EVE Valkyrie's new Carrier Assault mode will fulfill your Millennium Falcon dreams

Reykjavík, Iceland—It took three long years, but CCP’s space dogfighter EVE Valkyrie finally released alongside the Oculus Rift last month, and it’s coming to the HTC Vive later this year (with cross-platform multiplayer, to boot). It’s one of the most polished built-for-VR games, and still one of my favorites even after all this time. But it’s just the beginning for Valkyrie. CCP referred to it as an “Early Access” game during EVE: Fanfest 2016 on Thursday, which I think is a bit of a stretch—it’s not being sold as an Early Access game on the Oculus Store, as far as I know. There’s quite a bit of content coming, nevertheless. First up is a new map, “Crossroads,” which we got a look at during Fanfest. It’s full of your usual collection of asteroids and a massive, spire-shaped space station. It’s gorgeous, but not too dissimilar from existing Valkyrie maps. The bigger addition is a new “Carrier Assault” game mode. Unfortunately there was no hands-on with Carrier Assault at Fanfest, but CCP did show off a short trailer.

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Why this matters: With 980 million users worldwide, Messenger is easily one of the most popular messaging apps in the world. That puts it in a good spot if “messaging apps as a platform” is truly the next big thing in consumer technology. It’s far from clear, however, if all these additional features to Messenger will catch on with most users—or if bots, games, and payments will remain niche features appealing to a small audience. , visit Greenbot.com.

Facebook Messenger adds group voice calls

Facebook Messenger's feature improvements aren't stopping with the recent chatbot push. Now, anyone with Messenger for Android or iOS can now initiate a group voice call for up to 50 people. The feature builds on Facebook’s group text chatting feature. Inside a group chat, you should soon see a red phone icon. Tap that button and your call will start. Once the call is ongoing, a new screen allows you to manage participants. Users should see the phone option worldwide by Thursday, Facebook messaging chief David Marcus said in a recent post on the social network. The new calling feature applies only to voice calls. Video calls are still a one-to-one affair, but that may change in the coming months as Messenger looks to reach feature parity with Hangouts and Skype. Tech companies appear to believe that messaging apps are the next great frontier for gaining and keeping users. That’s why Facebook has been so hard at work adding new features over the past year such as third-party app integration, bots, payments, and more.