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It's been four years since the last mainline God of War game was released, but the megahit video game franchise has been anything but dormant in 2026. The action kicked off in February, when God of War: Sons of Sparta launched as a prequel to the entire series, adopting a 2D style and telling a story about Kratos and his brother Deimos in their younger years. Accompanying that as a 20th anniversary celebration was confirmation that the original three Ancient Greece-set games would be getting a modernized remake, though a date hasn't been set yet. Sony's State of Play presentation at the beginning of June then further reaffirmed that the Norse saga has more stories to tell when it revealed the much-anticipated next installment from Santa Monica Studios, God of War Laufey , following the journey of Kratos' late wife through the afterlife of the gods in a bold shake-up.

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Credit: Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

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Gemini’s personalized AI image generation is now free for eligible US users, expanding beyond Google AI subscribers.

The feature taps into Personal Intelligence, using linked Google apps like Photos to create images tailored to your interests and memories.

Google’s Nano Banana image model powers the experience.

Google is expanding one of Gemini’s more personal AI features to a much wider audience. Previously, the company limited personalized image generation to paying subscribers, but it is now offering it for free to eligible Gemini users in the US, opening up access for more people to AI-generated images based on their photos, preferences, and connected Google apps.

The move builds upon Google’s Personal Intelligence platform that was launched earlier this year. Rather than responding to all prompts uniformly, Personal Intelligence allows Gemini to tailor responses based on data from services you’ve opted to link, such as Google Photos. The latest update goes a step further with this idea, combining Personal Intelligence with Google’s Nano Banana image model, which lets Gemini generate images that better reflect your interests and lifestyle.

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Nearly 2,000 years ago, Mount Vesuvius buried a vast collection of scrolls in ash and scorched them into solid black lumps. Now, without unrolling them, researchers have virtually read two of them —‬ and uncovered what may be a work by a well-known Stoic philosopher.

The breakthrough comes from the Vesuvius Challenge , an international research effort to digitally read the scrolls that were preserved when Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried by ash and pumice in A.D. 79. Papyrologists, who study and preserve the ancient manuscripts, announced June 25 that they had digitally unwrapped the surviving portion of one scroll, known as PHerc. 1667, revealing roughly 5 feet (1.5 meters) of continuous Greek text across 20 columns. Researchers also recovered more than 70 columns of text from a second scroll, PHerc. 172.

"For nearly two millennia, many of these texts have been physically preserved but intellectually inaccessible," Brent Seales , Vesuvius Challenge co-founder and a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky, said in a statement . "Today ‪—‬ after years of interdisciplinary work combining advanced imaging, artificial intelligence , academic research and an innovation contest ‪—‬ we are finally able to read them."

Over the past few years, Seales and his team have used a synchrotron to essentially X-ray inside the scrolls and detect the ink ancient Romans used to write. The letters are then studied by papyrologists, who translate the text.

Part of PHerc. 1667 was physically opened in the 1980s, but overlapping layers obscured the writing so badly that the scroll was given a readability score of zero, Federica Nicolardi , a papyrologist at the University of Naples Federico II, said in the statement.

The handwriting and text of PHerc. 1667 suggest the scroll dates to the second or third century B.C., making it one of the oldest scrolls in the Herculaneum collection. This early date means it could not have been authored by Philodemus of Gadara , the first-century-B.C. Epicurean philosopher whose writings dominated the Herculaneum library.

Experts think the text reads more like a Stoic treatise on ethics and human behavior, and it specifically mentions Aristocreon, the nephew and pupil of the influential Stoic philosopher Chrysippus . Very little of Chrysippus' own writing has survived, so if the attribution holds up, it would be a significant addition to the historical record of early Stoic thought.

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In a separate discovery, researchers identified a new book title within scroll PHerc. 139. The end of the scroll references Philodemus' eighth book of "On Gods." While this treatise had previously been known to exist, the new discovery reveals the work extended across at least eight volumes. Experts plan to reexamine other texts in the Herculaneum collection for additional volumes that may belong to the same series.

More than 600 Herculaneum scrolls remain unopened. It's thought that the villa was once owned by the father-in-law of Julius Caesar .

How much do you know about the Roman town destroyed by Mount Vesuvius? Find out by taking our Pompeii quiz!

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Less than two months after the release of its latest game, Directive 8020 , Supermassive Games CEO Robert Henrysson has announced that he is stepping down from the position as well as his role at parent company Nordisk Games.

"As the CEO of Supermassive Games, I was honoured to guide the studio through intense industry change, broadening its client base and establishing a culture of consistent quality across all aspects of the game development process," Henrysson wrote in a farewell message posted on LinkedIn (via Game Developer ).

"Leading a studio is never a one-man job—it is the entire team's effort. Our commitment to continuous improvement was, and continues to be, central to everything we do. To everyone at Supermassive Games, I am so grateful for everything I’ve learnt and experienced with all of you. You are the greatest storytelling game studio on earth, you rock! And I wish you all the best in the future."

A separate message posted by Nordisk credits Henrysson for taking on "a broad operational role, supporting existing portfolio companies through a period of considerable change, including serving as the Chairman and Interim CEO of Avalanche Studios Group." He was appointed as CEO of Supermassive "with a clear mandate: to lead Supermassive Games through the successful delivery of Directive 8020. During his time, he rebuilt the studio's leadership team, sharpened its strategy and oversaw the completion and launch of Directive 8020, the latest instalment in the Dark Pictures series."

And in that role, he was seemingly successful: Directive 8020 holds a "mixed" user rating on Steam and a relatively small number of user reviews compared to other Dark Pictures games. But we liked it quite a bit, calling it "unmissable adventure for any fan of sci-fi horror" in our 85% review , and Nordisk praised Directive 8020 for earning "the strongest critical reception in the series to date," reflecting "the hard work and commitment of the entire Supermassive Games team, supported by Robert's leadership throughout this important period."

It also bears noting that Henrysson led Supermassive through two rounds of layoffs in the leadup to Directive 8020, in February 2024 —shortly after he took over from departing founders Pete and Joe Samuels—and then again in July 2025 . Supermassive was hardly alone in that, though: The games industry has been rocked by thousands of layoffs over the past few years , as the heady stuck-at-home days of the Covid-19 pandemic gave way to the harsh light of reality, which apparently just about no executive in the videogame business was able to foresee.

Henrysson said he's going to spend the summer with his family, but left the door open to new roles: "Fundamentally I love the games industry and the people in it, so I’ll be open to taking on selected advisory roles and exploring what comes next."

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