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13 Best Crossplay Games for Consoles and PC (2023): Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, Mobile

13 Best Crossplay Games for Consoles and PC (2023): Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, Mobile

Genshin Impact, somewhat uniquely, supports cross-saving as well. So if you decide to play on your phone for a little while, you can keep all your progress when you go back to your console. It’s a nice addition that makes this title one of those rare games where you can play anywhere with anyone and feel like you’re jumping into the same game.

Rocket League  (Free)

Screenshot of Rocket League game featuring a sports car flying and hitting a large ball on a field

Courtesy of Psyonix

Psyonix’s Rocket League has proved that its concept of “What if soccer, but with cars?” is an enduring one. And thanks to using Epic’s Online Services platform, players on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, or PC can all play together. Interestingly, PC players that play the game via Epic Game Store or Steam can participate in the cross-platform action, despite Steam being a rival game store to Epic. Who says we can’t all get along?

Fall Guys  (Free)

Fall Guys characters

Courtesy of Devolver Digital

When Fall Guys came on the scene, it was overshadowed by Among Us, but it has still maintained a healthy player base. This game is a battle royale—though the most adorable one you’ve ever seen—where 60 players compete in game-show-style obstacle courses and arenas to be the last person (er, jelly bean) standing. Best of all, it’s recently gone free-to-play, so you don’t have to spend a dime to try it out.

Overcooked! All You Can Eat  ($40)

Overcooked video game screenshot with chefs in a kitchen making meals

Courtesy of Digital LTD

If you enjoy the chaos of working in a professional kitchen … well, then you’ve probably never done it in real life. Fortunately, Overcooked! All You Can Eat is a lot more fun than a real job. This game requires players to cooperate to prepare, cook, and plate food for customers in a rapid-fire environment. This version has added crossplay across a wide variety of platforms, so you can recruit chefs from just about anywhere.

No Man’s Sky  ($60)

Screenshot of No Man's Sky featuring spaceships and planets

Courtesy of Hello Games

For a game that began life starring an isolated spacefarer exploring a vast and unfathomably lonely universe, any kind of crossplay is already a significant change. But as Hello Games has continued iterating on No Man’s Sky, it has added online multiplayer features where you can bump into other travelers. You can interact with players across Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4 and 5. It’s not a huge amount of platforms compared to most other titles on this list, but given how unique this game’s development is, it’s a worthy addition. No Man’s Sky even overhauled its entire capital ship system and added new types of multiplayer missions you can take on with friends or strangers.

Baldur’s Gate 3  (Eventually)

Screenshot from the game 'Baldur's Gate 3' featuring an ornate character posing and holding one finger up

Courtesy of Larian Studios

Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3 has been one of the biggest smash hits of 2023, hailed for its rich storytelling that allows players to feel their consequences have real weight. Just like the tabletop D&D it’s based on, friends can play together in the same campaign. Up to four players can form a party and run through the story in tandem online.

16 Best Camera Accessories for Phones (2023): Apps, Tripods, Mics, and Lights

16 Best Camera Accessories for Phones (2023): Apps, Tripods, Mics, and Lights

We’re living in a golden age of mobile photography. The gear in this guide will up your game for making content at home or out and about, using just your smartphone. Our favorite Android phones and iPhones have outstanding cameras, but tripods, mics, and video lights can elevate the quality of your work. Here’s everything you need to turn your phone into a pro-grade powerhouse.

Check out our other buying guides, like Gear and Tips to Make Studio-Grade Videos at Home, Best Compact Cameras, Best iPhone 15 Cases, Best Pixel Phones, and Best Instant Cameras.

Updated October 2023: We’ve added the Lume Cube Creator Kit 2.0, Lume Cube Ring Light Mini, Moment T-Series Lenses, Moment Filmmaker Cage, Insta360 Flow, Boling P1, DJI Mic, Rode Wireless Go II, Nimble Champ, Canvas Lamp, Joby Wavo Plus, and Peak Design Creator Kit.

Special offer for Gear readers: Get WIRED for just $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com, full Gear coverage, and subscriber-only newsletters. Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

‘Super Mario Bros. Wonder’ Is the Face of Nintendo’s Transformation

‘Super Mario Bros. Wonder’ Is the Face of Nintendo’s Transformation

Mario’s reach is expansive. He’s a Lego minifig, a clothing brand, a cereal, a skit on Saturday Night Live. Fans obsess over who’s voicing him, and the size of the character’s butt. He’s a goofy little guy with a wholesome attitude he maintains through the power of only ever yelling things like “Mama mia” and “Wahoo!” For Nintendo’s purposes, Mario is the company’s strongest contender to test the bounds of what it can accomplish. As Nintendo’s most iconic character, in terms of sheer breadth of games and household recognition, he’s essentially a mascot. “There’s a likability, there’s a cuteness, there’s a sense of adventure,” says Bowser. Moreover, he adds, “one of the most important things about Mario is his approachability.”

Approachability was on Nintendo’s mind throughout the development of Super Mario Bros. Wonder. It’s got a familiar setup. Mario, Peach, and pals are visiting a neighboring nation, the Flower Kingdom, when Bowser (the video game character, not the Nintendo president) shows up and wreaks havoc on their floral world. In order to defeat Boswer, players collect the eponymous Wonder seeds.

Wonder, then, is an attempt to set Mario up for the future. The Mario movie and Super Nintendo World are, by design, bringing new people into the fold, and the company wanted the next game in the franchise to be the kind anyone could play, even if they’ve never held a joycon before. “That was particularly important with Super Mario Bros. Wonder, because there’s a host of new people that are just experiencing Mario for the first time, and now they want to experience it in a video game.” It’s a game for new and older fans, many of whom now play with their own kids.

Wonder includes 12 characters to pick from, including five—four Yoshis and Nabbit—that won’t take damage, and make it easier for inexperienced players to get through some of the game’s more difficult levels. Its co-op mode, which includes both local and online play, also means players can work together to finish the game.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the series’ first side-scrolling platform in a decade, giving it a high expectation bar to clear. Players are savvier than ever about how Nintendo makes a Mario game (and have even had the chance to create levels themselves, thanks to the Mario Maker series). It’s hard to surprise them. The game’s Wonder elements are worthy of the title, however, activating something a little strange and different every time. Wonder Flowers—a sort of hyperactive powerup—add a welcome sense of surprise to familiar tasks, whether Mario is transformed into a ball of goo, fighting against a shifting level itself, or answering trivia questions. It manages to feel fresh despite the series’ long history.

Citing Hamas, the US Wants to Treat Crypto “Mixers” as Suspected Money Launderers

Citing Hamas, the US Wants to Treat Crypto “Mixers” as Suspected Money Launderers

Hamas and militant groups’ use of cryptocurrency, while significant, pales in comparison to the amount of cryptocurrency used by other illicit actors. Hamas, for instance, raised $41 million in cryptocurrency over the past two years, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad raised $91 million, according to a report last week in the Wall Street Journal that cited analyses by cryptocurrency tracing firms and seizures by the Israeli government.

It’s not clear, however, how much of those funds actually made it to these groups before being seized. In fact, Hamas asked its donors to stop using cryptocurrency in April of 2023, due to the public nature of the transactions on blockchains and the risk of prosecution. Cryptocurrency tracing firm Chainalysis, which frequently works with government and law enforcement customers, went so far as to publish a blog post yesterday cautioning against mistaken analyses that overestimate the role of cryptocurrency in financing entities like Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

North Korean state-sponsored cybercriminals, Russian ransomware gangs, and other criminal groups, by contrast, have pocketed billions of dollars through their theft of cryptocurrency or use of the technology as a means of demanding extortion payments from victims. Thieves stole $3.8 billion in crypto last year—much of which went to the North Korean regime—and ransomware hackers extorted close to $450 million in just the first half of 2023, according to Chainalysis.

Those criminals often use cryptocurrency mixing services, funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into mixing services like ChipMixer and Sinbad.io. In fact, US law enforcement and the Treasury Department have aggressively sanctioned or shut down one mixer service after another in recent years, including Blender, TornadoCash, and Bitzlato, often citing their use in laundering the profits of those North Korean and Russian hackers.

The new FinCEN rules would be less severe than those sanctions, indictments, and busts—a new regulatory process rather than a ban—but also far wider in scope, says Jason Somensatto, Chainalysis’ head of North America public policy. “The impact can be much broader,” says Somensatto. “They can say that this applies to all mixing services that people are interacting with.”

As the Treasury doubles down on its push to cut off crypto-based money laundering—and now points to Hamas as a new impetus for that crackdown—TRM Labs’ Redbord cautions that US regulators shouldn’t go too far in censuring services that do, in some cases, offer financial privacy to legitimate users. After all, without mixers, most cryptocurrency transactions are fully public in nature. “I think the challenge for regulators is, how do we thread the needle between stopping illicit actors from using these platforms but at the same time allow regular users to enable some degree of privacy?” Redbord says. “I think the concern is that this could very much be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”

Netflix’s Password-Sharing Crackdown Is Working—for Now

Netflix’s Password-Sharing Crackdown Is Working—for Now

If it’s not the company motto yet, it should be: Never count Netflix out. On Wednesday, the streaming giant beat Wall Street projections by reporting a gain of nearly 9 million new subscribers worldwide and $8.5 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2023, a nearly 8 percent increase year-over-year. While that might all sound like a bunch of finance bro brouhaha, it’s also remarkable considering the very tumultuous three years the company—and Hollywood—has had.

Consider the company’s crackdown on password sharing. The long-planned killjoy campaign rolled out in the US and UK in May 2023. It came on the heels of a topsy-turvy time for streaming, when Netflix was facing increased competition from new streamers like Disney+ and HBO Max (now known as Max) and losing subscribers for the first time in a decade. The move to quash password-sharing—which basically shut out users who didn’t appear to live in the same household as the account holder—also landed shortly after the streamer pushed its much-hyped $7-per-month ad-supported tier.

For months it looked as though Netflix’s shifts in plans, pricing, and password enforcement were the moves of a company feeling the squeeze of additional competition and a loss of cool in the realm of public perception. As recently as this week, analysts were cutting the company’s stock price forecasts amid talk that users weren’t flocking to the new ad-supported tier. And yet, in a letter to investors Wednesday announcing the company’s quarterly earnings, Netflix noted that membership in its ad-supported plans is up nearly 70 percent quarter-over-quarter. The streaming giant also noted it has brought “paid sharing”—which allows users to share accounts for an additional fee—to every region where Netflix is available.

“The cancel reaction continues to be low, exceeding our expectations, and borrower households converting into full paying memberships are demonstrating healthy retention,” Netflix told shareholders. In other words, previous password-swappers aren’t quitting the service in disgust, and Netflix now has more than 247 million paying subscribers around the world.

Will all those subscribers stick around long-term, though? That’s an open question. In addition to its healthy increase in subscribers, Netflix also announced on Wednesday that it is raising prices again. Effective immediately, the company said, people in the US, UK, and France would see the cost of the streamer’s Basic plan jump from $9.99 per month to $11.99. The Premium plan, meanwhile, climbs from $19.99 to $22.99. (Prices for the $6.99 ad-supported tier and $15.49 Standard plan remain unchanged.) It’s been more than a year since Netflix last increased prices, but if the streamer continues to ask for more money while also limiting the number of people who can use each subscription, some subscribers may decide Netflix isn’t worth it.

Speaking of benefits: the Hollywood strikes. Even though the Writers Guild of America struck a deal with studios and script scribes are getting back to work, actors remain on strike, leaving many productions stalled. For now Netflix can coast on Suits, which has seen a weird surge in popularity on the platform in recent months, and Love Is Blind. But by choking the content pipeline, the actors’ strike could eventually leave the streamer with fewer offerings to lure or retain subscribers. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Netflix might raise prices after the actors strike ends. It’s possible that the increases announced Wednesday are the price hikes the Journal predicted, but if the cost of Netflix goes up again, the company will have to offer customers more to demonstrate it provides the same value.

To be fair, Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery have all recently raised their own streaming prices, so Netflix’s move is not out of step with the industry. Still, the more streamers jack up their prices, the fewer services, presumably, people will want to shell out for.

Netflix may be converting mooching nieces, nephews, and ex-lovers into paying subscribers for now. But as Karl Bode noted recently in Techdirt, it’s possible the company’s recent revenue boosts “could be due to a popular new show or organic growth, and not necessarily due to Netflix’s scolding of password-sharing accounts.” The gambit is working so far, but it may not work forever.

Insiders Say X’s Crowdsourced Anti-Disinformation Tool Is Making the Problem Worse

Insiders Say X’s Crowdsourced Anti-Disinformation Tool Is Making the Problem Worse

On Saturday, the official Israel account on X posted a picture of what looks like a child’s bedroom with blood covering the floor. “This could be your child’s bedroom. No words,” the post reads. There is no suggestion the picture is fake, and publicly there are no notes on the post. However, in the Community Notes backend, viewed by WIRED, multiple contributors are engaging in a conspiracy-fueled back-and-forth.

“Deoxygenated blood has a shade of dark red, therefore this is staged,” one contributor wrote. “Post with manipulative intent that tries to create an emotional reaction in the reader by relating words and pictures in a decontextualized way,” another writes.

“There is no evidence that this picture is staged. A Wikipedia article about blood is not evidence that this is staged,” another contributor writes.

“There is no evidence this photo is from the October 7th attacks,” another claims.

These types of exchanges raise questions about how X approves contributors for the program, but this, along with precisely what factors are considered before each note is approved, remains unknown. X’s Benarroch did not respond to questions about how contributors are chosen.

None of those approved for the system are given any training, according to all contributors WIRED spoke to, and the only limitation placed on the contributors initially is an inability to write new notes until they have rated a number of other notes first. One contributor claims this approval process can take fewer than six hours.

In order for notes to become attached to a post publicly, they need to be approved as “helpful” by a certain number of contributors, though how many is unclear. X describes “helpful” notes as ones that get “enough contributors from different perspectives.” Benarroch did not say how X evaluates a user’s political leanings. However, the system at least previously employed a technique known as bridge-based ranking to favor notes that receive positive interactions from users estimated to hold differing viewpoints. Still, how this works is not clear to at least some Community Notes contributors. 

“I don’t see any mechanism by which they can know what perspective people hold,” Anna, a UK-based former journalist whom X invited to become a Community Notes contributor, tells WIRED. “I really don’t see how that would work, to be honest, because new topics come up that one could not possibly have been rated on.” Anna asked only to be identified by her first name for fear of backlash from other X users.