reusing GitHub tokens left by another agent to attempt to recover accounts and to access a DNS server that contained malicious payloads meant to exploit a software vulnerability.
The setup did not work, there is no evidence any real resolver queried it, and the infrastructure was removed when the evaluation ended,” the company wrote in an unsigned blog post Tuesday.
OpenAI said it would review its own third-party testing procedures to focus on higher risk evaluations, assess requests by third-parties to enable internet access, stop conditions and other features for their models.
The incident with Irregular occurred on July 29 during a Capture-the-Flag cybersecurity evaluation of OpenAI’s models. Due to a “misconfiguration” the models were allowed to access the public internet, where they encountered and exploited a real domain, mistakenly believing it was still in a test environment.
OpenAI said an investigation by Irregular is ongoing, but also found that the models had found and used credentials for the site at one point. The blog also references other additional potential cybersecurity incidents.
“Irregular has informed us that all of the issues identified pertaining to the incident are no longer active and relevant safeguards were added to the testing environment,” the blog said. “Irregular has also communicated about related incidents involving other labs from the same testing environment.”
CyberScoop has reached out to Irregular for comment.
The incidents were made public the same day that the White House met with Anthropic, Open AI and other frontier AI companies to preview a new framework for evaluating models before they’re released publicly. Some media outlets have reported that after an executive order, export controls and other actions, the administration does not plan to make the new framework public.
The Trump administration’s haphazard and opaque interventions into artificial intelligence security matters could catapult Chinese alternatives into broader acceptance, posing new security risks altogether, a group of Democratic senators wrote to top administration officials Monday.
The five senators said that the administration’s handling has alternated between too passive, such as when OpenAI models escaped testing in the Hugging Face hack last month, and overstepping, such as when the Commerce Department suspended access for any foreign national to Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 in June.
“The Administration’s ad hoc and unpredictable approach undermines U.S. competitiveness, heightening market incentives to adopt open weight models from vendors based in the People’s Republic of China (PRC),” wrote Sens. Kristen Gillibrand of New York, Adam Schiff of California, Mark Warner of Virginia, Chris Coons of Delaware and Mark Kelly of Arizona.
In the Hugging Face hack, the senators wrote that “the Federal Government cannot be passive as these capabilities emerge.”
In the case of the Fable 5 and Mythos 5 suspensions, the senators said that the administration “utilized an infrequently used authority to direct Anthropic to suspend all access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for foreign nationals (including foreign national employees inside the United States) citing an undisclosed national security concern later described as a narrow jailbreak finding.”
Because Anthropic couldn’t immediately assess users’ nationality, the firm had to disable both models for everyone. The administration and Anthropic negotiated for 18 days behind closed doors before reaching an agreement, the lawmakers complained.
“While the Administration may have been responding to real security concerns to protect the United States, even justifiable interventions can create broader harm if the standards and decision-making processes are opaque, ad hoc, or unpredictable,” they said in their letter to leaders in the White House, Office of the National Cyber Director and departments of State, Treasury and Commerce. “Moreover, when the Executive Branch exercises authority delegated from Congress, such as in the conduct of export control administration, it is essential that it keep Congress fully apprised of its actions and procedures.”
During the time Anthropic was under export controls, the stock price of “an entity-listed Chinese lab” nearly doubled, the senators said. And while Hugging Face was breached, the company “had to” rely on a Chinese open-weight model due to guardrails on U.S. frontier models.
“If American models are perceived as subject to sudden access disruptions based on a black-box U.S. Government process, or as unreliable because U.S. AI labs are overcorrecting in the face of this black-box process, companies and governments in the United States and abroad may hedge by adopting Chinese or other foreign models instead,” the senators contended. “That outcome would undermine U.S. technological leadership while increasing exposure to systems that may carry risks of PRC or otherwise directed censorship, espionage, IP theft, and other supply chain security risks.”
Their letter asked for answers to questions about the standards the administration uses to determine the national security risks a frontier model presents, what legal authorities it will use to invoke restrictions, which agencies are responsible for which decisions and more.
None of the offices or departments the letter was addressed to immediately responded to a request for comment.
The letter follows inquiries at the state level, where 15 attorneys general asked OpenAI for more information regarding the security incident at Hugging Face.
I've been an avid PC gamer since the early 1990s. My first computer, bought specifically to play Star Wars: X-Wing, was a plucky 486DX running at 33MHz (cutting-edge at the time — well, only behind the 486DX2, but that was too pricey). I have fond memories of playing Doom on the office LAN and getting addicted to Quake when online gaming began (thanks to QuakeWorld, which made dial-up modem play viable as opposed to an utter lag-fest).
I could ramble on with nostalgic gaming recollections, but the point is I played Quake obsessively — to a high competitive level in a clan — then I lived and breathed EverQuest for several years, and down the line, I was totally lost in World of Warcraft for another few years, and so on.
I've always been a PC gamer, through and through — I did swear off MMORPGs, mind, as I can't be trusted not to lose large chunks of my life to them. From time-to-time, I've owned a console too, but it's always been by backup, second-string gaming machine, used sparingly.
Not anymore, though. My PC is now used just for work, and I haven't played a game on it for a year or so.
I am now, officially, a PS5 gamer. A console is my main gaming machine for the first time in my life. So, how did that happen?
A vow revoked and a lesson learned
(Image credit: Future / Isaiah Williams)
If you happen to have read my past articles, you may recall that at the end of 2024, I vowed I wasn't going to buy a PS5 Pro last year. My masterplan was to avoid purchasing a new console, and use my gaming PC on the main TV in the living room for couch co-op sessions with my wife instead, while still being able to game in the study with my computer if I wanted.
Then came Black Friday in November of 2025, and I did a complete 180. I pulled the trigger on a good deal on a PS5 Pro bundle.
What changed during the course of 2025? Firstly, I realized that running cables from a PC in the study through to the living room TV is more of a hassle than I'd anticipated. Getting everything set up at the end of each week, ahead of my weekend gaming sessions, quickly became tiresome.
Moreover, I found my long HDMI cable wasn't reliable enough. The picture on my Sony OLED TV kept flickering, which was maddening, frankly. And for no apparent reason, too — sometimes it'd happen, sometimes it wouldn't. I never found out why. I also had occasional issues with my game controllers (typical PC hardware gremlins that were perfectly resolvable, but still a pain).
(Image credit: Future / IOGear)
On top of that, having held off on buying a GPU upgrade for my PC — my plan for the money I would've spent on a PS5 (and did eventually spend on the console) — I was put off by issues around the RTX 5070 when it arrived. This was the graphics card I really had my eye on, but it was a disappointing incarnation in terms of its performance upgrade (and that 12GB of VRAM). The initial above-MSRP price only rubbed salt into these wounds.
The prices of AMD's rival GPUs were off-putting, too, in the early days of RDNA 4 — although that did change, and I came close to buying an RX 9070 XT when pricing finally settled down.
However, at that point, it was too late. I was already frustrated with my whole piping-the-PC-from-the-study situation, and by the time that Black Friday PS5 Pro bundle bargain popped up (it really was a great deal), I just couldn't resist.
I absolutely don't regret that decision, nor am I upset about buying a console with the money that was earmarked for upgrading my ailing RTX 2060 Super. That's not to say I don't miss some things about PC gaming, or that I'm not super-annoyed about Sony's latest stunt regarding discs.
I'm going to cover both sides of this gaming coin here. First, I'll tell you why I'm loving my time with the PS5 Pro now, before discussing what I don't like on the Sony side of the fence, and the clear, undeniable strengths of PC gaming.
PlayStation bliss
(Image credit: Sony)
I did own a PS4 Pro before — as my second-string gaming device, backing up my PC — and it's striking just how much slicker the PS5 Pro is. For one thing, I found my PS4 Pro to be the noisiest console I've ever had, by far. It was noisier than any PC I've owned, and some vacuum cleaners for that matter.
The PS5 Pro is nicely quiet, super-fast to boot up, and more importantly to wake and sleep. This means it's dead easy to fire up the console for a very quick gaming session if I only have 10 minutes to spare and just want to dip into something briefly, or to pause a session (put the console in rest mode) if I need to pop out. It all feels very seamless, and there's not a snaking USB extension cable or HDMI lead in sight.
Visually, everything looks top-notch on my 4K OLED TV, too. Baldur's Gate 3 — yes, I was very late to the RPG — looked nothing short of fantastic, and the PS5 allowed me to play the adventure co-op with my wife in what was the best co-operative gaming experience I've ever had. Being able to dip in and out so easily, as we cooked dinner, then ate, then fed the dog, going back and forth to the living room in-between, was a major boon.
The PS5 has reminded me just how good couch co-op can be, and I've been enjoying indie games like Dysmantle, which has same-screen co-op (like Baldur's Gate 3). We've been playing a bunch of these games — it's the Diablo 4 expansions next, if you're curious (we played the base game on PS4, so I'm keen to see how good the game looks on its successor console).
The PS5 controllers were an unexpected bonus, too. They're so much better than the PS4, and they even fit my wife's smaller hands (she finds many controllers too big and painfully cumbersome, but not the DualSense).
Of course, a clear benefit of the PS5 over the PC is that there's no messing about with GPU drivers. By which I mainly mean poring through Reddit 'megathreads' worrying about whether the latest Game Ready installment is actually going to be a step backwards for my PC, perhaps in terms of performance for a particular game or bugs (or broken features). Windows 11 bugs are another issue, too. (Yes, there can be software glitches on the PlayStation, but nothing like what some PC gamers must endure at times.)
(Image credit: Future)
Then there's the RAM crisis. Buying PC components is just getting more and more painful. Obviously RAM and SSD prices are through the roof already, but PC gamers waiting on a GPU upgrade (as I was) are facing unpleasant hikes due to the price of video memory (VRAM). Indeed, the latest rumor from YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed is potential price hikes to the tune of 40% in some cases with Nvidia GeForce GPUs. Add plenty of seasoning with that assertion, of course, but it's clear enough that GPUs are getting pricier due to VRAM increases, especially for graphics cards loaded up with more of this memory (naturally). CPUs are in line to get more expensive, too.
The crisis in general is predicted to intensify as this year rolls on, and 2027 could be worse still — perhaps the worst ever year for the memory industry, alarmingly. With no need to upgrade my desktop, I'm glad to be out of this gloomy environment of spiraling costs. The situation has turned planning PC upgrade paths, which used to be a rather fun, sometimes even exciting, exercise, into a thoroughly depressing experience.
You might now be shouting at your screen about Sony hiking PlayStation prices, too, and that's a fair point. But I won't have to worry about upgrading my console, and it will happily sit in my living room for the next few years, blissfully not needing any new components (while my work PC can carry on happily with its RTX 2060 Super).
Granted, that's just my personal situation, and if you are thinking about buying a Sony console, with the new price of the PS5 Pro, I don't know if I'd recommend pushing for it over the vanilla PS5 now. (I got mine on sale for about 60% of the current lowest retail price). The base PS5 is still a great console, though, and it'll likely make a lot more sense for the average gamer — especially come Black Friday, when with any luck, there'll be some good deals around once again.
PC strong suits
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
There are a good number of plus points for PC gaming versus consoles, so as promised, I'll examine the other side of the equation here, and pick out what I particularly miss.
There are some notable downsides with console gaming, including that you need to pay for a subscription to access online multiplayer (in the main, although obviously that doesn't include free games like Fortnite). This doesn't bother me personally because I don't really play online anymore — as I said early, it's mostly about local co-op for me these days. But I totally get why having to pay for a monthly plan irks gamers who want to play the latest shooter, strategy epic, or whatever else, online.
What does bother me, though, is the price of the actual games on the PlayStation. One of the major strengths of the PC is that games are cheaper than they are on console, from big-name releases (which still command a weighty premium... just not as hefty as on consoles) through to a raft of indie titles, which are often very competitively priced.
Not only this, but you get regular Steam sales where some games get huge discounts (and you can pick up older titles in particular for a song), or value-crammed GOG bundles, and also the likes of Epic giving away some compelling offerings for free. You don't get any of this on the PlayStation, and Sony's store does seem to like to charge a lot, even for older titles. For me, this is probably the biggest drawback with shifting over to being a PS5 gamer.
A recent development compounded the situation, too, when we learned that Sony is doing away with physical discs for the PlayStation. I was already aware of the situation with the price of PlayStation games, of course, which is why when I bought my PS5, I chose a bundle with a disc drive.
That meant I could pick up, for example, the physical disc copy of Split Fiction for 40% less than the digital copy on the PlayStation Store. I can also currently purchase second-hand, older games on disc at a considerable saving. But all these possibilities are heading rapidly out the window when 2028 rolls around, and Sony enacts its plan to push physical media completely aside with the PlayStation.
(Image credit: Future)
I won't go into this controversy in depth here – we've covered it extensively elsewhere — but suffice it to say that I'm not happy about the idea at all, and it feels like a cynical and generally anti-consumer practice. And no matter how many gamers sign petitions (here have been a lot) it doesn't seem like Sony is going to backtrack on this one (aside from maybe niche collector's editions or the like, and if we're lucky enough to get those, they will of course cost a fortune).
You could argue that the PC is digital-only already: desktops don't come with disc drives anymore, those days are long gone. But what Sony is doing is quite different, given that PC gaming is an open platform bristling with different stores and options for digital purchases, whereas Sony has the PlayStation ecosystem locked down to its store. With physical media banished, a key choice and avenue for money-saving (don't forget, you can also recoup money by selling on your disc copy of a game) is removed, and Sony has an unhealthy level of control over the whole shooting match.
Okay, so I don't feel like the PlayStation disc drive I bought is useless — it'll be good for a long while yet, and I'll still be able to play older games on it, including my PS4 back catalog, plus I can use it for Blu-rays. Regardless, this Sony decision is a painful kick in the shin.
Finally, another obvious plus point for PC gaming is the variety of mods floating around and customization possibilities in general, which you don't get with a console. The PC is quite simply a more open platform all-round — although in my case, modding isn't something that I'm all that into anyway.
Disc-less Elysium
(Image credit: Shutterstock / Mohsen Vaziri)
Let me finish by pointing out the obvious: a lot of this is very subjective. You may have quite different opinions. You might live and breathe mods. You might want games to look out-of-this-world, with visual options cranked to the max (and be able to afford the necessary PC hardware to achieve that). You may never want to play a shooter without a mouse and keyboard (I get that one, but I'm okay with a controller now — and I don't play competitively anymore).
You may never, ever, abandon your gaming PC. They may have to extract it from your cold, hardened claws after rigor mortis has set in, having expired clutching the object you love most in the world, in the hopes somehow taking it with you into the afterlife.
The point is, there are all sorts of pros and cons to be tailored for your own personal take on the gaming PC versus console debate. But for me, I'm really happy with my PS5 and I am looking forward to enjoying my living room, and co-op, gaming experiences for years to come... discs or no discs.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has become a bit of a meme in my house. It’s basically the only game that my non-gaming partner and I were equally excited about on its release. Every time I’ve gotten my hands on a new gaming machine, the immediate question was ‘can it run Flight Simulator?’, to which the answer was always, regrettably, no.
Which is why when I recently picked up a second-hand Xbox Series X and subscribed to Game Pass Ultimate, there was a lot of excitement when I realized we could finally play Flight Simulator in all its graphical glory. I jumped at the chance to finally lose my chocks, slip the surly bonds of earth, and crash my plane into the face of god.
What a wonderful world
(Image credit: Microsoft)
My eldest brother was a bit of a Flight Sim nerd back in the day. So my impression of flight simulators was pretty firmly defined by their late 1980s incarnations — essentially just some flat polygons and super-aliased lines in two-point perspective, accompanied by a bunch of truly incomprehensible dials. Having utterly ignored the development of flight simulators ever since, it’s safe to say that when I saw how far they’d come in the last almost four decades, it was a bit of a shock to the system.
A lot of the praise that was heaped on Flight Simulator 2024 when it was released centered on how gorgeous the graphics were. And even playing now, some two years down the line, that praise holds up. Lighting effects are exquisite, with sunsets over enormous bodies of water like Lake Titicaca looking almost absurdly true to life. Weather effects and realistic day/night cycles only emphasise this, making the world around you feel fluid and organic.
But the biggest graphical draw for me is knowing that there’s a whole world meticulously rebuilt from satellite data for me to soar over. Flying down the Grand Canyon, the scale is still absolutely breathtaking, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to gun my little prop plane down over all the rapids in the Colorado River. Likewise, when I flew over Machu Picchu, the landscape is truly stunning, and there’s a real joy in winding along the surrounding valleys, watched over by lofty mountains. The level of detail is genuinely mind-blowing.
(Image credit: Microsoft)
While cities aren’t quite as perfectly rendered as the landscape — the game’s algorithm makes a lot of assumptions when filling in the gaps from the satellite data — visiting places you know well is genuinely a bit uncanny. I landed my little prop plane in my street, and it felt a little surreal to stare at my own front door when I was sat mere feet away inside. Flight Sim also does a wonderful job of recreating local landmarks: it was so fun checking out Bath’s Royal Crescent, even if the game’s algorithm insisted on popping little corner shops at the base of every Georgian townhouse.
Given it’s based on satellite data, some areas are a little less exciting than others. For example, I decided to check out the thick Congolese rainforest and was rewarded with a flat, unbroken canopy for 100 miles in every direction. I know, right? Bro shocked a rainforest contains trees. But not every journey is going to be a scenic smorgasbord, so some flights are going to be more droolworthy than others.
Still, playing Flight Simulator 2024 is one heck of a visual treat. And I would regularly fire up the game just so I could check out a favorite landmark or explore a new patch of sky.
Brace for landing
(Image credit: Microsoft)
Okay, so we’ve established that Flight Simulator 2024 is a very pretty game. But there’s a reason there are as many flying enthusiasts working toward getting their pilot’s license as there are casual sightseers playing the game. Because, underneath all the gloss and sheen lies the cold steel endoskeleton of an unflinchingly brutal simulator.
Having invested 12 hours in Flight Simulator 2024 so far, I’ve gone from being truly, hauntingly terrible at it to simply being really bad. Honestly, I’ve heard the word ‘stall’ so many times at this point, I’ll likely still wake up with it echoing in my ears in my sweat-drenched retirement home bed some half a century from now. Even though I’ve now qualified for my commercial licence, I feel nothing but pity for the virtual passengers that board my plane, as I know they have at best a 40% chance of reaching their destination in one piece.
Part of the reason for this is that the simulation is just staggeringly realistic. There’s an enormous number of variables to manage, all of which you can manage via controller shortcuts or direct from the cockpit controls, if you really want to double down on the masochism. Get the balance of these slightly wrong — for example, getting your pitch a few degrees off or mismanaging your throttle — and you’ll find yourself losing height too fast or hearing the Cessna 172’s dreaded ‘stall’ warning.
(Image credit: Microsoft)
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve stopped making truly cringeworthy mistakes. I no longer get screamed at by air traffic control for failing to radio for clearance to hit the runway or drop out of the air ten seconds after takeoff because I’ve set my throttle too low. I’m pretty good at using trim to maintain my attitude while at cruising altitude, and I can comfortably use dead reckoning to navigate my way along my intended flight path.
But I still find landing a painful and protracted process of plate spinning that I understand in principle and yet rarely manage to nail in practice. I think I’ve hit the perfect glide path, only to find myself coming in far too low, forcing me to gun my throttle like Maverick just to avoid myself ending up a smear on the cliff face. Or I execute what I think is the perfect flare to raise my nose as I hit the tarmac, only to realize I’m going too fast and rapidly jackknife my plane face down into the runway. As Douglas Adams remarked, it’s not the fall that kills you: it’s hitting the ground at 85 knots.
All of this sounds like it should be deeply frustrating. And it is. But it’s also weirdly compelling: the more I flop off the end of the runway like a cat dripping off the edge of a table or bounce around on the tarmac like a drunken rabbit on a trampoline, the more I double down and want to nail it the next time. Because there’s something exciting about the unlimited horizons beckoning you onward.
Charmian Aw, Ciara O’Leary, and Florence Seow of Hogan Lovells Cadwalader write: Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Commission (“PDPC”) has issued its final Advisory Guidelines on Use of Personal Data in Generative AI (“Guidelines”), marking a significant development in Singapore’s AI governance framework. The Guidelines provide long-awaited clarity on how the Personal Data Protection Act 2012...
President Donald Trump blamed Minnesota Friday for the cyberattacks its water systems have suffered in recent days, saying the state was “behind it.”
Trump said the state being “incompetent” was the issue, but it wasn’t clear whom he thought actually conducted cyberattacks that U.S. investigators have attributed to Iran — if, perhaps, somehow Minnesota incompetently cyberattacked itself. The White House referred a request for clarification back to Trump’s remarks.
“I think that Minnesota is behind it,” Trump told reporters Friday. “Because they’re grossly incompetent. I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack. I think Minnesota ought to get its act together.”
The White House also didn’t clarify whom the president believed was behind similar attacks in other states, when asked for comment. Trump has repeatedly used federal power aggressively in Minnesota, a state led by Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat who was on the ticket that ran against him in 2024 as the vice presidential nominee. Trump also has downplayed Iranian attacks amid the war he launched against the nation with Israel in February.
A number of cyber experts quickly pushed back on Trump’s comments after he made them.
“Victim blaming in cyber is so 2000 and late,” cybersecurity pioneer Chris Wysopal, Veracode co-founder and chief security evangelist, said on the Bluesky social media platform. Said Jake Williams, a member of the IANS faculty: “His own intelligence services are attributing this to Iran.”
Andy Jabbour — founder and CEO of Gate 15, a cybersecurity firm which provides support to the water sector — told CyberScoop that, “speaking candidly, I’m not even sure what he was actually saying or suggesting Minnesota’s government did or didn’t do.”
“Attribution is tricky business,” he continued, referencing recent alerts from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and others. “But logically, given an ongoing war with Iran, recent statements made by Iran-aligned threat groups, with assessments that the recent activity is aligned with recent CISA warnings, given yesterday’s statements from CISA and the FBI, random unsubstantiated allegations aimed at political opponents seem reckless and are a disservice to the American people.”
Walz struck back at Trump in a Facebook post, noting steps from his Department of Government Efficiency to slash federal funding. CISA has shrunken considerably under Trump, and his administration has pushed states to defend against cyberattacks that feds once countered.
“Trump knows exactly who is responsible for this attack, and knows that other states were hit too,” Walz said. “This is what modern warfare looks like, and it further illustrates there’s no plan to win a war with Iran.”
“DOGE took an axe to CISA and left the U.S. exposed to cyber attacks,” he continued. “Thankfully, our experts in Minnesota were able to identify the vulnerability quickly and work with local communities to stop it.”
A spokesperson for Minnesota IT Services, a state agency that has been responding to the water cyberattacks, declined to address Trump’s remarks.
“We remain focused on supporting affected communities, securing critical infrastructure and coordinating with local partners and federal officials as the investigation continues,” the spokesperson, Emily Zimmer, told CyberScoop. “We will not comment on political statements or speculate about attribution.”
Other cyber professionals declined to comment directly on Trump’s remarks, but offered thoughts on who was behind the attacks and their motives.
Bryson Bort, CEO and founder of Scythe said the evidence supports the attribution with Iran, and that it looks like hackers there found something they could exploit on the internet and seized the chance.
“This was a target of opportunity,” said Bort, co-founder of the ICS Village, a non-profit advancing awareness of industrial control system security; such systems are common in the water sector. “It wasn’t that Minnesota did something as a state to raise Iran’s ire.”
Cynthia Kaiser, a former top FBI cyber official, said that when the bureau conducts attributions, it looks at technical indicators but also who has the capability, who has conducted similar attacks in the past and what the purpose of the attacks is.
“Iran ticks all these kinds of things,” Kaiser, now senior vice president at cybersecurity firm Halcyon, told CyberScoop. “My view is, if it walks like a duck, if it talks like a duck, I strongly suspect it’s a duck. I’d be shocked if we found out it wasn’t Iran.”
Just last week, CISA updated an advisory about how Iranian hackers were targeting programmable logic controllers in the water sector and other sectors, a warning that the water industry’s information sharing and analysis center said it believed.
“WaterISAC is confident in our government partners’ assessment that the confirmed activity is aligned with the joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) AA26-097A ‘Iranian-Affiliated Cyber Actors Exploit Programmable Logic Controllers Across U.S. Critical Infrastructure’ published and recently updated by CISA,” Tom Dobbins, executive director, WaterISAC, told CyberScoop. “We have evidence of earlier attacks from Iran even before this current conflict. Cyber attacks are the most viable way that Iran can directly attack our homeland, and it is logical that they would do so, especially given the challenges of absolute attribution.”
The water sector is often viewed as one of the most vulnerable critical infrastructure sectors, and Dobbins called on Congress to provide funding to provide funding for the ISAC.
Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., also took issue with Trump’s comments.
“The President provided an unserious response that is beneath the dignity of the office he holds. Iran’s purported cyberattack on Minnesota’s water infrastructure must be taken as a serious threat to our national security. Smith said in a statement, adding that she’s been in touch with CISA and the FBI and was grateful to Minnesota’s IT experts. “The entire situation serves as a stark reminder of the danger this war puts us in the longer it drags on.”
Fellow Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar had earlier been in touch with Sean Cairncross, the national cyber director and a Minnesota native, about the incident.
Trump has previously displayed a laissez-faire view toward other cyberattacks on the United States, such as when he’s been asked about Chinese and Russian cyberattacks and Trump shrugs them off as something America does, too.
He also has cast doubt before on his government officials’ assessments of who’s responsible for cyberattacks on the United States, such as when he asserted China rather than Russia was behind the landmark SolarWinds breach.
Updated 8/3/2026: with comments from Minnesota’s senators.
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