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It's nice to be reporting some good news about Sonos: if the early user opinions of the new Sonos Arc Ultra soundbar are representative, it looks like the firm has a hit on its hands.

A number of customers have had their Ultras delivered early, and naturally they've turned to the Sonos subreddit and to YouTube to share their initial impressions.

As ever with early adopters, when people have spent a lot of their own money on a product they're going to be approaching it from a position of excitement rather than hard-bitten cynicism, and it's worth bearing that in mind when you read or watch their reviews. But that doesn't mean what they're saying isn't worth considering – and what they're saying so far is very positive.

What are Sonos customers saying about the Sonos Arc Ultra?

Let's start on Reddit, where r/sonos is often home to some of the most passionate Sonos customers as well as some of its most disappointed app users. According to redditor AJ989, who says they got their Ultra delivered from a European retailer on Tuesday, their experience with the setup process was that everything was straightforward and smooth. Responding to a post about Ultras apparently being software-locked until 28 October they say that they didn't encounter any such issues: "from the first day I could use it and set it up in the app." It's "100% working (and sounding awesome)."

The most detailed post so far to the Sonos subreddit is by AnotherGK, who compares the new Ultra with the previous Arc. "I couldn't believe how different they sounded. The first thing I noticed is the extreme wide soundstage for a soundbar... I hoped that the Ultra [would] be better than the Arc but it is significantly better in every regard."

The feature we think most people will be curious about is the Sound Motion, which promises to deliver a bigger built-in bass experience. According to AnotherGK, "The sound isn’t filling the room anymore it seems more like the sound is the room. You can’t tell from where the sound is coming from because it is so well balanced between the front and the back."

Over on YouTube, two European customers have shared multiple videos of the Ultra in action.

Lifestyle18 has uploaded three sound tests with the soundbar by itself: one testing out the Sound Motion and then two more for music and movies. "The sound motion does move the air!" they say, adding that it's "too bad that the Atmos effects don't come through on YouTube because they are great". For music the sound is "pretty similar" to the Arc but has "better bass"; dialog is "definitely better" on the Ultra.

Roel Willemsen has also uploaded multiple demonstrations, including one comparing the Arc and Ultra for music. Of course YouTube isn't the ideal listening comparison when you're listening to someone else's room but even with that limitation the Ultra does appear to sound more spacious. "More bass, the treble is nicer. I like it," Roel says. And for movies, "The voices were lacking but now they're pronounced. They're here... I do think it's an upgrade. I do think the Arc Ultra is better."

TechRadar is due to receive a Sonos Arc Ultra review unit this week, and we'll compare it against the older Arc and against a flagship Samsung soundbar to see how it should rank among the best soundbars available today.

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The desktop computer has been upgraded with the latest M4 chip and USB-C accessories.

After plenty of leaks and speculation, Apple has officially announced the latest iMac, equipped with both the M4 chip and Apple Intelligence - the first Mac device featuring the AI-based technology.

According to Apple, the M4 iMac is "1.7x faster for daily productivity, and up to 2.1x faster for demanding workflows like photo editing and gaming," compared to the M1 iMac. Its 24-inch 4.5K Retina display has a new nano-texture glass option, and it's also outfitted with a new 12MP Center Stage camera with Desk View, and up to four Thunderbolt 4 ports. It comes standard with 16GB of unified memory and is configurable up to 32GB.

Pricing for the new M4 iMac starts at $1,299 / £1,299 / AU$1,999, a markdown from the M3 iMac, which started at $1,399 / £1,399 / AU$2,199.

You can get up to 24GB memory and 1TB storage with the 8-core M4 chip, along with Gigabit ethernet, for $1,929 / £1,929 / AU$2,939. There's also a 10-core CPU/10-core GPU option (which includes Gigabit internet) starting at $1,499 / £1,499 / AU$2,399, and if you upgrade to 32GB memory and 2TB storage, you'll pay $2,699 / £2,699 / AU$4,199.

The new M4 iMac will launch on November 8, 2024.

This article is breaking news and will be updated with new information as it is released.

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Today every click, transaction, and digital interaction opens a new door for cyber criminals. Companies are increasingly digitizing their operations, which means a significant expansion of their attack surfaces. One example is the surge in vulnerabilities, with 26,447 disclosed last year alone.

As the total number of common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) is projected to rise by 25% in 2024, security teams will find themselves in constant firefighting mode, struggling to manage an overwhelming volume of tickets. But can they realistically keep up with this increase? The constant scrambling to address urgent issues makes it near impossible to prioritize their responses effectively.

With studies indicating that organizations can only remediate between 5% to 20% of vulnerabilities per month. the businesses need an aggregated and contextualized view across all of their security controls to prioritize vulnerabilities. Yet gaining this view is a data science challenge that many security teams are unable to solve.

Barriers to effective vulnerability prioritization

To gain a deeper understanding of their risk management programs, many businesses have adopted standard frameworks like CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) and EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System). This approach allows security teams to rank vulnerabilities based on their potential impact and the likelihood of being exploited. But while the principle of prioritization for security teams might seem straightforward, there are several factors that complicate it.

With IT environments constantly evolving, new vulnerabilities pop up all the time and sometimes slip through without being appropriately prioritized. IT is becoming more democratized and spread out, and different departments often roll out their own IT assets without fully understanding the associated security responsibilities – which can let in dangerous “unknown unknowns” through a backdoor. The same is true of the rapidly evolving threat landscape, with emerging attack techniques continually “moving the goalposts”.

On top of this, the cybersecurity skills gap also grew by 12.6% last year, with 4 million additional workers needed to fill the void. This leaves teams stretched thin trying to handle the flood of new vulnerabilities every day. In fact, today 46% of security teams’ time is spent on collecting and reporting security data. That's why it's so important to focus on fixing the high-risk vulnerabilities first, making sure teams use our resources where they count the most.

Critical context considerations

To improve vulnerability prioritization, it's important to aggregate views across multiple controls with business context. This helps with better prioritization, accountability, and teamwork. Businesses should keep in mind:

• Holistic security context: Vulnerabilities should not be viewed in isolation. By incorporating a broader security context from across the business, security teams can better prioritize their actions. For example, if a vulnerability exists, the next step might not be to apply a patch but to add the server to the System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). Vulnerabilities also include configuration issues – like default passwords and weak certificates. With a comprehensive view of a business’s security controls, these issues can be detected automatically, allowing the root cause to be addressed and prevent the same problem happening again.

• Integrated security tools: Each security tool provides a piece of the overall security posture, helping get a view of compound risks and high-risk combinations. Yet not all tools are deployed ubiquitously, so they only tell their side of the story. Only by tapping into data from every security tool, can this single source of truth give all stakeholders a clear view of the data journey and ensure it's reliable. For example, prioritization might differ if the vulnerability is on a server with admin privileges not in the vault, particularly if several users with those local admin privileges were missing EDR – and failed every phishing test.

• Contextualizing big problems: Understanding the broader context helps break down large problems. First, security teams need to assess the criticality of the vulnerability, whether it’s patchable, and if it’s being exploited (for example using CISA’s Known Exploitable Vulnerabilities catalog). Second, they should prioritize based on business and technical context - whether it affects high-value data or an important business service, and whether it’s internally or externally facing. For instance, if a cleaner's phone is compromised, it may not significantly impact daily operations. But, if a CEO’s computer is breached, it could lead to a major security incident.

• Clear accountability: Establishing clear paths to accountability is key. Often responsibility for applying controls and fixes lies outside of security – having the ability to assign specific tasks to individuals helps to reinforce the need for collective action. This involves assigning clear ownership and defined roles for all business infrastructure and applications. To drive accountability, businesses need regularly updated asset inventories, control mechanisms, and a comprehensive security knowledge base. This single source of truth provides a real-time snapshot of security policy adherence, highlighting strengths and areas needing attention.

• Changing regulatory questions: There is a shift in the questions asked by internal audits and external regulators, moving towards ensuring comprehensive asset scanning and demonstrable vulnerability patching. Questions like “How do you know every asset is being scanned?” and “How can you demonstrate vulnerabilities have been patched?” are becoming more common. Failure to meet regulations such as GDPR or SEC rulings can lead to significant fines, enforcement actions, and criminal charges – so data governance and risk assessment is key.

How to master vulnerability prioritization

To effectively prioritize remediation efforts, organizations need a comprehensive view that combines multiple controls with their business context. This big-picture perspective on the organization's security helps teams spot coverage gaps and allocate resources more strategically.

By using this integrated approach, organizations can streamline their vulnerability prioritization, making sure resources go to where they're needed most. It also improves accountability and boosts teamwork within security teams since everyone operates from a shared understanding. This not only strengthens overall security but also ensures that security efforts align with business goals.

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Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG), alongside Mandiant, has released findings on what it suspects is a Russian espionage and influence campaign designed to demotivate Ukrainian soldiers and infect devices with malware.

The group has been labeled UNC5812, and established themselves as an anti-conscription group called ‘Civil Defense’ that offered apps and software to allow would-be conscripts to view real-time locations of Ukrainian military recruiters.

However, the applications would instead deliver malware alongside a decoy mapping application tracked by Google TAG and Mandiant as SUNSPINNER.

Civil Defense influence campaign

“The ultimate aim of the campaign is to have victims navigate to the UNC5812-controlled “Civil Defense” website, which advertises several different software programs for different operating systems. When installed, these programs result in the download of various commodity malware families,” the Google Threat Intelligence blog stated.

The Civil Defense website was established as early as April 2024, however the Telegram account which granted a high through-put of users to the website was only set up in September 2024.

It is understood the group paid for sponsored posts in popular Telegram groups, one of which was used to deliver missile alerts to its 80,000 subscribers.

When users were directed to the website, they were faced with a choice of files aimed at different operating systems that the victims expected to be some form of mapping software for real time updates on the location of Ukrainian military recruiters. Users would instead find their device infected with SUNSPINNER malware and infostealers.

The website also offered justification for the applications not being available through the App Store, stating that by downloading the application through the website, Civil Defense would “protect the anonymity and security” of its users from the App Store. The website also contained video instructions on how to install the applications, and how to disable Google Play Protect.

The Civil Defense telegram page also requested user video submissions of “unfair actions from territorial recruitment centers,” which Civil Defense would post to enhance its anti-conscription messaging and potentially drive more people to download the military recruitment monitoring app.

The SUNSPINNER app consists of a decoy GUI that shows a mapping tool with crowdsourced marker locations for Ukrainian recruiters. While the marker locations look to be legitimate, Google TAG and Mandiant found that the markers were all added by a single person on the same day.

The malware and influence campaign is said to still be underway, with a sponsored post for the group appearing in a Ukrainian news channel as recently as October 8.

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This change comes at a cost.

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After a couple of years of high excitement around the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to drive results for business, many leaders are now highly impatient to deploy the technology and have great expectations for what AI can deliver. Tech leaders are hopeful that AI can deliver everything from streamlined operations to game-changing improvements in the way the whole organization does business, and planned AI spending is rising 61% this year, according to new research. Business leaders need to maintain a firm grip on reality, and temper their AI enthusiasm with a grounded view of what the business really needs AI to deliver. In the past two years, many companies have invested in AI only to find that their proof-of-concepts have not delivered results. Getting the right results from AI investment requires careful thought beforehand, combined with precise attention to detail during the project itself.

The past two years have seen an unprecedented amount of technology hype around the potential of generative AI, so it’s all too easy to understand how a business leader could be tempted to ask their IT teams why they are not using generative AI right this second. The problem is that in those businesses, neither the leaders who are swept away in a wave of AI enthusiasm, nor their IT teams, really know how AI can deliver a business advantage. Before rolling out AI, leaders need to be certain that they are doing so for the right reasons (and not just using it because their competitors are).

The gap between exciting technology built in the laboratory and the day-to-day reality of business applications is very large, and it’s crucial not to fall into the trap of becoming over-excited about technology that has yet to cross that gap. Taking a short-sighted view and moving forward too early is how AI investments end up wasted.

Building the foundations

Even the very best technology is just a science experiment if it cannot be adopted and used in the real world. The single biggest reason AI ‘doesn’t work’ for businesses is that people try to ‘do AI’ rather than identifying where problems or inefficiencies exist. To find such problems, business leaders should first talk to partners, and listen to consumers and front-line employees. Does the business lack staff to talk to customers? Does the business need to find a way to cut fuel emissions? Beyond the hype, the real excitement of this technology comes not from thinking about AI as a standalone solution, but by adding AI into the solution to a real business problem.

What you need for success

All too often, the approach to AI is to have a specific ‘AI team’, rather than applying the technology across the whole business. This siloed approach is a key mistake. AI must be integrated with a holistic approach, and a view to scaling it across every part of the business. Business leaders must connect multiple teams together to initially implement the technology, and avoid cutting corners to ensure seamless integration. Business leaders need to design an effective proof-of-concept solution that includes AI appropriately in order to mitigate a business problem, and then scale it accordingly. For example, a generative AI chatbot that can answer niche questions could be made available to a small subset of customers initially, but rolled out to larger groups thereafter. Internal communication is also key as the business benefits of the proof-of-concept must be effectively communicated within the organization, as AI projects often fail to be exciting to leadership until they grow to a certain size.

Is generative AI right for you?

Even experts who have worked in the field for many years were caught by surprise at how the launch of ChatGPT made the pinnacle of AI technology so easy to adopt. This, in turn, made it easy for business leaders to imagine that generative AI should be adopted universally. But they should pause to think about whether such technology is the right choice, or if other forms of AI might do the job better.

The enthusiasm around generative AI has meant that it’s sometimes used in areas which don’t play to its natural strengths. Generative AI is great for conversational user interfaces such as chatbots, knowledge discovery and content generation. It’s also highly useful in segmentation and intelligent automation and anomaly detection. For example, one leading UK Industrial AI & IoT technology company used machine learning and computer vision AI technologies to enable its composite manufacturing process to be smoother and greatly reduce anomalies. This demonstrates how AI is already improving manufacturing quality control through various systems that accurately detect defects.

The companies getting the most from AI

Artificial intelligence is already helping organizations to solve real problems in sectors such as retail and manufacturing. AI helps to streamline and speed up processes, eliminating the amount of time spent by employees on mundane tasks. In both retail and manufacturing, computer vision is emerging as an interesting and successful use of AI, linking the physical and digital worlds, and helping to spot defects on production lines and offering valuable insight in retail settings.

Computer vision also has an important role in allowing retailers to draw important insights from cameras in retail stores, far beyond simply dealing with theft or similar incidents. One current system is able to offer insights into important trends around what customers are looking at and buying, and to validate the success of promotions. The system can identify everything from misplaced products to how retail media (advertising) within the store is performing in terms of views.

In manufacturing, computer vision helps make factories and laboratories more efficient and also safer for employees. For example, computer vision is already helping to conduct quality control checks on products, ensuring they are not missing any components, and monitors the number of products coming off a production line in any time period, also scanning for defects. But even more importantly, new computer vision systems are helping to make factories safer, scanning for smoke and fire, while also detecting accident-prone machinery.

A sensible approach

With excitement swirling around AI and generative AI in particular, business leaders need to ensure their feet are firmly planted on the ground, and take a sensible approach to the technology. This means focusing on real, tangible problems within the business, and working out how AI can deal with those problems. It’s also key to ensure that AI projects are ‘woven into’ the business effectively: not only should AI integration be closely linked to real-life problems, but the AI project should also be something that as many employees as possible can be ‘hands on’ with. This sort of holistic, integrated approach is the way to ensure AI projects do not fail in their early stages, and a foundation stone to using AI to gain a true competitive advantage.

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This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here [link to https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

It's finally here! Apple Intelligence has arrived as part of iOS 18.1. The new update for iPhone brings the first wave of Apple's AI features to your device and can be installed right now.

This update includes the first set of Apple Intelligence features, such as Writing Tools for proofreading and rewriting, Smart Replies to reply to messages quickly, Notification Summaries, Cleaning Photos, and a redesign of Siri. You'll also get these experiences on an iPad or Mac courtesy of iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1, which also began rolling out today.

Other Apple Intelligence features, like Genmoji, Image Playground, and ChatGPT-integration for Siri will arrive in iOS 18.2 later this year. For owners of the best iPhone, the iPhone 16, Visual Intelligence using the device's Camera Control will also be made available as part of iOS 18.2.

We've been talking about Apple Intelligence for months, so it's incredibly exciting to finally be able to install the official release of iOS 18.1 and get started with everything Apple's AI-powered tools have to offer. If you'd like to know more about Apple Intelligence and its features, check out this list of Apple Intelligence features.

Unfortunately, to use Apple Intelligence on the iPhone, you need an iPhone 15 Pro, 15 Pro Max, 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, or 16 Pro Max. That said, iOS 18.1 offers a range of other updates outside of AI. On a Mac, you'll need an M-Series chip and on the iPad you'll need either the A17 Pro, M1, M2, or M4 chips to get Apple Intelligence.

This launch is for Apple Intelligence in US English, if you want to try Apple Intelligence but don't live in the United States, here's how to get Apple Intelligence in the UK and other countries.

• How to get Apple Intelligence

A new era

Siri's redesign on an iPhone 16 Pro Max (Image credit: Future / Apple )

iOS 18.1 also introduces a range of upgrades for AirPods owners, including an FDA-approved over-the-counter hearing aid feature for those with mild to moderate hearing loss.

iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro owners will also be able to change the camera that Camera Control launches, with a new option to switch quickly to the front TrueDepth Camera. You'll also find new Control Center options in the newly redesigned Control Center found in iOS 18.

iOS 18.1 also fixes many bugs and brings stability improvements to all iOS 18-compatible iPhones. That said, Apple Intelligence is really the star of the show here, and with the latest update, Apple looks to be prioritizing iPhone 15 Pro owners and newer.

Want to know more about our thoughts? Check out our iOS 18.1 Apple Intelligence hands-on to get a rundown of every AI feature you can use in the new update. If you're looking for a new Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhone, check out our iPhone 16 review.

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Apple Intelligence for the Mac is here via macOS 15.1. Here’s how to install it, get new features, and figure out whether your current Mac will support the latest capabilities.

Apple's artificial features are finally rolling out today, but you might find yourself saying, ‘Is that it?’

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Review info

Platform reviewed: PS5
Available on: PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
Release date: October 31, 2024

Dragon Age: The Veilguard offers a flawed yet engrossing story-driven action role-playing game (RPG) experience. Uplifted by a compelling cast of supporting characters, an impressively dynamic combat system, and gorgeous environments, Veilguard never quite escapes the long shadow of its predecessors. This makes for a memorable third-person fantasy adventure which, while likely to appeal to long-time fans of the series, may bamboozle newcomers with its onslaught of proper nouns and specialist terms.

It’s been nearly a decade since the RPG veterans at BioWare released Dragon Age: Inquisition, the predecessor to Veilguard. Despite this gap, Veilguard builds directly and insistently upon plotlines and themes developed in Inquisition, to the extent that the 2014 RPG often feels like required reading for this latest release.

This issue is baked into the RPG’s core premise. You play as ‘Rook’, a troubleshooter employed by Varric, a sassy and lovable bard from Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition who is putting together a team to stop the ancient elven mage Solas (another Inquisition character) from ending the world in a catastrophic ritual.

(Image credit: EA/BioWare)

After an exciting twist, you’ll put together a team of talented misfits while squatting in Solas’ magical interdimensional summerhouse, using a network of portals to zip across the world to put out fires, make friends, and try to prevent an impending apocalypse. These trips involve journeys to gorgeous, explorable environments where you’ll traverse beautiful vistas, battle bad guys, and solve problems. Sometimes you’ll make tough ethical decisions along the way which affect the main story, too, though such opportunities are more scarce than would be ideal.

As pitches for a grand adventure go, it’s strong, if a little by the numbers. However, if you don’t know who Varric or Solas are or why the world of Thedas is in this mess, you may find yourself adrift. Contrary to the likes of Baldur’s Gate 3 and Metaphor: ReFantazio which stand alone, Veilguard exists under the long shadow of its predecessors, building on existing themes and plotlines while rarely establishing new threads. Though there is an in-game repository of information (known as the ‘codex’), the vast reams of text on offer can often feel off-putting rather than inviting.

For long-time series fans, this is a feature, rather than a bug. Seeing answers and resolutions to long-time mysteries (some of which date back to the original Dragon Age: Origins in 2009) makes for some powerful and rewarding catharsis. However, regardless of its impressive combat and strong writing, Veilguard is defined by its past. While the RPG never outright collapses under the weight of its predecessors, it certainly buckles and bends with regularity.

Fight club

(Image credit: EA/BioWare)

Veilguard’s combat system is a courageous offering, combining engaging, kinetic action with occasional moments of thoughtful strategy. As you battle, you’ll use a real-time combination of attacks, dodges, parries, and special skills to win victory. Much like BioWare’s sci-fi series Mass Effect, combat exists in real-time but may be paused at the touch of a button, allowing you to direct your comrades or select some of your more powerful, cooldown-based abilities. These abilities vary wildly depending on your build. As a Rogue, I had access to special bombs, daring shooting techniques, and devastating sword attacks, all of which could be refined and tweaked as I leveled up.

Abilities can be strung together in combos, where certain actions ‘detonate’ corresponding status ailments (such as ongoing damage over time or a flat damage reduction), creating a satisfying magical explosion. What’s more, given that these abilities work on a cooldown, you often have to choose between damaging combos and necessary combat utility. Is it better to heal or to unleash a maelstrom of deadly necrotic magic? Do I have my ally taunt my opponents, or should I order them to make me temporarily invulnerable with an inspiring shout? Questions like this keep Veilguard’s combat engaging hundreds of battles into the campaign.

(Image credit: EA/BioWare)

All of this is punctuated by a slick system of parries and dodges, allowing you to rapidly react to enemy attacks. Parry at the right time, and you’ll perform a ‘perfect parry’, sometimes stunning your opponent and, depending on your build, offering you significant buffs to damage. This adds an ebb and flow to battles, rewarding you for attentive play. However, those looking for a more laid-back experience can easily customize Veilguard’s combat difficulty to suit their needs, tweaking granular elements from parry windows to enemy health.

This sort of customisability is at the forefront of Veilguard. Not only is the character creation process detailed enough to give Starfield and Cyberpunk 2077 a run for their money with its wide range of body types and permutations, but you also have access to a massive advancement tree which varies depending on your class. This tree contains dozens of nodes, each unlocking novelties ranging from significant passive buffs to brand-new abilities. Each of the game’s three core classes (Warrior, Rogue, and Mage) boasts a completely different tree and, thanks to the meaningful choices on offer, I always found myself looking forward to my next level up.

Bonding moments

(Image credit: EA/BioWare)

BioWare RPGs tend to live and die on the strength of their supporting cast, and Veilguard is no exception. While I shall do my best to avoid spoilers, rest assured that the cast of supporting characters in Veilguard is diverse and relatable.

Each companion’s personal storyline is a coherent multi-part adventure, composed of dramatic set-piece battles, gripping dialogue, and gentle walk-and-talk scenes framed against Veilguard’s jaw-dropping environments. Having a gut-wrenching discussion about family trauma is one thing, but doing so on a sprawling, torchlit coastline at dusk elevates the scene to new heights. Though these scenes are occasionally undermined by slightly janky facial animations, such flaws rarely detract from the meaningful exchanges on the screen.

Best Bit

(Image credit: EA/BioWare)

Getting to know Taash, a brusque dragon hunter, was a particular highlight. Without spoiling too much, Taash’s story is intimate and relatable, addressing themes of family, identity, and personal growth in a moving and refreshing way. It’s arguably one of the strongest personal storylines in a Bioware game to date.

Veilguard draws each of its companions from a different faction and, by extension, a different region of the setting. This ensures that their differences in opinion seem organic rather than forced. It follows that an upstanding and knightly Grey Warden would be skeptical of a dubious assassin from the cutthroat, Venice-inspired nation of Antiva.

Unfortunately, not every aspect of Veilguard’s storytelling is as consistent or impressive as these character-driven vignettes. The RPG’s explorable environments boast plenty of side quests, but almost all of them are forgettable and leave little scope for decision points and player agency. In one particularly disappointing showing, you meet a fan-favorite character from Dragon Age 2, only for her to have you fight a series of repetitive arena battles as she offers repeated, canned dialogue after each of your victories. While Veilguard rarely stumbles to this extent, the side-quests often feel rushed and do little to broaden the fantasy.

Despite its high barrier to entry, the main story does demonstrate opportunities to make meaningful decisions as a player character. One particularly gut-wrenching decision forced me to choose between two missions offered by different companions. There was only time for one, and, no matter what I did, somebody was bound to lose out. When I made my decision, the venomous disappointment of the offended party felt compelling and realized.

It’s these moments that cement Veilguard’s place in the Dragon Age canon. While flawed, janky, and rushed in places, BioWare’s latest delivers a coherent and rewarding adventure that will delight fans of the series. However, those newer to Dragon Age will need to hit the books if they want to enjoy everything Veilguard has to offer.

Should you play Dragon Age: The Veilguard? Play it if...

You’re a Dragon Age fan
For fans of the Dragon Age setting, Veilguard is an absolute treat. If you’ve been yearning to return to Thedas, you’ve come to the right place. The campaign is a whistle-stop tour of yet-unexplored locales - a wish come true for long-time fans.

You love ensemble casts
Veilguard treats its supporting characters with love and attention. Invest time and effort into this RPG’s ensemble and you’ll be rewarded with resonant, relatable, and memorable character drama.

You enjoy character customization
The character creation systems in Veilguard are as comprehensive as they come. In addition to extensive face and body customization which includes a wide range of gender presentations, you can also choose from six meaningful backstories which affect dialogue in the game proper.

Don't play it if...

You're concerned about having to learn a whole new fantasy setting
While it’s entirely possible to enjoy Veilguard as a newcomer, complex in-setting terms and weighty pre-existing plotlines come at you thick and fast. If you’re new, make sure you’ve got a wiki open in another tab or you’re liable to have a confusing time. If you’re looking for a fantasy epic with less of a buy-in, we recommend Baldur’s Gate 3.

You’re looking for a full-on open-world experience
Veilguard frames its main campaign and companion missions amidst a range of gorgeous and varied environments. While there are places to explore and things to collect, the side-quests are far thinner than would be ideal. Those looking for an open-world RPG will be better served by Elden Ring or Diablo 4.

Accessibility

Dragon Age: The Veilguard offers a broad range of accessibility options. The game offers filters for colorblind players with Protanopia, Deuteranopia, and Tritanopia. Subtitle size and frequency can also be customized. Visual effects such as motion blur, camera shake, and depth of field can also be adjusted.

Combat and exploration are highly customizable. Difficulty in battle can be tailored to remove requirements for quick and precise input timing while the glint distance on objects can be adjusted along with objective marker and waypoint visibility. There are also sliders for the camera and aiming sensitivity.

(Image credit: EA/BioWare) How I reviewed Dragon Age: The Veilguard

I spent over 35 hours with Dragon Age: The Veilguard, taking time to explore the central campaign, companion storylines, and numerous side-quests. I took the time to experiment with all three classes as well as a wide range of different builds. I also replayed certain set pieces throughout the game to test the extent to which making different choices would affect the story.

I played the game on PS5 on a 48-inch LG C2 OLED 4K TV with a Dualsense Wireless Controller. The game mostly ran smoothly, but I did occasionally notice input lag when in menus. That said, the lag was rarely sufficient to meaningfully detract from the experience.

First reviewed October 2024

These tips will benefit anyone tackling this massive RPG.

Keeping track of all your activity on Microsoft Teams should soon be much more straightforward thanks to a new update.

The video conferencing platform has announced a change that will bring all your chats, teams and channels into one location in the Chat menu.

Microsoft says the Teams update should make online collaboration much more efficient and effective, helping users stay on top of all the notifications that really matter.

Microsoft Teams channels upgrade

"The pace of work has increased exponentially, making it more challenging to keep up with the high volume of conversations, manage messages scattered across different locations, and find information," Microsoft wrote in a blog post announcing the change.

"We’ve redesigned the chat and channels experience to simplify your digital workspace by bringing chats, teams, and channels into one place under Chat."

As well as the new central hub for activity, Microsoft Teams is also getting a new @mentions view to help users get up to speed on direct messages in once place.

The tool will also offer new filters to help users focus on what’s important now, new controls to choose your personal workflow and preferred information consumption style, and more. Users will also get a range of new controls for greater visibility and personalization, meaning they can view chat and channels separately, see message previews, or display all channels in a single list.

Users will also be able to create custom sections, bringing together chats, channels, and meetings on a specific area, such as a specific work project or topic. There will also be a new favorites section, bringing together pinned chats and channels in one place.

The new approach will be coming to desktop, mobile, Android and iOS, meaning users can stay on top of their workloads on the move, with a launch expected within the next few days.

The company also revealed it is working on threaded conversations in Teams chat, to make the app "more streamlined and simpler" - it hopes to launch this feature mid-2025.

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