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Xbox claims that reports of there being only one person in Texas left working on id Software 's id Tech engine are inaccurate.

Reports emerged that as part of the devastating layoffs at id Software – which saw 136 of the studio's 185 staff members laid off – the team working on the id Tech engine was affected massively. Yesterday, it was claimed that this was so widespread that only one person was left working on the engine at id Software's main Richardson, Texas studio. However, in a statement given to Kotaku , an Xbox spokesperson says this is inaccurate

"There are dozens of people working on id Tech across multiple locations," the spokesperson says , adding: "Reports that there's only one person left in Texas are inaccurate." That being said, it is unconfirmed just how many people are left working on the tech.

Kotaku's source said they weren't sure how the engine could be patched due to the breadth of the layoffs, saying: "The institutional knowledge is just not there." The same source said: "id Tech as a technology is probably dead forever."

Derek Best, former principal VFX artist at id Software who worked on the latest Doom trilogy as part of his 12 year tenure at the studio, claimed the studio has been relegated "to support studio size," while saying Microsoft was responsible for "nuking a team into the dirt" and "throwing out massive technological achievements."

Alongside these comments, Best noted that "the VFX team was eliminated down to one single artist with no lead or producer." As for the engine, he also mentioned that "the engine programmer responsible for the massive gains in VFX pipeline improvements (like all the particle editor work) was let go as well," adding that "all devs that had Houdini knowledge for procedural modeling or cached animations were wiped out." Best said: "All the work for Doom: The Dark Ages in that program has gone to waste with no one to carry it on."

Pitches for a co-op Doom, a new Perfect Dark, and a John Wick-inspired cyberpunk game were cooking at id Software before Microsoft layoffs reportedly led to 136 job cuts.

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BERLIN — Kai Wegner, mayor of Berlin, announced Friday that he will not run for reelection in September following reports of him misrepresenting his handling of a major blackout earlier this year.

“I will tell the district party chairpersons that I am withdrawing my candidacy and that I will not stand again as the CDU’s lead candidate,” Wegner said during a press conference Friday.

Pressure on the conservative politician has mounted over the past week following media reports alleging he had lied to the public during a blackout in January. Several Berlin neighborhoods were left without energy or heating for four days during freezing temperatures following a far-left arson attack on energy infrastructure .

Wegner’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won 28.2 percent of the votes in Berlin’s snap election in February 2023 , held after the Constitutional Court ordered a rerun of the 2021 vote because of irregularities.

Since then, the party’s support in the state of Berlin plunged to 17 percent — mirroring a broader national trend. The CDU has lost ground to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in nationwide polls, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s approval ratings declining ahead of several key state elections.

While the CDU is on course to be overtaken by the AfD in this year’s state elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, they are also losing ground to the opposite end of the political spectrum in Berlin.

Berlin’s conservatives face tough competition from The Left, the Greens and AfD — all of which are polling between 18 percent and 20 percent.

Wegner told journalists Friday that he wants his party “to prevent a left-wing coalition led by The Left Party. The goal now is to strengthen the political center in this city so that left-wing extremists do not take over its leadership.”

The party’s slump in the German capital has also been fueled by Wegner’s communication about the blackout crisis management and a week of chaos and disruption caused by black ice and the city’s inability to de-ice pavements.

Back in January, Wegner told journalists he had stayed home on the first day of the blackout to coordinate the city’s response to the crisis, but later admitted to playing tennis that day in an interview with WELT TV — which, like POLITICO, is part of the Axel Springer Group.

The CDU said that it could not yet tell who would replace Wegner as top candidate.

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Take-Two Interactive has its next quarterly finanical report scheduled for August 7

The report will take place before the market open, which is unusual for Take-Two

Fans are hoping for a new GTA 6 update

Rockstar Games' parent company, Take-Two Interactive, has quite an important day coming up, and fans are hoping for a new update on Grand Theft Auto 6 .

We are four months away from the launch of the most highly anticipated game of all time, and so far we've seen exactly zero seconds of in-depth gameplay.

So what's next? It's said that this summer will kick off the big GTA 6 marketing push, but aside from pre-orders going live and an updated Rockstar website filled with screenshots and detailed game features, we're still waiting for Trailer 3.

However, as spotted by GameSpot , Take-Two will release its next quarterly financial report on August 7, which suggests we'll learn at least something about the game.

Typically, these financial reports are followed by a Q&A session with investors and are usually held after the market closes at 4 PM ET.

This August 7 report, however, will be released before the market opens, at 9:30 AM ET, and will be followed by a conference call at 8 AM ET. This is unusual for Take-Two, but it hasn't explained why it's doing it this way this time.

Whether there will be a pre-order sales report or a date for the next trailer, we'll have to wait and see, but fans on Reddit are hoping the financial report could kick things into high gear.

"Rockstar said summer will be the biggest marketing for them I don’t see this happening so far," one fan said, with another writing, "Trailer 3 moment passed, if they were going to drop it, we would have seen it by now. I honestly think the next step is a gameplay trailer."

We also have Gamescom 2026 in August, which means another month of game announcements, so Rockstar may finally drop a new trailer during this time.

GTA 6 officially launches on November 19 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, but pre-loading begins on November 12 if you choose to pre-order.

A recent report claimed that physical copies of the game are flying off the shelves , despite the fact that they don't come with a disc but rather a digital download code in the box , which has caused some controversy.

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Mistral Vibe is one of the more interesting AI platforms to come out of Europe. The product, formerly called Le Chat, was rebranded by Paris-based Mistral AI in May 2026 to mark its shift from a conversational assistant to a full agentic platform covering chat, work automation, and cloud-based coding. It's a meaningful change, not just a naming exercise.

Two new operating modes, Work and Code, are the engine behind that ambition. Work Mode runs multi-step tasks across connected business tools. Code Mode handles remote coding sessions inside isolated sandboxes and delivers work through to a pull request. Together they put Vibe in more direct competition with ChatGPT and Claude than its Le Chat days suggested.

At TechRadar Pro, we've been reviewing business software since 2012 and our AI coverage has become some of our most-read work. That includes our AI tool roundup , our 2026 vibe coding buying guide , and deep dives on platforms like OpenClaw or Moltbook .

What is Mistral Vibe?

Mistral Vibe is a chat, work automation, and coding platform developed by Mistral AI. It's available via web browser and mobile apps on iOS and Android, and runs on Mistral's own model family, from the lightweight Small 3.1 to the flagship Large 3 and the reasoning-focused Magistral line.

The platform launched in February 2024 as Le Chat, originally a general-purpose assistant. Over the following two years, Mistral layered in web search, voice mode via its Voxtral audio model, a Canvas document editor, image generation through Black Forest Labs Flux Ultra, persistent memory, and project folders.

The May 2026 rebrand signals that Mistral sees Vibe as an enterprise-grade product. Work Mode and Code Mode are aimed at professionals who need an AI that can execute multi-step tasks across connected tools, not just hold a conversation.

Mistral Vibe: At a glance

Attribute

Notes

Underlying model(s)

Mistral Large 3, Medium 3.5, Small 3.1; Magistral for reasoning; Codestral and Devstral for code tasks.

Best for

Daily productivity, agentic work tasks, cloud coding, privacy-sensitive workflows.

Distinguishing functions

Work Mode, Code Mode, No Telemetry Mode, Canvas editor, Deep Research, voice mode, MCP support.

UI features

Web app and iOS/Android apps; unified interface for chat, canvas, and code views.

Subscription costs

Free; Pro at $14.99/month; Team at $24.99/user/month ($19.99 on annual billing); Enterprise (custom).

API pricing

Pay-per-token with no monthly minimums. Large 3 at $2/$6 per million tokens; Small 3.1 at $0.20/$0.60; Ministral 8B at $0.10/$0.10.

Buy it if…

You handle sensitive client or business data. No Telemetry Mode gives Pro subscribers a contractual guarantee that nothing they type is used to train Mistral's models. That level of assurance at $14.99 per month is unusual among major AI chat platforms.

You want agentic features without enterprise pricing. Work Mode handles multi-step tasks across Gmail, Slack, Notion, and other connected tools. Code Mode manages full coding sessions through to a pull request. Both are available on the Pro plan.

You're a developer watching API costs. Mistral Large 3 at $6 per million output tokens significantly undercuts GPT-5.4 ($15/M) and Claude Sonnet ($15/M) at the flagship tier, and the API bills only for tokens used.

Don't buy it if…

The free plan is your entry point for serious evaluation. At around 25 messages per day with no canvas and no remote coding access, the free tier doesn't give you a fair picture of what the platform can do.

Your team is embedded in Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Vibe connects to business apps via MCP, but native integration with the major office suites is not as developed as what you'd get from Copilot or Gemini for Workspace.

You're assessing the Team plan for a small group. The jump from Pro ($14.99) to Team ($24.99/user/month) is steep, and the main additions (admin controls and more storage) may not justify the cost for teams of fewer than ten people.

My time with Mistral Vibe

I tested Vibe across its Pro plan over several weeks, using it for research tasks, document drafting, and code work. The chat interface is clean and approachable. Anyone familiar with ChatGPT or Claude will navigate it without confusion. What caught me off guard was how efficiently Work Mode handled complex, multi-step research requests, pulling from connected sources and drafting a structured Canvas output in a single run.

Code Mode held up well for the tasks I threw at it. I ran a session to scaffold a simple API integration, and the agent handled writing, testing, and preparing a draft PR inside the sandboxed environment. I stepped in twice to give it additional direction, but that's consistent with what you'd expect from any AI coding agent at this stage.

The No Telemetry Mode stood out as a differentiator. Enabling it took seconds and gave me real confidence when working with business-related documents. That kind of data control is typically reserved for enterprise tiers at other major platforms, so finding it on a $14.99 plan is a real differentiator.

Mistral Vibe: Features

Vibe's feature set has grown considerably since the Le Chat launch in 2024. Alongside standard chat, the platform now covers web search, image generation, voice input, a Canvas document editor, Deep Research, memory, and project organization tools. Pro subscribers get access to Work Mode and Code Mode, which is where the real differentiation lies.

Work Mode is the headline addition from 2026. It turns Vibe into an execution agent that can read emails and calendars, draft documents in Canvas, run recurring scheduled tasks, and push outputs to Notion, SharePoint, or Slack. Every step is visible in the interface. The platform asks for explicit approval before any action that modifies data or sends a message.

Code Mode targets developers specifically. It connects to GitHub, GitLab, Jira, and Linear, running sessions in an isolated sandbox. A /teleport command lets you move a session between the Vibe web app and a local terminal without losing context. Parallel sessions are supported on Pro and above, which is useful for running background jobs while staying in another workflow.

Memory, currently in beta, lets Vibe store your preferences and recurring context across conversations. You can view, edit, or delete these entries at any time, and turning the feature off is a single toggle in confidentiality settings. Image generation via Black Forest Labs Flux Ultra is solid for a chat platform.

The main gap in the feature set is transparency around usage limits. The free tier runs at lower quotas than Pro across searches, image generations, and messages, but Mistral doesn't publish the exact numbers on its pricing page. That makes the free-to-Pro comparison harder to assess than it should be.

Overall, Vibe covers more professional use cases than most platforms at this price point. The area where competitors like Copilot and Gemini maintain a clear lead is native productivity suite integration, which Mistral has not yet matched.

Mistral Vibe: User experience

The layout is straightforward: a left sidebar for conversation history and project folders, a central chat window, and model or tool selectors accessible from the input bar. Switching between chat, Work Mode, and Code Mode happens within the same interface rather than routing you to a separate product URL.

The mobile apps mirror the web experience closely. Search, canvas, image generation, and voice input all carry over, which isn't a given with AI chat platforms on mobile. Onboarding is minimal, which suits experienced AI users but may leave newcomers without much guidance on how to get started with the more complex agentic features.

Mistral Vibe: Customer support

Free and Pro users access support through the help center widget on the Mistral site. Response times are not published, and there's no live chat or phone support at these tiers. The help documentation covers the most common issues in reasonable depth, but for billing questions or edge-case technical problems, you're relying on ticket-based email support.

Enterprise customers get a dedicated support workflow with priority routing. Requests go through the same widget but are flagged and handled separately based on account type. For teams in finance, healthcare, or other regulated sectors where response time matters, that distinction is a real consideration when deciding between Team and Enterprise.

(Image credit: Mistral AI) Mistral Vibe: Pricing

Free plan: Around 25 messages per day with limited web searches, reduced image generation, no canvas creation, and no remote coding.

Pro at $14.99/month: No Telemetry Mode, full canvas access, Work and Code Mode, 5x more web searches, more image generations, and pay-as-you-go Vibe coding beyond included limits.

Team at $24.99/user/month (or $19.99 on annual billing) : Shared workspaces, admin controls, domain verification, data export, and higher storage limits.

The free plan gives you a taste of chat quality and basic search, but the restrictions mean you won't get a representative experience. Pro at $14.99 is, by most comparisons, the cheapest premium AI chat subscription from any major provider. The No Telemetry Mode and agentic modes are hard to find elsewhere at this cost.

The Team plan's value depends on your use case. For small teams, the mainly administrative additions over Pro may not justify the per-user cost. Enterprise pricing is negotiated directly with Mistral and covers SAML SSO, on-premise deployment, custom model training, and dedicated support. The API runs on a fully separate billing track with no monthly minimums, making it accessible for developers at any scale.

Mistral Vibe alternatives you should consider

ChatGPT (OpenAI): The most established option for general productivity, with deeper Microsoft 365 integration and a broader ecosystem of plugins. It costs more at comparable tiers but suits teams already embedded in the Microsoft environment.

Claude (Anthropic): A strong choice for long-document analysis and nuanced writing. Pricing is competitive and reasoning quality is high, though data privacy controls at the consumer tier are less explicit than Vibe's No Telemetry Mode.

Gemini for Google Workspace: The best fit for teams already using Google's suite. Native Calendar, Docs, and Gmail integration outpaces what Mistral currently offers for Google-centric workflows.

How I tested Mistral Vibe

Ran prompts across standard chat, Web Search, and Deep Research modes to evaluate response accuracy, source quality, and multi-step research handling across a range of topics and document types.

Tested agentic task execution through Work Mode, including document drafting via Canvas and recurring task scheduling, and ran coding sessions through Code Mode against a GitHub-connected project to assess end-to-end agent performance.

Verified plan details and API rates against Mistral's official pricing page, cross-referenced them with third-party pricing analyses where official documentation was vague, and assessed support options through the Mistral Help Center.

I tested Mistral Vibe on its Pro plan over several weeks using a mix of daily productivity tasks and structured feature evaluations. Pricing data was verified against the official mistral.ai pricing page, with third-party sources used for cross-reference on API rates and plan limits where Mistral's documentation was unclear. Support quality was assessed through available help center documentation and publicly reported user experiences.