Elden Ring Nightreign player channels their inner Sekiro to parry the co-op roguelite's final boss to death – completely solo – just 2 days after launch

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A FromSoftware fan has just completed a solo run of Elden Ring Nightreign using a build inspired by what seems to be their favorite game in the company's catalogue: Sekiro.
As spotted by our friends at PCGamer, YouTuber Ongbal uses the Executor class to take on the final boss of Nightreign. If you don't want to know what that is, this is your spoiler warning.
The Executor makes sense for a Sekiro fan because of its katana weapon and ability that allows it to parry strikes just like the cursed shinobi. It's wonderful watching them deflect blows easily.
Nightreign is a co-op game, designed to be played in trios, but you can still play solo if you don't want to queue with randoms. Bandai Namco's official tips recommend going in a group, so don't try this solo method unless you've got some serious skills.
When Ongbal takes on the final boss, Heolstor, it seems to have an almost Artorias vibe to it. It's hunched over with a large sword, and takes limp swings which Ongbal easily parries so that they can do stagger damage and get critical hits in.
Once that first health bar is taken down, Heolstor shows how powerful they truly are. They're faster, deal more area of effect damage, and require Ongbal to actually use their health flasks.
The sickest moment in the fight is when Heolstor is taken down to around half health and jumps in the air, slicing the very cosmos open and letting another reality bleed through. Ongbal is pressured, but they still manage to take the Nightlord down alone, armed with just their katana.
If you're unsure of whether or not to buy this game and try Ongbal's strategy for yourself, check out our Elden Ring Nightreign review.

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How to Fight Elden Ring Nightreign's Everdark Sovereign Bosses

Everything you've learned about Limveld over the weeks since Elden Ring Nightreign's launch has just been flipped on its head. Developer FromSoftware previously announced that enhanced versions of the game's bosses would feature in post-launch updates, but they were shadowdropped with little to no warning on Wednesday, with full details from publisher Bandai Namco. These Everdark Sovereigns have certainly been eating their Wheaties, because they're bigger, stronger and have wicked special moves that you'll have to learn if you want to stand a chance against this new threat. But if you can conquer the next iterations of the Nightlord, you'll earn a special currency that opens up an endgame shop filled with loot. Here's everything you need to know about the Everdark Sovereigns, ranging from what they are, how to take them on and what goodies you can earn if you're skilled enough to take one of these bad boys out. What are the Everdark Sovereigns? If you've put the beat down on Elden Ring Nightreign's roster of Nightlord aspects and come out the other side thinking they were too easy, the Everdark Sovereigns are designed with you in mind. These foes are enhanced "hard mode" versions of the regular expedition bosses, and they add new moves and mechanics to the already challenging night three fights. Everdark Sovereign fights begin with the boss's second phase before shifting into a new third phase, making them some of the deadliest enemies in Nightreign. Each Everdark Sovereign expedition is available for a week, after which a new fight will become available. The first Everdark Sovereign is Adel, the Gaping Jaw, and Everdark Sovereign versions of the Sentient Pest and Darkdrift Knight will rotate in and out over the coming weeks. Eventually, there'll be an Everdark Sovereign variant of every Nightlord aspect, though there's no word on if they'll be ready after the first three hard mode bosses have rotated into the game. Bandai Namco/Screenshot by CNET How can you embark on an expedition to fight one of Nightreign's new bosses? You don't have to jump through too many hoops to try to take on the Everdark Sovereigns, but they won't all be accessible at the same time. These bosses are time-gated and are in the game for one week each. So long as you've beaten the normal version of the currently available Everdark Sovereign, you'll be able to access the special expedition during this time. A new expedition outlined in purple will appear at the bottom of the list, and embarking on the current Everdark Sovereign expedition is as simple as choosing this option and proceeding normally. If you've beaten the easier, base game version of the current Everdark Sovereign and you don't see the special expedition in your list of available options, make sure you have a functioning internet connection. You can take the Everdark Sovereigns on in solo mode (if you're a masochist), but you'll need to remain online and connected to the Elden Ring Nightreign servers to access this new content. How can you beat these hard mode bosses? If you want to beat an Everdark Sovereign, you'll have to "get good." There are no two ways about it: These bosses are much harder than their base game counterparts. They start in their second phase, have new third phases and special moves that hit like a truck. With that being said, there are still ways you can even the odds after mastering the basics of Elden Ring Nightreign. Many of the skills that you should learn to challenge base game bosses still apply to Everdark Sovereign expeditions. It's more important than ever to set up a cohesive relic build that synergizes with your class's play style. Buying chalices from the Jar Bazaar and farming Murk to buy up some more relics will help you create the right build for your favorite Nightfarer. During your expeditions, you'll obviously want to pick up weapons and shields that provide you with passive stats that pair well with your Nightfarer, as well as your general play style with the character. You should also be running the most optimized rune-earning route possible to get as close to level 15 as you can by the time you enter the third night. Most importantly, you'll want to pick up weapons that have status effects that the bosses are weak to. If the enhanced version of Adel is anything to go by, Everdark Sovereigns will move quickly and have short windows of vulnerability. Pick up a weapon that exploits their weakness to break down their poise and extend the amount of time you can whack at the boss. High damage per second is a virtue. The quicker you can knock out a boss, the less time it has to defeat you and your friends. A war of attrition is an easy way to lose an expedition in Nightreign, so plan ahead before you ever face down the new Nightlord aspect. Bandai Namco/Screenshot by CNET What do you get for beating an Everdark Sovereign? In addition to the normal expedition rewards, you'll have a chance to earn new boss relics and a special currency called Sovereign Sigils. The boss relics are incredibly powerful alterations to popular play styles. The first Everdark Sovereign, the Gaping Jaw, drops the Dark Night of the Baron relic. This relic improves the damage of critical hits twice over and makes you generate runes upon landing one of those crushing blows. It seems as though Everdark Sovereign relics will be a powerful new way for Nightreign's min-maxers to advance their build in a game where you don't pick how your stats change past the character select screen. Beating your first Everdark Sovereign unlocks a new merchant in the Roundtable Hold. The Collector Signboard is located on the beachy area just outside of the Jar Bazaar. It can be found in the southwest corner of the hub. This is where you'll spend the currency you earn from beating the new bosses. Spending Sovereign Sigils is a great way to grow your power between runs. They're also the keys to unlocking quality-of-life features that many players have been clamoring for. Sovereign Sigils can be spent to unlock a suite of new chalices that unlock more relic rites for your Nightfarers, as well as an improved version of the Scenic Flatstone that guarantees you purple-rarity relics. Nightfarer garb can also be purchased with Sovereign Sigils, but it's the same wardrobe of skins purchasable with Murk, the other currency you earn from expeditions. This currency can also be spent to choose specific Shifting Earth events for your next run, restore the Roundtable Hold to its appearance from before the defeat of the final Nightlord and change the appearance of the relic earned at the end of the Guardian's remembrance questline. Beating one of the Everdark Sovereigns for the first time will reward you with 25 Sovereign Sigils, while subsequent runs will earn you just 5 of the coveted new currency. The most expensive items in the shop -- the skins that are worth 35,000 Murk -- cost 20 Sovereign Sigils, so the earn rate of this currency is fairly generous so long as you can consistently beat these bosses.

Yahoo

a day ago

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Hurricanes and sandstorms can be forecast 5,000 times faster thanks to new Microsoft AI model

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A new artificial intelligence (AI) model can predict major weather events faster and more accurately than some of the world's most widely used forecasting systems. The model, called Aurora, is trained on more than 1 million hours of global atmospheric data, including weather station readings, satellite images and radar measurements. Scientists at Microsoft say it's likely the largest dataset ever used to train a weather AI model. Aurora correctly forecast that Typhoon Doksuri would strike the northern Philippines four days before the storm made landfall in July 2023. At the time, official forecasts placed the storm's landfall over Taiwan — several hundred miles away. It also outperformed standard forecasting tools used by agencies, including the U.S. National Hurricane Center and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. It delivered more accurate five-day storm tracks and produced high-resolution forecasts up to 5,000 times faster than conventional weather models powered by supercomputers. More broadly, Aurora beat existing systems in predicting weather conditions over a 14-day period in 91% of cases, the scientists said. They published their findings May 21 in the journal Nature. Researchers hope Aurora and models like it could support a new approach to predicting environmental conditions called Earth system forecasting, where a single AI model simulates weather, air quality and ocean conditions together. This could help produce faster and more consistent forecasts, especially in places that lack access to high-end computing or comprehensive monitoring infrastructure. Related: Google builds an AI model that can predict future weather catastrophes Aurora belongs to a class of large-scale AI systems known as foundation models — the same category of AI models that power tools like ChatGPT. Foundation models can be adapted to different tasks because they're designed to learn general patterns and relationships from large volumes of training data, rather than being built for a single, fixed task. In Aurora's case, the model learns to generate forecasts in a matter of seconds by analyzing weather patterns from sources like satellites, radar and weather stations, as well as simulated forecasts, the researchers said. The model can then be fine-tuned for a wide range of scenarios with relatively little extra data — unlike traditional forecasting models, which are typically built for narrow, task-specific purposes and often need retraining to adapt. The diverse dataset Aurora is trained on not only results in greater accuracy in general versus conventional methods, but also means the model is better at forecasting extreme events, researchers said. Related stories —Google's DeepMind AI can make better weather forecasts than supercomputers —Is climate change making the weather worse? —What is the Turing test? How the rise of generative AI may have broken the famous imitation game In one example, Aurora successfully predicted a major sandstorm in Iraq in 2022, despite having limited air quality data. It also outperformed wave simulation models at forecasting ocean swell height and direction in 86% of tests, showing it could extract useful patterns from complex data even when specific inputs were missing or incomplete. "It's got the potential to have [a] huge impact because people can really fine tune it to whatever task is relevant to them … particularly in countries which are underserved by other weather forecasting capabilities," study co-author Megan Stanley, a senior researcher at Microsoft, said in a statement. Microsoft has made Aurora's code and training data publicly available for research and experimentation. The model has been integrated into services like MSN Weather, which itself is integrated into tools like the Windows Weather app and Microsoft's Bing search results.

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Satellites are polluting Earth's atmosphere with heavy metals. Could refueling them in orbit help?

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The world at large is working to stop the fast-progressing degradation of Earth's environment. In the space sector, however, one-use-only products still reign supreme. The advent of megaconstellations has, in fact, accelerated the rate at which the space industry burns through resources, shifting from big satellites with decades-long lifespans to cheaper birds designed to expire within a few short years. The disposable approach worries some researchers, as too much aluminum is burning up in the atmosphere these days, threatening to cause a new kind of environmental disaster in the decades to come. But what can we do? Should we roll back the space revolution and put a cap on what we can do in space? Or could a circular economy, life extension, recycling and reuse be the solution to the space industry's dirty side effects? Proponents of in-orbit servicing and refueling laud the technology's potential. But most analysts remain cautious: Without strict environmental regulations, the expected cost of in-orbit servicing may not entice satellite operators to switch to reusable technology en masse. Dave Barnhart, chief executive officer of the California-based aerospace company Arkisys, first began developing concepts of recyclable satellite technology some 15 years ago as part of a project he oversaw at DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). He and his colleagues investigated how to set up a satellite recycling facility in geostationary orbit — the region about 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above Earth's surface where satellites appear fixed above one spot above the equator. "We wanted to know whether we can use parts from old geo satellites to recreate new ones, because the mass is already there," Barnhart told The geostationary ring is home to some of the largest and most expensive satellites. On top of that, the long distance between Earth and this orbit makes geo missions inherently costly, as they require the most powerful rockets with a lot of fuel to reach their destination. Yet, Arkisys, the company Barnhart cofounded in 2015, is focusing on low Earth orbit (LEO) — the buzzing region closest to Earth up to altitudes of about 1,200 miles (2,000 km). Arkisyshopes to set up an in-orbit servicing and refueling depot called the Port in LEO. The main goal is to spearhead a green revolution in this region, which gives rise to thousands of tons of dangerous space debris every year. "To date, everything we have ever designed to go into space has been one mission, one life," Barnhart told "It's sort of crazy. Every other domain on Earth, we maintain, we sustain, we grow. Not in space." In 2023, Arkisys secured a $1.6 million deal from the U.S. Space Force to test satellite assembly in orbit using the Port demo module — a basic building block of a scalable orbiting garage and gas station. The company wants to launch the first component of this orbital depot next year — a last-mile transportation device called the Cutter, which is designed to help satellites to dock with the garage. In 2027, the main Port module, a hexagonal structure about 9 feet (3 meters) wide, will join the Cutter in orbit to test how the mechanical interfaces of the two work together in space. The Port, in addition to serving as a fuel depot, will arrive with a supply of components and payloads that could be attached to worn-out satellites to give them a new lease on life. "Today, everything on a satellite is done on the ground, and the satellite is launched with an end date," Barnhart said. "We want to shift that to allow extensions of both — life and business — post-launch. We want to be able to add new revenue streams post-launch. You can do that if you can add something, change something in orbit, or even sell that satellite to somebody else who could make it part of a larger platform." Cameras or antennas could be replaced with more powerful ones once those get developed, worn-out batteries could be swapped for brand-new ones, and fuel tanks would get refilled. It all makes sense on paper, but Dafni Christodoulopoulou, space industry analyst at the consultancy company Analysis Mason, warns that whether satellite operators would be inclined to ditch their disposable ways will come down to the cost of the in-orbit maintenance services. LEO is currently dominated by small, relatively cheap satellites, she says, which can be replaced more cheaply than they can be serviced and maintained. "Right now, we expect in-orbit services to come at a cost that might be quite high for operators of small satellites," Christodoulopoulou told "The operators might not be interested in those services, because the price of building a new satellite might not be higher than that of a servicing mission." Barnhart agrees that the fledgling in-orbit servicing industry is likely to face resistance not just from operators but also from satellite manufacturers, who might feel threatened by the idea of reusability and life extension. "Every time you want to make a big shift like this, it's going to be a threat," Barnhart said. "Satellite manufacturers make money by building more satellites to throw away. It might take some time for them to see that by fitting satellites with interfaces that allow them to be serviced, they could actually add some cool functionality to them after launch." Related stories: — Kessler Syndrome and the space debris problem — Pollution from rocket launches and burning satellites could cause the next environmental emergency — 2 private satellites undock after pioneering life-extension mission Still, Christodoulopoulou thinks that in-orbit servicing will eventually make a difference to how things are done in space, and also to the state of the orbital environment. "The number of satellite launches is not expected to go down, so there will be a high need for constellation management, flexibility, disposal and life extension," she said. "I think in-orbit services can definitely help prevent the buildup of space debris and maintain long-term sustainability in orbit." The U.S. government certainly appears to think that life extension is the way forward. In addition to funding the Arkisys experiment, the Space Force also funds the Tetra-5 and Tetra-6 missions to test in-orbit refueling technologies in space. The two missions, designed to test hardware developed by Orbit Fab, Astroscale and Northrop Grumman, are set to launch in 2026 and 2027, respectively. In addition, intensifying geopolitical tensions are increasing the need for quick deployment of new systems in space, which, Barnhart says, could be more speedily addressed with servicing systems such as the Port, than by building new spacecraft from scratch on Earth. "If there is a new threat that has been identified, you might need a new type of sensor or a new payload to observe it," Barnhart said. "If we can augment the satellites that the government has already put up and provide them with a new capability, a new sensor, we can address those threats much faster." Christodoulopoulou thinks that new regulations designed to protect the environment and curb the air pollution related to satellite reentries could further help move the needle toward a less throwaway culture in space utilization. "There need to be a few changes," Christodoulopoulou said. "There needs to be more awareness among satellite operators to understand that in-orbit servicing offers a value in the long term. But also on the government side, there need to be more regulations to support the in-orbit servicing providers."