Far Cry Primal

Ubisoft goes prehistoric with its back-to-basics adventure…

We’re used to games stacking the odds against you. An army against one rebel. A city that needs liberating by one hero. A single soldier taking on a universe full of nasty aliens. But in all of these you’ve got the edge; a big-ass gun, a unique piece of technology, or a team at your back. Far Cry never bothered with that; you get dropped into a shitstorm and it’s up to you to survive. And in Far Cry Primal, that’s going to be harder than ever, because this time around there isn’t a bullet in sight.

Into the heart of darkness

We sent Josh West into the Belly of the Beast to go hands-on with Dark Souls III’s fresh hell

I would like to tell you that I had just died in battle facing overwhelming odds, brawling with the scourge of warped figures lining The Wall of Lodoleth. But the reality is far less heroic. After 132 minutes with Dark Souls III, I found myself looking upon a daunting dungeon door, concealing an inevitably soul-crushing boss within. As I prepared for conflict, imbuing my sword with Gold Pine Resin, a super-charged Knight ran me through off-camera, his glowing red eyes a haunting reminder that you are never safe in Dark Souls. The familiar ‘You Have Died” scrawl of shame faded from the screen as I sighed deeply. That was death number nine.

The Pro’s Guide to UI design

Johan Ronsse describes what it’s like to be a user interface designer, and gives some tips for how to become better at your craft

When I started my career, I was a web designer. I worked in web design for four years, starting with small business sites and eventually moving on to bigger clients. I found out that it wasn’t graphic design that interested me, nor working for bigger brand names. I was more interested in pagination patterns, the way people interacted with forms, and things like perceived performance, than the visual design of a web page.

Blame your tools

Interfaces are evolving, and our tools are struggling to keep up. Alasdair Monk explores what our design toolkits should look like

Looking back to 20 years ago, our workflow for web design relied heavily on creating a hi-fidelity, fixed canvas in Photoshop that would then be mimicked in HTML and FTPd out into the world. Since then, the increasing ubiquity of the internet has changed everything. We now boast a multitude of devices from which to consume, publish and share via apps. From watches to televisions, we’re now never more than a glance away from our beloved black mirrors.

BlackBerry Priv

BlackBerry finally makes its first Android phone, but the keyboard it’s famous for remains intact

Yes, BlackBerry has made an Android phone. The Finnish manufacturer used to jostle with the likes of Apple, Samsung and Nokia at the very top of the mobile phone tree, but it utterly failed to keep pace with the smartphone revolution, lurching from crisis to crisis refusing to shift from the boxy, physical keyboard designs and its own operating system.