How Roborace is building driverless race cars

The lights dimmed and a hush fell over the crowd. The last hour had been building to this. Denis Sverdlov, CEO of Roborace, and Daniel Simon, chief design officer, took a step back as some knee-high panels were taken away and a silky cloth was lifted, revealing a mechanical monster underneath. More than a year after the project’s announcement, the pair had finally revealed their first production-grade Robocar: a fully electric, driverless race car built from the ground up for a new breed of motorsport. One where the heroes are programmers, concocting the smartest and most competitive AI drivers.

A design marvel

The Robocar is an imposing sight. The low profile and flowing wheel arches give it a distinct, animalistic look. Like a cheetah, it seems ready to pounce at any moment. “It needs to look like it moves when it’s standing still,” Simon told me the next day. “It needs to just tickle your senses on a very simple base level, so you say, ‘What is this?!’”

We’re at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, admiring the car once more. Up close, it’s even more intimidating. Four 300kW motors sit inside the carbon fiber chassis, capable of taking the car beyond 320KPH (199MPH). A 540kW battery fuels these electric engines and a dizzying number of sensors that act as the car’s eyes and ears. These include two radars, five laser-powered LIDAR detectors and six AI-driven cameras, as well as two optical speed sensors and 18 ultrasonic sensors. It’s a miracle they all fit inside.

Designing the car was no easy feat. Simon started his career at Volkswagen in 1999, before working on the Bugatti brand in 2001. Seven years later, he moved to Los Angeles to work on Tron: Legacy as a vehicle concept designer. Since then he’s contributed to Prometheus, Captain America: The First Avenger and Oblivion. Roborace was the perfect project for Simon, combining his love of cars and science fiction. At first, however, he was wary. “I was as skeptical as everyone else. ‘A driverless racing series — what?’ But I think that was perfect, because now I’m excited and I think that helped to make the car as cool as it could be.”

Daniel Simon, Chief Design Officer at Roborace.

Roborace

The biggest challenge, he says, was an emotional one. For years, automotive design has revolved around some obvious fundamentals. A car needs a cockpit, for instance, a steering wheel and pedals. But with the Robocar, Simon had an opportunity to break almost every design rule in the book. The problem, he explains, was creating a car that didn’t look awkward without a driver. “For more than a hundred years, we’ve seen a person controlling the car. That’s why it’s so important that the Robocar has an emotion, a feeling. You don’t normally approach motorsport like that. You don’t go to a racing team and say: ‘This has to look emotional.’ But that’s why this [project] was so cool.”

The long road

Roborace showed a render of the car in March 2016. It looked stunning, but ambitious. So many concept cars remain just that: a concept, never to be manufactured or driven. But Sverdlov was adamant that the car could be built, and to the original specifications. “The challenge for our engineers was to change it as little as possible,” he said. “So we did the wind tunnel testing and all of the computer modelling to get the right performance. [We wanted] uncompromised performance, without touching the original design.”

Easier said than done. “I think the most used line in our communication was ‘Dan, we have a problem,”‘ Simon said. “Followed by a little emoji with a tear.” Many driverless vehicles have a LIDAR setup on the roof, where it can easily survey the surrounding area. For the Robocar and its clean, sweeping lines, however, that wasn’t an option. So the team had to get creative with the sensors and their placement amongst the bodywork. The nose, for instance, is made of a special material which the radar can ‘see’ through. The LIDARs are built into the wheel arches in such a way that their viewing angles line up, eliminating any potential blind spots.

The absence of a cockpit provides some benefits, though. For one, it creates more space. Not just where the human driver would sit, but also the necessary safety features. There’s no need for a roll cage, for instance, or the gap that would normally protect someone from side impacts.

DevBots

Up to this point, Roborace has been using development vehicles called, unsurprisingly, “DevBots.” They can drive on their own, but also contain a cockpit so an engineer can sit inside and take control if required. In terms of shape and performance, they’re quite different from the Robocar. But Sverdlov says the progress they’ve made with the DevBots will carry over. That’s because the AI and algorithms are being developed as a platform. “Everything we’ve already reached in DevBot, it’s already here as a given,” he said. “So now we are starting from this point to make it even better.”

Still, the team is a long way from holding a Roborace. A documentary series on YouTube is surprisingly honest about the project’s challenges. In the very first episode, the team discovers a battery fault mere hours before a public demonstration. In another, two DevBots are put on the same track and allowed to race autonomously. For 20 laps the test is a success; one car even managed to swerve around a dog who had wandered onto the track. The dual was overshadowed, however, by a dramatic crash caused by the other DevBot bumping into a wall.

“What’s really, extremely important,” Sverdlov said, “is that those two cars started to understand each other and change their online path planner.” In short, the vehicles were behaving like real drivers, naturally changing their ‘line’ in response to the other AI.

Collisions are inevitable. But that’s the beauty of Roborace. The team is creating a space where engineers can experiment and push the limits without fear. There are no human drivers on the track. No unsuspecting public. Just a course with nine other Robocars hurtling around.

Battling with AI

Sverdlov is quick to emphasise that the Roborace will be a software-based competition. Every car on the track will be the same; it will be the AI and algorithms that ultimately decide a team’s success. The hope is that such an intense competition will accelerate advancements in self-driving transportation. If something goes wrong a few hours before a race, competitors will be forced to find a solution, and fast. “If there is an event, you cannot do it one hour later — you need it now,” Sverdlov said. What he calls “compression time” is key to the Roborace’s appeal. “We really believe that this environment will help companies to create best algorithms for road cars.”

The biggest leaps should be in collision avoidance systems. Victory in the Roborace will require more than savvy overtaking maneuvers; teams will need to avoid one another, especially at the start when everybody is bunched together. If someone else has a bad algorithm, and they hit you by accident, there’s a good chance you’ll both be forced to retire. Success will fall to the teams with the most aware and responsive vehicles. Sverdlov hopes this knowledge will translate to road cars: If a driverless car can avoid robots racing at 200MPH, it stands a pretty good chance on the streets, or so the theory goes.

Denis Sverdlov, CEO of Roborace.

Roborace

Unlike Formula 1, Roborace will be open to everyone. You won’t need enormous budgets, or huge research and development teams to compete. Just the best code. In theory, then, a student could go up against Ferrari. A University could beat Renault. Heck, a total nobody could win the Championship. Sometime in the future, the team will open up its “virtual test environment” so that anyone can test and developing a custom algorithm. “We want to push the boundaries further and this is the ultimate environment for that,” Sverdlov said.

Next steps

First, however, the team needs to put its Robocar on the track. The plan was to do just that before Mobile World Congress, but some delayed parts meant that the first test run had to be put on hold. Sverdlov says it will now happen “just after” the event, but stopped short of giving a concrete date. One thing is for sure: It will be some time before a full Roborace takes place. The team has promised further DevBot demonstrations throughout the current Formula E season, including another head-to-head competition.

Behind the scenes, the company will be working on two development “routes.” One is focused on performance, increasing the speed of the cars and improving lap times. The other is concerned with the number of robots on the track. For now there’s just two, but soon Roborace wants to test with three or four.

But I have one question: Will people want to watch a Roborace? Can you get truly invested when there are no people on the track? “We already see a lot of drama — human drama — within our developing process,” Sverdlov said. “We will see this drama occurring in the teams as well. It’s the people who have an objective to do something amazing. They will work during the nights and sometimes they’ll be angry, sometimes happy, sometimes upset. It’s all about emotion — it’s not the robots. It’s the humans that are using those tools to show the level of their intelligence. And I personally believe that’s it’s going to be super interesting to watch.”

Click here to catch up on the latest news from MWC 2017.

Snapchat accused of squeezing a gun safety group for money

A series of leaked emails reportedly suggest that Snapchat may have behaved questionably when dealing with a gun safety charity. Mic claims to have seen messages between the startup and the non-profit Everytown for Gun Safety. It appears that the company’s advertising sales team heavily implied that it would run pro-gun ads alongside Everytown’s stories unless it paid $150,000.

The story goes that Everytown reached out to Snapchat at the start of 2016 to do something for National Gun Violence Awareness Day. Snapchat employee Rob Saliterman reportedly responded, saying that any advertising team-up would cost $150,000. In exchange for the cash, users would be able to show their support for the day using lenses and custom filters.

But at the same time, Snapchat’s editorial team had contacted Everytown to develop a Snapchat News story for the event. Since the content would be broadcast as part of Snapchat’s news feature, it wouldn’t cost Everytown any money to participate. In addition, high-profile names like Senator Chuck Schumer and Kim Kardashian were apparently interested in participating.

In many media organizations, there is a “wall” between the advertising sales team and its editorial operations to ensure independence. Everytown opted to work with Snapchat’s news team on the latter proposal, and so responded to (the unaware) Saliterman saying it wouldn’t need to buy advertising for the day. The following is a quoted excerpt from the Mic report, verbatim, from Saliterman’s response:

“I just learned our News Team is doing a Live Story on National Gun Violence Awareness Day,” Saliterman’s message began. “I would urgently like to speak with you about advertising opportunities within the story, as there will be three ad slots. We are also talking to the NRA about running ads within the story.”

In a following email, he added (again, verbatim):

“To be clear, the story has the potential to be bought by any advertiser, including the NRA, which will enable the advertiser to run three 10-sec video ads within the story. This is analogous to how any advertiser could buy advertising in a TV news program about violence. The advertising will not impact the editorial content within the story as our teams are independent.”

Snap hasn’t disputed the existence of the emails, but does not agree that Saliterman was strong-arming Everytown. You can certainly take his words as a warning, rather than as a threat, since the NRA has bought rebuttal ads against gun control messages in the past. Whatever the intention, Everytown apparently decided not to work with Snapchat at all — and the messaging company ran a story on June 9th titled Guns in America using user-submitted content.

Via: The AV Club

Source: MIc.

Twitter will livestream ESL and DreamHack eSports tournaments

Twitter’s initial foray into livestreaming eSports must have went well, as it’s expanding the range of tournaments it covers in a big way. The social network has reached deals to stream 15-plus ESL One, DreamHack and Intel Extreme Masters tournaments over the course of 2017. ESL will also make its own originals for Twitter, including a half-hour show that covers competition highlights and behind-the-scenes stories. The first tourney to get the treatment is Intel Extreme Masters Katowice, which starts on March 4th.

The move could go some distance toward giving Twitter a foothold in the eSports world. Twitch still has a reputation as the go-to place to watch pro gaming events like Evo, but that’s partly due to sheer quantity. If Twitter can stream tournaments on a frequent enough basis, it might convince avid gamers to change their viewing habits.

Source: Twitter (ESL), (DreamHack), (IEM)

ICYMI: Ford’s Autolivery is the future of delivery

Today on In Case You Missed It: Ford used virtual reality to demo its “Autolivery” concept service at Mobile World Congress. The package delivery system of the future would consist of a self-driving van and a drone working together to deliver parcels and orders right to your door — even if your door is on the 30th floor. While it’s unlikely that anyone will see this system in action for several years — the company anticipates the fleet won’t be ready until at least 2021 — it would go a long way to reducing urban gridlock and pollution.

Meanwhile, Facebook is testing out an AI feature that uses pattern recognition to detect posts from users who may be in distress or suicidal. While users already have the ability to report a friend’s status if they believe they’re in trouble, the AI will flag status’ for review by the Community Operations team. Additionally, there are new Messenger tools that help users connect to suicide prevention organizations in chat, and a report feature for potentially concerning livestreams. We give the thumbs up to any feature that helps users who are struggling.

As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.

Apple Among 53 Companies Supporting Transgender Student in Supreme Court Case

Apple and 52 other major companies have signed a Supreme Court brief in support of seventeen-year-old Gavin Grimm, a young transgender man who’s fighting with his local school district for the right to use the bathroom of his corresponding gender identity (via The New York Times).

Other than Apple, the tech companies include Amazon, Microsoft, PayPal, Twitter, Yelp, eBay, Airbnb, and more. There are also a few companies not in the tech field that have signed the brief, among them including GAP, Warby Parker, Williams-Sonoma, and MAC Cosmetics.

All of the companies signed a brief that will be filed today by gay rights organization the Human Rights Campaign, who is urging the Supreme Court to rule in Grimm’s favor. Grimm is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union in his fight against the Gloucester County School Board in his home state of Virginia. The case dates back to 2015 and the Supreme Court agreed to rule on it back in October of 2016.

“These companies are sending a powerful message to transgender children and their families that America’s leading businesses have their backs,” Chad Griffin, the Human Rights Campaign’s president, said in a statement announcing the support.

Grimm’s case is heating up in the face of President Donald Trump’s decision to remove guidelines put in place by the Obama administration, specifically covering the use of public bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms by transgender students. The previous rules allowed transgender individuals to use the bathroom of their corresponding gender identity, but now it’s up to the states to decide whether or not to support the guidelines or put in place a more restrictive system.

Last week, when Trump’s decision was announced, Apple spoke out against the move and reiterated on its belief that “everyone deserves a chance to thrive in an environment free from stigma and discrimination.” The Cupertino company also vocally disagreed with Trump’s immigration executive order, joining another legal brief supported by nearly 100 U.S. companies in opposition to that immigration policy.

Apple has long supported and fought for the rights of LGBTQ individuals, marching in the annual San Francisco pride parade each summer and condemning legislation that would freely allow businesses to turn away gay and lesbian customers — which was signed into law by Mike Pence in Indiana two years ago. A subsequent amendment to the religious freedom legislation was passed in the weeks after the initial law was signed, granting more protection to LGBTQ customers in the state of Indiana.

For the new case regarding Gavin Grimm, the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments from both sides at the end of March.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
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Google increases Gmail attachment limits to a heftier 50MB — but only for recipients

Why it matters to you

If your colleagues still regularly use email for larger attachments, now you can receive them up to 50MB through your Gmail.

While email attachments continue to be a potential attack vector for hackers and cyber criminals the world over, they are still a popular way to share files. Looking to cater to that audience, Google has increased the size of incoming attachments on its Gmail platform to 50MB, doubling its previous limit.

File lockers and cloud collaboration are becoming a much more common way for people to share files and documents and Google even alludes to that in its announcement of the changeup to attachment sizes. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t still a lot of people doing things the old-fashioned way, and they are now getting some more file-size leeway. But it is only in one direction.

While Google has upped the Gmail recipient limit to 50MB, you still can only send out 25MB files through Gmail. That means if you want to send larger files, you will need to have them sent from an email provider that does allow larger attachments.

Google does highlight that anyone wishing to send out such attachments from its services can use Google Drive to do so, though.

More: Reluctant to give your email address away? Create a disposable with one of these services

This update was made on Google’s Rapid release and Scheduled release tracks at the same time, so there should be no wait for anyone wishing to be sent files with a larger footprint. Google also clarified that it would be available to all G Suite editions, too.

As nice a feature as this is for those still sending files via attachments, we’d recommend using encrypted file lockers in the future. They allow for much larger file transfers, protect your documents through obfuscation, and reduce the chance of you, your friends, or colleagues being hit with ransomware of other malware attacks through nefarious files.

Gmail users, don’t forget you can easily set the app up on your iPhone or other iOS device, too.

Netflix is doubling mobile streaming quality without increasing bandwidth

Netflix is making big improvements to the quality and efficiency of mobile streaming, and it’s working with LG to add HDR support to the G6.

Every year during Mobile World Congress, Netflix gets away from the hustle and bustle of the Fira Gran Via and the core of Barcelona itself, renting a large house somewhere in the city’s northwest, busing in press and analysts during the week to speak to various executives about whatever the company is promoting this particular year.

It’s a very well-oiled machine, and 2017 was my second time sitting in the back of a van with international press — a couple from the UK, a few from Scandinavia, a German, and me, a Canadian.

Two years ago, Netflix barely talked about smartphones. In fact, its mobile strategy was unclear. Sure, it had apps for Android and iOS, and they were even pretty good, but they weren’t well-used. At the time, the vast majority of Netflix usage was limited to televisions, and to permanent high-speed internet connections. But since the company expanded its global footprint to including over 200 countries, mobile video has also proliferated more than any trend line could have extrapolated in 2015.

The upside is, according to Netflix, double the video quality for the same amount of bandwidth used, or half the bandwidth for the same video quality.

I had an opportunity to talk to Todd Yellen, the company’s vice president of product — the technology underlying Netflix’s app ecosystem, rather than the content — about why mobile has surged as a priority in the past 12 months, and what’s next.

Yellen said that almost immediately after expanding in early 2016, Netflix saw mobile usage spike, buoyed by the incredibly mobile-only penetration of India. With hundreds of millions of Indians with inexpensive 3G access and an increasing amount of disposable time, the company realized that it had to refactor elements of its Android app to suit the market. The additions of offline watching — the ability to download content for viewing without a cellular or Wi-Fi connection — and, later, microSD storage, was a reaction to developing markets like India trying to find solutions for unstable connections or limited data buckets.

Relatively near to India, Netflix users in Japan and South Korea boast some of the fastest LTE connections in the world, and also spend most of their time on the service using smartphones — but streaming at much higher quality. It’s this delta, between the sustained usage of 3G users streaming Netflix at relatively low bitrates in India, and those in the pacific afforded the service’s best quality over the air that convinced Netflix into looking into a new encoding method for its content to ensure a better overall experience for everyone.

That encoding method is a relatively new video codec called VP9, an ultra-efficient algorithm controlled and open-sourced by Google, and has been widely used on YouTube. The upside is, according to Netflix, double the video quality for the same amount of bandwidth used, or half the bandwidth for the same video quality.

With HDR greens were more verdant, and reds more varied, and that blue sky was no longer washed out.

To demonstrate this, Netflix set up two stations of Nexus 6Ps, each with the same show — Stranger Things — playing. The left phone used the old codec, and the right VP9. The first example was a 100kbps stream — practically the lowest quality Netflix offers over the air. Boxy, blocky and barely discernible, the older codec was not a great viewing experience; the same amount of bandwidth encoded in VP9 was drastically clearer, with fewer artifacts and improved detail.

In the second test, the two Nexus 6Ps were showing the same clip, and each looked almost identical in terms of quality. But the VP9-encoded stream reportedly used just half the bandwidth — 277kbps to the original’s 544kbps. Netflix says that it is in the process of re-encoding its entire library in VP9, and all users — even those on high-speed LTE connections in the U.S., Canada, Japan, South Korea and parts of Europe — should see notable improvements in mobile streams.

Netflix is also working with LG to enable HDR on its upcoming G6. The company showed off a third demo, of two G6s with clips from Chef’s Table, one of its latest hit shows. The left G6 had muted colors, and it was difficult to discern the blue of the sky in scenes with brightly lit foregrounds. To my eyes, the scene looked good, but when compared to the right G6, with HDR enabled, the difference was significant. Greens were more verdant, and reds more varied, and that blue sky was no longer washed out.

In the next few months, a number of its own shows will be encoded to support HDR, but only a handful are available at this point. Amazon has also jumped on board with HDR, and is rolling out more shows than Netflix to support the growing standard in the short-term, but it’s good to see LG taking the reins on this one from a hardware perspective.

Netflix says that two-thirds of its viewing is still on televisions, but that number is changing more quickly than ever before, moving to where all eyeballs are going: smartphones and, to a lesser extent, tablets. The proliferation of phablet-class devices, and cheaper products with bigger, higher-resolution screens, has buoyed the uptake, but the company also acknowledges that there are just more and better shows to watch, ones that have been tailor-made to complete in transit, or while out of the house.

In the U.S., unlimited plans mean that more customers will soon be less worried about surpassing their monthly data allotment, so Netflix expects mobile usage to rise in turn.

Do you watch Netflix on your phone? Let us know in the comments!

Nintendo Switch online subscription service goes live in autumn, play for free until then

The day one update for Nintendo Switch has become available to those lucky enough to have the console already – including Pocket-lint – and one of the first notifications is about the new Nintendo online subscription service. It will be launched fully in autumn.

Nintendo’s much-rumoured subscription service will work much like PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold in that paid membership will be required to play online games. In return you’ll get a free “classic” game to play each month.

Pricing is yet to be announced, but the good news for those who will be getting their Switch consoles from tomorrow’s launch date is that online play will be free until the service launches. That should give you six months before having to shell out at least.

The online play notification comes after you sign into your Nintendo account through the Switch, which has only been available since the day one update was made available. It says the service will give you the following features:

• Online multiplayer: Play with or against other people over the internet.
• Plan gaming sessions with friends and enjoy voice chat while gaming: The dedicated app (coming to smartphones this summer) helps you get more out of online play.
• Take on classic games – a different title each month: Now with online multiplayer.
• Save money on Nintendo Switch digital purchases: Exclusive savings for subscribers only.

The latter two features will be launched with the paid version of the service.

You can check out what we think of the Nintendo Switch and its launch game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild by following the links below:

• Nintendo Switch review: Return of the king?
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild review: Game of the year already

‘Breath of the Wild’ is the best ‘Zelda’ game in years

I replayed the first 30 minutes of Rise of the Tomb Raider the other day. In it, I scaled a mountain, leaping from platform to platform while the environment around me crumbled. I then headed into a tomb, worked through a few puzzles, and triggered a high-octane escape sequence. A year ago, I enjoyed those opening moments immensely. After playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, though, they felt lifeless and stale.

From Tomb Raider to Uncharted, the modern adventure game is a tightly choreographed charade, a 20-hour quick time event (QTE) with a clearly defined path. When I jumped to evade an avalanche, Lara landed exactly where the game’s developers wanted her to. When I needed to solve a puzzle, the game began pointing, beckoning me to do what the developers wanted me to do. In Breath of the Wild, I had heart-stopping, adrenaline-filled moments, I solved complex puzzles, but through it all, I walked my own path.

Devindra Hardawar gives his own take on the game.

New beginnings

The Zelda series has long followed a simple pattern: You awaken as Link, the silent protagonist, and find a sword and shield. Then you discover that a mysterious antagonist is messing up the fictional land of Hyrule. You must, of course, save the kingdom and its Princess Zelda, so you travel to a number of dungeons, each holding a key item that will aid you on your quest, and defeat the bosses within, before facing off against the big bad. Day saved. Roll credits.

While there’s still a lot of that DNA in this game, the development team has thrown out some old ideas completely. And those tropes that do remain have been disguised and evolved, leaving a game that feels fresher than I’d ever imagined a 31-year-old franchise could.

Take our hero, Link. He begins as a silent soul, almost devoid of life, but through the course of the game he uncovers facts about his past that build him out as a character. The narrative is structured around him, and the journey it sends you on feels natural and logical. Sure, there’s a lot of talk of destiny and heroics, but when on the main quest, I felt a sense of purpose, a notion that I wasn’t striding down a well-trodden road, but finding my way on a Tolkienesque journey.

The world of Breath of the Wild is enormous. Link begins his adventure on a plateau — a kind of tutorial area, but without the tutorial. You very quickly meet an old man who recalls the first NPC Link ever met, in the original NES classic. He sends you on a mission to find Shrines — essentially single-room puzzles littered throughout the world — promising you a glider in return, and with it a safe way off the plateau.

The first Shrines you come across are very simple, serving more as a conduit to grant you a set of powers that you’ll use throughout your quest. These come in the form of Runes, and the important ones let you set bombs, manipulate metal objects, turn water into ice or temporarily freeze an object in time. They’re useful in combat, and essential to beating the other Shrines (there are 120, and completing them gives you additional life and stamina) and the more complex challenges that lie ahead.

Rather than hand you specific items at the right time and tell you what to do with them, as past Zelda titles did, Breath of the Wild dumps a lot of skills on your lap at the start of the game. It’s up to you to work out which tool works in which situation. Because of this lack of linearity, finally cracking a puzzle brings a sense of accomplishment that’s been missing from almost every Zelda game in recent memory.

Aaron Souppouris / Nintendo

Into the wild

Horses are common throughout most of Hyrule. To catch one, you need to sneak up on it from behind, or above. You can then register them at a stable, where you’ll be able to board and retrieve them, give them a haircut or switch saddles.

From the moment you receive your first quest, it’s clear that something’s different here: You’re not given waypoints. To aid your search, Link has a tablet (called a “Sheikah Slate”) that can act as a map. You start the game with that map entirely blanked out, save for the boundaries between regions, but if you can see a place in the distance, you can mark its location with the slate. Your task, then, is to head for high ground, try to spot the Shrines, and find a way to get to them.

Eventually, you’re given a simple warmer/colder tool to help you track down Shrines, but wayfinding still forms a huge part of Breath of the Wild. By being vague about locations, and the paths thereto, the game asks you to explore, and to adapt.

Upon leaving the plateau, I headed, as instructed, to Kakariko Village to talk to the next quest giver. It was on that walk that I allowed myself time to slow down and really take the world in. While there are clearly more technically proficient games out there, the art direction in Breath of the Wild surpasses anything I’ve played before. The Switch’s screenshot tool doesn’t quite do the game justice, but the presentation here is pristine, with gorgeous character and location modeling, smooth animations and dazzling particle effects.

That journey to Kakariko sticks in my mind almost as much as entering the village itself. Perhaps the biggest leap forward over past Zelda games is the lighting. The way the mood changes with the weather and time of day is stunning, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget the first time I got caught in a thunderstorm. But even now, some 45 hours later, I find myself stopping and pausing to take in a sunset, or even just the shadow of a cloud rolling across a field.

While that initial trail followed a fairly straight road, it would be the last time I was handed such a simple objective. Missions sometimes place a waypoint on your map, but they give you little indication of how to get there. Instead, I found myself reading signposts to find my way. Even then, the world is full of environmental obstacles, from rivers and mountains, which simply need traversing, to lava and snow, which require special clothes or elixirs to deal with.

Heading in a straight line toward an mission will rarely work out well, and as roads frequently diverge, it’s tough to stay on the right path. To aid in your travels, there are various towers dotted around the landscape (one for each of the game’s regions). Finding a way to the top of these structures is not always simple, but when you finally reach the summit you’ll be rewarded with a map of the corresponding area.

A new fight

By default, ‘Breath of the Wild’ puts a lot of information in the corner of your screen. You can turn this off in the settings, however, and I thoroughly recommend it.

The changes continue into combat and inventory management, both of which have been thoroughly revamped. The basic combat controls will be familiar, but the biggest change is that weapons slowly degrade as you use them, before eventually breaking.

This mechanic adds a new dimension to encounters: You could certainly attack every foe with your best weaponry, but what happens when it falls apart and a difficult enemy appears? Invariably, you die. As such, you’ll want to approach each battle with careful thought. There are Rune skills that could dispatch a beast or two; you could use stealth to sneak up on a watchman, or take someone out from afar with a well-placed arrow to the head. And you’ll want to check every weapon an enemy dropped to see if it’s of use.

Weapons also handle fairly uniquely. Obviously, swords are different from spears, and boomerangs are different from bows, but there’s a sense of weight, and a real physics engine driving combat here. Heavy swords swing slower than light ones, making them tricky to wield successfully against a fast opponent; arrows travel in an arc, making aiming at a distance hard; and the boomerang, although difficult to master, is extremely satisfying when you get it right.

There isn’t a huge range of enemy types in the game, but what variety is there is augmented in some intelligent ways. There’s a real sense of dynamism from the combat, and environment plays a key part in every battle. Enemies can be intelligent, and adapt quickly. The addition of a stamina meter also brings something new to combat. In a typical encounter, it doesn’t come into play; unlike in Dark Souls, it’s virtually impossible to tire yourself out just by swinging your sword around. But running, gliding and climbing will all have Link gasping for breath.

In one moment, I was fighting a group of three Lizalfos (twitchy, bouncy, lizard-like enemies). I approached from the air, gliding over before shooting an arrow at one of their heads. I then descended quickly, smashing that enemy with an ax as I touched down. From there, I switched to a boomerang. I hit the second Lizalfos, but I mistimed the button press to catch the weapon on its return. As I raced over to retrieve it, I ran out of stamina. One of my foes quickly grabbed my boomerang and began attacking me with it. I did not survive the encounter.

As with all good games, every time I died I knew it was my fault. At least at first, though, some battles felt unfairly weighted against me. Roaming the land are Guardians, dangerous mechanical sentries that you’ll certainly bump into. They move faster than Link can on feet, their attacks have a longer range than yours and, honestly, they’re kind of terrifying, even with the necessary equipment to fight them. I’ve been killed by them countless times, and I’ve died in this game maybe 30 times total. That’s probably more deaths than my combined count across all Zelda games in the past 15 years.

So staying alive is hard, and I get used to seeing “Game Over” fairly frequently. While it doesn’t come close to testing you in the way that, say, a From Software game would, Breath of the Wild is not an easy game. Like in Dark Souls, simple enemies can quickly overwhelm you if you approach them incorrectly. Because of this, maintaining and managing your inventory is key.

There’s a bona fide in-game economy now, along with a fairly robust crafting system. There aren’t many rupees lying around on the floor, so you’ll need to do more to make your way through Hyrule. Upon death, enemies “drop” various “items” (i.e., you pick up a few of their body parts), which can either be used to craft elixirs or sold to stores and traveling salespeople. You can also harvest vegetables and fungi, and hunt fish and mammals for meat. Oh, and there are various critters around the world that make an excellent addition to an elixir.

Crafting is done at campfires: You combine ingredients to create dishes that not only recover health but increase your attack power, stamina, defense, or environmental resistances. The crafting system is a welcome addition, but it’s not without issues. Cooking up one of these meals takes no time at all, but preparing 30 dishes can be a slog. You have to manually head to your inventory, pick up a steak, back out of the menu, and drop the steak into the pan. Over and over again. Nonetheless, it became something of a ritual for me to cook up various meals before sending Link to sleep, ready for a long journey in the morning.

The joy of exploration

From fishing to bowling, ‘Zelda’ has always offered countless mini games, and ‘Breath of the Wild’ is no different. I’ve played through three, and they’re all a lot of fun, but there’s something special about happening upon them by yourself.

It took me around 45 hours to beat Skyward Sword, the last home console game in the series. I’ve put almost exactly that much time into Breath of the Wild and, so far as I can tell, I’m barely past halfway. That’s partly because this is the biggest game Nintendo has ever made, but it’s also because Zelda just begs you to explore.

The game’s real genius lies in its map. It’s vast — more akin to The Witcher 3’s than Skyrim’s in size — and it’s full of life. Even its quieter sports are crafted in such a way that they feel connected to the overall world. Heading from one location to another, you invariably see points of interest in your peripheral vision.

Typically, this is achieved by elevation. Say you’re heading along the side of a canyon, when suddenly the mist parts to reveal an oasis below — who wouldn’t want to glide down and take a look? Other times you’ll see a distant spec moving on the horizon (draw distances are stellar), or a Shrine nestled on a hilltop. Remember: Anything you can see, you can mark as a waypoint on your map, which made finding my way around the world feel like a much more personal effort.

I’ve spent days of in-game time carving a path through the game’s various areas, just on the whim that I might find something worth doing at the end of my journey. Almost without exception, the game rewarded my exploratory instincts with items, characters, new locations, or, occasionally, just a beautiful vista.

The consistency of these reward loops encouraged me to explore more, to find high ground, to head to the farthest point I could see. It’s at these moments, when I’m scaling a sheer rock face in the hope of discovering something at its peak, that the game is at its best. Throughout it all, music is sparse, which lends a real sense of isolation. Occasionally, you’ll hear some incidental piano playing in the background, while combat also triggers some light music, but the rich orchestral scores of Ocarina of Time are nowhere to be found here. It’s mostly just silence, or the sounds of nature.

A different kind of dungeon

In addition to Shrines dotted all around the landscape, Breath of the Wild has some larger set-piece dungeons, more in the style of the classic Temples of Zelda past. But, like everything in this game, these dungeons are dramatically different from what you’ve seen before.

The larger dungeons are typically introduced by memorable gameplay moments. In one case I found myself firing arrows in midair at a giant beast in bullet time; in another I had to stealthily guide a dumb companion past deadly sentries. Once those set pieces are over, though, you’re essentially dropped in the middle of a giant puzzle and asked to work your way out.

Once inside, you’ll discover there are no keys, no new items and no labyrinthine layout. Instead, they’re a single environment, which you manipulate in order to achieve your goal. Rather than handing you, say, a grappling hook and asking you to use it to navigate around a space, the game expects you to use all your Rune skills to proceed to the flashy boss fight that awaits.

The second layer of complexity comes from points of articulation within the dungeon. Once you’ve downloaded its map onto your tablet, you’re able to transform the layout slightly with the press of a key. In one example, this might be to change the flow of water to get wheels spinning in motion, while in others, you’re able to rotate the entire dungeon on its side. The level of challenge offered isn’t off the charts — although I did get stuck for an hour by missing something blindingly obvious — but the puzzles really encourage lateral thinking, and required me to use all the tools at my disposal to progress.

For Nintendo to have reworked so much without losing what makes ‘Zelda’ so special is an achievement in itself.

An evolution, borrowed

There has never been this big a change in direction since The Legend of Zelda first graced the NES 31 years ago. Despite rightly being lauded as one of the best games ever, Ocarina of Time was not the sea change that Breath of the Wild represents. Yes, it realized the world of Zelda in three dimensions, and provided memories that will last many gamers a lifetime, but it did not drastically mess with the formula laid down by A Link to the Past in the early ’90s. Breath of the Wild does.

Nintendo has challenged the very notion of what a Zelda game can be. It’s torn out parts I would’ve considered key to the franchise and swapped in the very best ideas from other titles. Breath of the Wild borrows liberally from games that, in fairness, all owe the Zelda series a little piece of their existence. It takes Far Cry’s scouting out locations and hunting animals. It has Monster Hunter’s meticulous journey preparation. It distills the sense of wonder you get in Skyrim when you spot a speck on the horizon and resolve to one day see it. There’s even a little of Just Cause’s physics-based mayhem wrapped in there somewhere.

Yet, despite all of this change, I never once questioned that I was playing a Zelda game. It’s not just the characters, or the shared world. There’s a quality beyond the tangible that makes Breath of the Wild feel like an entirely natural evolution of a beloved franchise. This is a blueprint for a new kind of Zelda game — one that can undoubtedly evolve and improve beyond our imaginations in the future. For Nintendo to have reworked so much without losing what makes this series so special is an achievement in itself. For it to have created something that, after 45 hours or so, is shaping up to be one of the best games ever made is something else entirely.

The Morning After: Thursday, March 2 2017

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

The Nintendo Switch goes on sale tomorrow, but our review of the dockable console is here today. Plus: a price drop for Oculus Rift and a status update on Windows phones.

Revolutionary, but it still needs workNintendo Switch review

It’s time to find out how the newest Nintendo console stacks up, and Devindra Hardawar came up with plenty of positives. With the Switch, Nintendo fixed its big mistakes from the Wii U and doubled down on that system’s best feature by making the entire thing a playable mobile device. There are some issues, including the extra cost for accessories like a Grip Charge for its controllers or the $70 Pro controller gamepad.

Two and a half hours of battery life playing Zelda means gamers on the go could be looking for an extra battery pack too. Still, the Switch brings Nintendo’s flair for innovation, and we’re expecting a steady flow of indie titles for you to play once the launch games get a bit stale.

Living TilesThe hunt for Windows Phone

Microsoft says it’s still committed to Windows phones, so it should be easy to find one at the world’s largest mobile event right? This is the idea that sent Mat Smith on the search for Windows Phone at MWC 2017, but what he found probably won’t surprise you

Say hello to Season 4‘Overwatch’ adds a server browser

Blizzard continues to tweak Overwatch and now its online shooter has a server browser on all platforms. That means players can create (or find) almost any game type they can imagine, instead of just sticking to ones the developers pick. It’s also time for the competitive bracket’s fourth season, with some new play tweaks and changes to make tanking to the bottom a less attractive option.

O.T. Genasis approvesThe Oculus Rift headset and Touch controller each get a $100 price drop

If you’ve been considering a VR upgrade, now could be the time. Oculus announced during GDC 2017 that it’s dropping prices. The Rift headset now sells for $499, while the Touch controllers are down to $99. Extra sensors are cheaper too, dropping $20 to $59. After a year on the market, it’s about time for a price cut, and recent buyers (within the last 30 days) can check in for a $50 credit.

But wait, there’s more…

• Prisma’s newest option encourages users to create their own filters
• Microsoft plans to bring mixed reality to the Xbox in 2018
• Tech CEO tweets 1-800-EAT-DICK number at reporter
• Nokia is quickly getting better at making Android phones
• Spotify Hi-Fi is coming to compete with Tidal’s high quality audio
• Google unveils ‘Meet,’ a Hangouts app for businesses