Google’s picking up the slop
If you were wondering why you couldn’t produce legions of AI slop this weekend, it’s by design. Google quietly limited access to Gemini 3 Pro and Nano Banana Pro for those who don’t fork over a monthly sum, without ever telling anybody what happened. It’s easy to see why — as folks continue to abuse the tools for seemingly no gain other than a few measly internet points and maybe a couple of cents here and there.
Where Gemini 3 Pro once allowed free users to create five prompts per day, the search giant now only promises “basic access” to the tool, adjusting the limit on the fly depending on how generous Google feels. Nano Banana Pro, on the other hand, now limits image generations to two per day — down from three previously. These changes were initially spotted on Google’s support page, and not in typical announcement fashion.
For many casual users, these new limitations will likely go unnoticed, but the folks who rely on Google’s AI tools to guide them everywhere they go might not be happy with the change. Google’s obviously herding free users toward the paid-for tier, costing in the ballpark of R400/m. Hell, some may even be willing to pony up.
Hollow Knight: Silksong isn’t finished just yet
Of the millions of players who picked up Hollow Knight: Silksong back in September, we fall in the (rather) small crowd who have 100%’d the game, and ravenously await the next update from Team Cherry, regardless of how long that might take. That update came in the form of an interview with Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, assuring us that we haven’t seen the back of Silksong yet.
Easily the bit that got us most excited was the idea of a Godmaster-sized DLC, one that would allow players to enter pantheons and refight bosses they’ve come across in-game, possibly with an extra layer of difficulty attached. That seems to be the plan anyway, according to the team’s vague replies. Ari Gibson, one of the game’s creators and Team Cherry co-founders, even hinted at the possibility of smaller Lifeblood-sized DLC.
One thing that seems certain is that we’ll eventually get to meet the Steel Sharpe Assassin, a character that was cut before the game ever released, to the dismay of the eagle-eyed fans. According to Gibson, Sharpe is simply “waiting in the wings. Waiting to arrive is probably the best way to say it.”
Aside from news of Silksong DLC, Team Cherry even hinted at the idea of working on new content outside of the Hollow Knight universe. What that would look like, or even when it might be out, is still unknown. We’d prefer not to think about it too hard, thanks.
Forget the PS5, the M64 is where it’s at
Retro Nintendo tech is all the rage, it’s true, but there’s a whole subset of reimagined Nintendo tech that’s surprisingly popular, too. So much so that two separate companies have poured their blood, sweat, and tears into reviving the original N64, but with a modern spin. There’s the Analogue 3D, followed by ModRetro’s new 4K-capable M64 — complete with a snot-green see-through shell to make you feel like you’re in the 90s again.
It’ll hit that 4K feat with the help of an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array), and includes a variety of modern ports (like a single HDMI, three USB-C, and a microSD slot on the back), but also makes room for Nintendo’s original N64 gamepads via four ports located on the front. Still, ModRetro’s M64 controller, created with the help of 8BitDo, may still prove to be worthy of your funds.
ModRetro’s founder, Palmer Luckey, teased the drop on social media before getting into the weeds about what buyers could expect from the console that they couldn’t simply get from the established Analogue 3D. “Open source hardware/software with support for other console cores, better compatibility, silent, support for many analog video output formats in addition to digital, $70 less,” was his reply.
What interested us most, though, was Luckey’s claims that the M64 would have access to a library of “new, re-released, and never-released N64 titles.” How that works exactly… remains to be seen.
All roads lead to Rome
If you’d hoped that Netflix’s Assassin’s Creed adaptation would forget the mistakes of its predecessor and instead follow one of the many, many, great characters that appeared in the series’ early days, think again. According to Nexus Point News, the series will take place in ancient Rome, one of the games’ most requested locales.
That must mean that the assassin of Assassin’s Creed will be an entirely new one, and not Altair, Ezio, Connor, or Edward. Those same sources point to the series including Emperor Nero and Seneca the Younger — Nero’s tutor, likely setting the show somewhere in the 54-68 AD region — a period we’d love to see in the games eventually.
If Netflix can’t pull it off, however, that seems unlikely. In other news, Deadline reported that the series had cast its first regular, Toby Wallace, who will seemingly play a co-lead in the series (Desmond?), though his exact role is still unclear. The outlet also reported that the series would kick off production in early 2026 in Italy, further fuelling the rumours of that being its setting.
