12 h. ago Former Lionesses keeper pinpoints 'essential' decision for Sarina Wiegman on eve of Euros

Sarina Wiegman has lost three experienced England stars in the lead-up to the 2025 European Championships, with just one warm-up game to go before the tournament

Politics

35 h. ago Squid Game final season review – an ending so WTF it entirely beggars belief

After a wild new player is forced to join the game without consent, the action gets even more operatic and bloodthirsty. But if you can get on board with the twists – and that’s a big if – you will not believe what happens in the last minute The two main talking points of the third and final season of Squid Game are both massive spoilers. This means that I won’t be able to mention the final minute of the whole thing, which contains a moment so WTF and genuinely surprising that I bet my editor a serious amount of money she wouldn’t be able to guess what happens. She couldn’t, thankfully, but such reckless gambling is the sort of behaviour that would land me in Squid Game in the first place, so it just shows that nobody here has learned any lessons from it whatsoever.Nor should I talk about another key development, though in this case, it becomes so central that it needs to be mentioned somehow. So, vaguely speaking, a new player is forced to enter the games, without being capable of ...

Sport

55 h. ago Ryan Reynolds' Wrexham find out Championship 2025/26 fixtures and big first game

Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have discovered their Wrexham future as the Championship and EFL fixtures have been released - with a tricky away day to start

Sport

57 h. ago A real issue: video game developers are being accused of using AI – even when they aren’t

Generative AI is causing new and unusual problems for developers as players become more sensitive to the use of artificially generated ‘slop’ imagesIn April, game developer Stamina Zero achieved what should have been a marketing slam-dunk: the launch trailer for the studio’s game Little Droid was published on PlayStation’s official YouTube channel. The response was a surprise for the developer. The game looks interesting, people wrote in the comments, but was “ruined” by AI art. But the game’s cover art, used as the thumbnail for the YouTube video, was in fact made by a real person, according to developer Lana Ro. “We know the artist, we’ve seen her work, so such a negative reaction was unexpected for us, and at first we didn’t know how to respond or how to feel,” Ro said. “We were confused.”It’s not wrong for people to be worried about AI use in video games – in fact, it’s good to be sceptical, and ensure that the media you support aligns with your values. Common arguments against ...

Culture

58 h. ago Steam Summer Sale 2025 start time: Here's when huge PC games go on sale as first discounts arrive

We hope your payday has been and gone, because you're bound to find something tempting in the Steam Summer Sale - here's what to expect, including that all important start time

Politics

3 d. ago How Hideo Kojima created yet another weird, wonderful world in Death Stranding 2

In Kojima’s latest epic, the Australian outback becomes a shifting, spectral landscape that you can get lost inAs a teenager in the late 1980s, I became obsessed with Australian new wave cinema, thanks partly to the Mad Max trilogy, and partly to an English teacher at my high school, who rolled out the TV trolley one afternoon and showed us Nicolas Roeg’s masterpiece Walkabout. We were mesmerised. Forty years later, I am playing Death Stranding 2, Hideo Kojima’s sprawling apocalyptic adventure, and there are times I feel as if I’m back in that classroom. Most of the game takes place in a ruined Australia, the cities gone, the landscape as stark, beautiful and foreboding as it was in Roeg’s film.I’ve been playing for 45 hours and have barely made an impact on the story. Instead, I have wandered the wilderness, delivering packages to the game’s isolated communities. The game is set after a catastrophic event has decimated humanity and scarred the landscape with supernatural explosions...

Events

3 d. ago PlayStation Plus Essential games confirmed with Microsoft hit and delightful PS5 surprise

The PS Plus July 2025 free games lineup is here, and it's another banger to celebrate the service's 15th Anniversary — here's what's included this month for players

Events

3 d. ago PS Plus Essential July 2025 games revealed – Blizzard's masterpiece Diablo 4 comes to the service

The PS Plus free games for July 2025 have been announced, with the likes of Diablo 4 and Jusant arriving on PS5 and PS4 in the next few weeks for Essential subscribers.

Politics

4 d. ago Club World Cup 2025: Knockout fixtures, results and how to watch every game for free

The group stage is coming to an end in the USA

Politics

4 d. ago PS Plus Essential July 2025 reveal time as act quick warning issued to download games

The PS Plus July 2025 free games lineup will be revealed this week, and we've got all the info for what could be coming – and when we'll know for sure

Events

4 d. ago ‘Trauma is messy, but music will come of it’: Jessica Curry on her new album, Shielding Songs

The award-wining composer of soundtracks to video games including Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is composing again for the first time since a traumatic pandemicFor the fortunate among us, the Covid lockdowns have, years later, become a memory – if not distant, then certainly ever-so-slightly faded. We have had a few years now, to get out there, to rebuild careers and relationships, to travel, to live in the world again. That’s not the case for everyone. Award-winning composer Jessica Curry, who crafted the beguiling, elegiac soundtracks to games such as Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and Dear Esther, has only just emerged. Diagnosed with a degenerative disease in her mid-20s and seriously immunocompromised as a result of her condition, she began isolating at the start of the pandemic, and for the next five years barely left her home. While there, unable to work or write, her world began to collapse.“Like many people I had an extraordinarily painful and difficult pandemic,” she sa...

Culture

5 d. ago ‘Gold standard’: training centre could be gamechanger for football in US

On a 200-acre site in Fayette County, Georgia, US Soccer hopes to build the best facility of its like in the worldThirty minutes away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Atlanta, the land becomes greener, the trees are taller and builders are working in the intense Georgia sun to ensure US Soccer’s new National Training Center is ready for action in time for the men’s World Cup next year.It is an enormous site, spanning more than 200 acres in Trilith, Fayette County, and the hope is it will be the best training facility in the world when it opens. Funding has partly come from Arthur M Blank, who owns three sports teams in Atlanta, and executives are confident everything is on schedule for the doors to open in April. Continue reading...

Sport

5 d. ago ‘People like happy endings. Sorry!’ Squid Game’s brutal finale hits new heights of barbarity

As the shockingly violent anticapitalist hit returns, its star and creator talk about spinoffs, the dangers of desensitisation, David Fincher’s mooted remake – and why they couldn’t say no to tie-ins with McDonald’s and UberWhen season two of Squid Game dropped, fans were split in their response to Netflix’s hit Korean drama. While some viewers loved the dialled-up-to-11 intensity of everything – more characters, more drama, more staggering brutality – others found the tone relentlessly bleak. And this was a show whose original concept – a cabal of rich benefactors recruit poor people to compete in bloodsports for cash – was already plenty dark. Anyone hoping the show’s third and final season, arriving this week, will provide a reprieve should probably just rewatch Emily in Paris instead.“The tone is going to be more dark and bleak,” says series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk, through an interpreter. “The world, as I observe it, has less hope. I wanted to explore questions like, ‘What is t...

Sport

5 d. ago We can't put down one of 2025's best games and now it's half price at Amazon

This deal might be monstrous in the best way, with Monster Hunter Wilds one of 2025's best games so far and reduced by up to 55% at Amazon right now — here's all you need to know

Politics

5 d. ago Studio behind 'worst game of 2025' to 'lay off more than 100 people' after nightmare launch

Former Rockstar Games dev Leslie Benzies' new game, MindsEye, landed with a thud, and now it appears the studio will begin a layoff process in a new report from IGN — here's all we know

Politics

5 d. ago Death Stranding 2: On the Beach review – a hypnotising arthouse game with an A

PS5; Sony/Kojima ProductionsThis is a mystifying and provocatively slow-paced game with more celebrities than you would find on a Cannes red carpetWhat is Death Stranding 2 trying to say? It’s a question you will ask yourself on many occasions during the second instalment of Hideo Kojima’s hypnotising, mystifying, and provocatively slow-paced cargo management simulator series. First, because during the many long and uneventful treks across its supernatural vision of Mexico and Australia, you have all the headspace in the world to ponder its small details and decipher the perplexing things you just witnessed. And second, because the question so often reveals something profound.That it can stand up to such extended contemplation is a marker of the fine craftsmanship that went into this game. Nobody is scribbling down notes to uncover what Doom: The Dark Ages is getting at or poring over Marvel Rivals’ cutscenes for clues, fantastic as those games are. It is rare for any game to invite...

Society

5 d. ago PS Plus Essential July 2025 games reveal time, and when you can download the PS5 and PS4 titles

Sony has confirmed the PS Plus July 2025 reveal time, which is when we'll be finding out the incoming PS Plus Essential games for the month ahead. Here's everything you need to know.

Politics

5 d. ago Thunder beat Pacers in Game 7 to win franchise’s first NBA title in Oklahoma City

As it happened: Pacers 91–103 ThunderFranchise claim first title since move from SeattlePacers lose star Tyrese Haliburton to injury in first-halfShai Gilgeous-Alexander named finals MVPThe Thunder became NBA champions on Sunday evening, topping the Indiana Pacers 103-91 to capture Oklahoma City’s first major pro sports title.Oklahoma City’s Game 7 answer, as during their dominant regular season, was youth. NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 29 points and dished 12 assists to lead his team, supported by strong efforts from forward Jalen Williams (20 points) and Chet Holmgren (18 points, eight rebounds). The game was won amid decibel counts above 100, with thousands of Thunder fans stamping in unison as the team’s trio of young stars pushed the club toward the franchise’s first title since moving from Seattle in 2008. Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago NBA finals 2025 Game 7: Thunder beat Pacers to claim title – live updates

Thunder best Pacers in winner-take-all deciderTyrese Haliburton goes down with apparent achilles injurySend David an email at david.lengel@theguardian.comPacers 5-2 Thunder, 10:15 1st quarterGame 7 of the NBA Finals is underway! A 14 foot jumper by Nembhard and a block of Williams by Nesmith gets the pensive OKC crowd just a bit stiffer. Great start by Indy! Continue reading...

Sport

5 d. ago Indiana Pacers v Oklahoma City Thunder: NBA finals Game 7 – live updates

Thunder host Pacers in winner-take-all Game 7Send David an email at david.lengel@theguardian.comThey said this series would suck. They said this series would be short. But I am here to say now, hello and welcome to our live coverage of Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Seven games, that’s as long as it can go. You don’t get bad seven game series, it doesn’t happen. The Thunder and Pacers match-up is no exception.For those of you new to basketball and wanted to see what all the fuss was about, the season ends tonight, and we’re guaranteed to have a new champion. So yeah, it’s kind of a big deal, which is why you’re here. Continue reading...

Sport