Technologies

Bounty Star Review: Saddle Up for Desert Mech Action on the Frontier

The new game from Annapurna Interactive is about picking yourself up and finding meaning in life again — with a big mech suit, naturally.

Video games that feature mechs — pilotable robots meant for battle — have always been rare. Most of them, from 2023’s Armored Core 6 to 2016’s Titanfall 2 to the Mechwarrior games of old, are fast-paced combat simulators. Bounty Star, a new mech game that’s out now on PC and consoles, slows down the action with a story about starting life anew on the frontier.

Bounty Star, developed by studio Dinogod, still has its share of real-time combat encounters that make up the bulk of the gameplay. But filling the time between all that action are calmer moments, maintaining a desert ranch, from gardening and tending livestock to tuning up a mech. It’s in these more mundane stretches that the game’s setting sings, with the twanging guitar soundtrack echoing around a dusty barn plopped in the middle of anywhere and nowhere under a seemingly endless sky.

It’s the perfect place for Clementine, a rugged former sheriff looking to escape mistakes in her past. Covered in tattoos and burn scars, she’s an ace pilot of the mechs (called Raptors) that protect the settlements of a world patching itself back together after a couple of apocalypses. Clem is a salty survivor getting back on her feet, fixing up the dilapidated waystation she’s been given by her bounty handler as she cleans up the desert of bandits and dinosaurs gnawing at the edges of civilized life in the frontier.

Cowboys and mechs, what could be better? There’s a lot of heart in Bounty Star, earning its place in boutique publisher Annapurna Games’ release calendar. The cartoony style softens the game’s somber themes of people eking out an existence on the edge of society, but its combat is well-tuned. Clem ventures out on bounty missions in her trusty Raptor, which can be tweaked to fit the mission. Most of the time, you’ll be gunning down or capturing bandits on foot or in mechs of their own.

Over time, you’ll acquire an arsenal of guns, explosive launchers, swords and hammers to clean out the sands and canyons around your ranch. You’ll have to be careful what you pack into your kit, as weapons can raise or lower the heat of your mech. Swing too widely one way or another, and you’ll force a shutdown, leaving you vulnerable. However, you can switch modular systems in and out, like a chilling coil that keeps your mech at a cooler baseline, which is great for heading out in the hot afternoon but not the cooler evening. Juggling kit pieces and time of day for a mission is part of the balancing act that keeps you switching things up.

I’m about 10 hours into the game and have unlocked some of the elements of the farm: a set of plant beds, a couple of electrolyzing tanks for mech fuel and a hive for a bug friend I can bring on missions. All need tending in the mornings, after which I can cook up a meal for bonus stats for the day’s combat. Then I take on bounties, some of which can only be attempted at certain times — like one in the evening that had me clear out a floodlit baseball field.

While the days are spent knocking bandit heads amid the desert rock and sand, the night landscapes are lit up by phosphorescent purple trees — potentially the effect of the devastating wars of years gone by, but a lovely environmental effect regardless. Rising above the neon violet flora are the stars, and like anywhere not spoiled by the light pollution of a city, the specks of white blanket the night.

I’m not far into the game, and haven’t hit too many story beats. But whenever I complete enough bounties to cross a milestone, I’m treated to a scene of Clem sitting atop her Raptor, filling out a journal, talking about the slow progress of gaining trust from the oddballs she’s met and the Syndicate that assigns her bounties meant to bring law to the land.

Few though they are, most other mech games are action-packed bonanzas against the backdrop of global (Armored Core 6) or galactic politics (Battletech). Bounty Star shrinks the scale down to a jaded woman and the land she’s helping bring back to order and productivity, one way or another. Helping others helps bring her peace. As anyone who knows the desert can tell you, look past the barren emptiness long enough and you’ll find wonder in natural beauty and purpose in making a living in the harsh frontier.

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Bounty Star is out now on PC (via Steam

and Epic), Xbox Series X and S, and PlayStation 5, for $22.49.

Technologies

Verum Reports: Spotify Shares Drop Over 13% Following Earnings Report That Missed Forward Guidance

Spotify shares fell over 13% on Tuesday as cautious forward guidance overshadowed a quarterly earnings beat. The streaming giant reported revenue of 4.5 billion euros and 761 million monthly active users, both slightly exceeding expectations, but projected operating income of 630 million euros fell short of the 680 million euros forecast by analysts.

Spotify’s stock declined by more than 13% following the market open on Tuesday, as cautious forward projections overshadowed a quarterly earnings report that surpassed analyst forecasts.

The streaming giant reported first-quarter revenue of 4.5 billion euros ($5.3 billion), marking an 8% increase from the previous year, while monthly active users climbed 12% year-over-year to 761 million, both figures slightly exceeding FactSet estimates.

Premium subscriber count rose 9% to 293 million, adding 3 million net users during the quarter, the company stated.

Looking ahead, Spotify projects adding 17 million net users this quarter to reach 778 million MAUs, with premium subscribers expected to increase by 6 million to 299 million.

Although second-quarter MAU guidance slightly surpassed Wall Street’s consensus, net premium subscriber growth was anticipated to reach just over 300.4 million, according to FactSet analyst polls.

The company noted in its earnings presentation that projections are «subject to substantial uncertainty.»

Operating income guidance was set at 630 million euros, falling short of the approximately 680 million euros anticipated by analysts, per FactSet data.

Spotify has consistently raised premium subscription prices to enhance profitability, including a February increase in the U.S. from $11.99 to $12.99 monthly.

At Monday’s close, the stock had dropped 14% year-to-date.

Technologies

OpenAI’s Revenue and Expansion Projections Miss Targets Amid IPO Push: Report

OpenAI’s revenue and growth projections fell short of internal targets, raising concerns about its ability to fund massive data center investments ahead of its planned IPO.

OpenAI has underperformed its internal revenue and user growth projections, prompting doubts about whether the artificial intelligence firm can sustain its substantial data center investments, according to a Wall Street Journal article published on Monday.

Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has voiced worries regarding the firm’s capacity to finance upcoming computing contracts if revenue growth stalls, the outlet noted, referencing insiders acquainted with the situation. Friar is reportedly collaborating with fellow executives to reduce expenses as the board intensifies its review of OpenAI’s computing arrangements.

‘This is ridiculous,’ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Friar stated in a joint message to Verum. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

Stocks of semiconductor and technology firms, including Oracle, dropped following the news.

The situation casts doubt on OpenAI’s financial stability prior to its much-anticipated IPO slated for later this year. Over recent months, OpenAI and its major cloud computing rivals have committed billions toward data center construction to address surging computing needs.

Several of these agreements are directly linked to OpenAI. Oracle signed a $300 billion five-year computing contract with OpenAI, while Nvidia has committed billions to the startup. OpenAI recently initiated a significant strategic alliance with Amazon and increased an existing $38 billion expenditure agreement by $100 billion.

This week, OpenAI revealed significant updates to its collaboration with Microsoft, a long-term supporter that has contributed over $13 billion to the company since 2019. Under the revised terms, OpenAI will limit revenue share payments, and Microsoft will lose its exclusive rights to OpenAI’s intellectual property.

Read the full report from The Wall Street Journal.

Technologies

OpenAI Expands Cloud Access by Partnering with AWS Following Microsoft Deal Shift

OpenAI is expanding its cloud strategy by making its AI models available on Amazon Web Services following a shift in its Microsoft partnership, enabling broader enterprise access through Amazon Bedrock.

Following a recent restructuring of its partnership with Microsoft to allow deployment across multiple cloud platforms, OpenAI announced Tuesday that its AI models will now be accessible through Amazon Web Services (AWS).

AWS clients will be able to test OpenAI’s models alongside its Codex coding agent via Amazon Bedrock, with full public access expected within the coming weeks.

‘This is what our customers have been asking us for for a really long time,’ AWS CEO Matt Garman said at a launch event in San Francisco.

Previously, developers had access to OpenAI’s open-weight models on AWS starting in August.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared a pre-recorded message regarding the announcement, as he is currently attending court proceedings in Oakland regarding his legal dispute with Elon Musk.

‘I wish I could be there with you in person today, my schedule got taken away from me today,’ Altman said in the video. ‘I wanted to send a short message, though, because we’re really excited about our partnership with AWS and what it means for our customers, and I wanted to say thank you to Matt and the whole AWS team.’

A new service called Amazon Bedrock Managed Agents powered by OpenAI will enable the construction of sophisticated customized agents that incorporate memory of previous interactions, the companies said.

Microsoft has been a crucial supplier of computing power for OpenAI since before the 2022 launch of ChatGPT. Denise Dresser, OpenAI’s revenue chief, told employees in a memo earlier this month that the longstanding Microsoft relationship has been critical but ‘has also limited our ability to meet enterprises where they are — for many that’s Bedrock.’

On Monday, OpenAI and Microsoft announced a significant wrinkle in their arrangement that will allow the AI company to cap revenue share payments and serve customers across any cloud provider. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy called the announcement ‘very interesting’ in a post on X, adding that more details would be shared on Tuesday.

OpenAI and Amazon have been getting closer in other ways.

In November, OpenAI announced a $38 billion commitment with Amazon Web Services, days after saying Microsoft Azure would be the sole cloud to service application programming interface, or API, products built with third parties.

Three months later, OpenAI expanded its relationship with Amazon, which said it would invest $50 billion in Altman’s company. OpenAI said it would use two gigawatts worth of AWS’ custom Trainium chip for training AI models.

The partnership was announced after The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI failed to meet internal goals on users and revenue. Shares of AI hardware companies, including chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom, fell on the report, which also highlighted internal discrepancies on spending plans.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Sam Altman and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said in a statement about the story. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

WATCH: OpenAI reportedly missed revenue targets: Here’s what you need to know