GitHub, arguably the place for developers to store and share code, has been the target of a cyberattack. The Microsoft-owned platform reported on Tuesday that its internal repositories experienced unauthorised access, although it does not appear to have exposed customer information outside of that.

"Our current assessment is that the activity involved exfiltration of GitHub-internal repositories only," GitHub shared most recently on X, "The attacker’s current claims of ~3,800 repositories are directionally consistent with our investigation so far."

The attack reportedly took place via a compromised employee device "involving a poisoned [Visual Studio] Code extension." GitHub did not name the specific developer extension that was leveraged in the breach, nor the attacker. GitHub continues, "We removed the malicious extension version, isolated the endpoint, and began incident response immediately."

Backdoors placed in useful extensions is not a novel route of attack. For example, one bad actor snaffling up 31 WordPress plugins and placing a backdoor in all of them. For another, security researchers claimed last year that 35 Chrome extensions with over 4,000,000 installs 'include some kind of spyware or infostealer'

GitHub's highest-impact credentials have now been rotated, and the platform says it is continuing to keep an eye out for any further unauthorised access. The platform will share a full report on the security incident in the near future.

According to Bleeping Computer, hacker group TeamPCP have since claimed responsibility for the GitHub attack via the Breached cybercrime forum. The group says it's gained access to both GitHub source code, plus over "4,000 repos of private code." However, the cybercriminals' motivations are not so clear cut; the alleged attackers write, "As always this is not a ransom; we do not care about extorting Github."

"One buyer and we shred the data on our end," the group continues, "It looks like our retirement is soon, so if no buyer is found we will leak it [for] free. If you are interested, send your offers to the communications below. We are not interested in under 50k—the best offer will get it."

Clearing up months of speculation, Arc Raiders developer Embark Studios released a detailed breakdown of how the game's matchmaking works alongside an update packing two major changes to that system.

These matchmaking changes are "live now," and Embark will "keep tuning" as players respond to them.

Firstly, Embark says in a new post, "defending yourself is no longer treated the same as starting a fight." Until now, though Embark was able to track who shoots first, it appears the flow of an engagement was weighted in such a way that "your playstyle," as the system evaluates you, "didn't capture whether you started a PvP encounter or merely defended yourself."

"This meant cautious Raiders could be treated as more PvP-focused than they actually are," Embark says. "Now, the two are treated differently."

Secondly, "low-activity rounds carry less weight in your playstyle history." This seems aimed at the tactic of spawning in on free kits and instantly surrendering to bring down your perceived aggression rating (which Embark calls a misnomer). Looking at short runs in general, "reducing their weight helps the system reflect how you genuinely play when you're out there making choices," Embark says.

Your "playstyle" is the recurring theme of Embark's matchmaking explainer. The studio says it wanted to prioritize "fairness" and "enjoyment" with matches, and it found that "matching players based on playstyle drives enjoyment and reduces friction."

"We take multiple factors into account when forming a lobby," the devs explain. "One of the strongest is your playstyle across previous rounds, especially as it relates to how you engage with other Raiders. It's important to understand that playstyles aren't binary. This isn't 'friendly' vs. 'shoot on sight.' It's a continuous scale."

This is Embark once again dismantling the idea of friendly or PvP lobbies. "Our system tries to place you with players who sit closer to you on that scale, while still keeping Topside from becoming completely predictable," it says.

As such, you are more "likely" to be matched with players who are close to you on the playstyle distribution graph, which Embark visualizes using "cooperative, mixed, and PvP-focused" styles. If you're over in cooperative camp, the bloodthirsty PvP players are an "unlikely" but never impossible match.

Embark stresses that "your behavior shapes your future lobbies - gradually," not as a result of individual rounds or knee-jerk punishments. This sets up a list of myths, many of which still circulate among players, regarding matchmaking and ways to game it.

Here's the full list of Arc Raiders matchmaking myths that Embark has shut down.

• "There are not only two kinds of lobbies - friendly and aggressive"
• "One shot or kill does not immediately put you in 'PvP-focused' lobbies"
• "There are no 'PvE-only' lobbies/servers where other Raiders will never attack you"
• "Your end-of-round feedback does not affect matchmaking"
• "Your loadout does not affect matchmaking"
• "Patches and updates don't reset your matchmaking profile"
• "Looting knocked-out players doesn't affect your matchmaking"
• "We don't matchmake based only on the squad leader"
• "Turning crossplay on or off does not impact the level of cooperation / PvP in the round"

I know from experience that it's easy to fall into some of these theories, either because you unwittingly look for confirmation or you overestimate a string of coincidences. Turning off crossplay is (or certainly was) common advice among PC players looking to avoid the scourge of barbaric console players, for instance. It's also hilarious to me to have confirmation that my history of violence is, in fact, dragging my pacifist friend into a warzone when we play together, no matter who leads the squad.

The stated goal for Arc Raiders matchmaking is to avoid removing danger from lobbies, or making them too predictable, while also nudging like-minded players toward each other. As production director Caigo Braga told us last month, "players shouldn't feel fully safe," but they shouldn't all be dragged into intense firefights every match either.

Arc Raiders devs know everyone just uses the Survivor augment, so they're buffing "underperforming" options to make loadouts more interesting.

Ubisoft says more games from flagship brands like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Ghost Recon are on their way with even better quality than what the publisher has demonstrated in new releases like "Assassin's Creed Shadows, Anno 117: Pax Romana and the Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora expansion."

Each of these games managed to achieve "above 80 Metacritic scores," Ubisoft boasts in the earnings report posted on its website May 20, but the company looks forward to an even higher-caliber, "significantly bigger content pipeline" through 2029.

This maxed-out calendar was made possible by "discontinuing 7 projects and delaying 6 others to maximize long-term value" earlier this year, says Ubisoft, recalling when it laid waste to the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake and other anticipated games. At the time, CEO and founder Yves Guillemot emphasized that the AAA game industry was becoming "persistently more selective and competitive with rising development costs and greater challenges in creating brands."

That was the prologue to what Ubisoft describes as "a return to higher quality standards" in its earnings report. Guillemot now says the company is eager to show players it's "capable of consistently delivering high-quality experiences" in a "sustained release cadence" empowered by those game delays, as well as studio closures that helped Ubisoft staff numbers tumble by 1,200 employees since last year.

Looking to "boost teams’ creativity and efficiency" and "enhance player experience," Ubisoft repeats its excitement about generative AI and shares that it's "accelerating investments" on its in-game Teammates companions. Meanwhile, Ubisoft developers are apparently "making tangible progress organically on AI applications."

It's vague, but it's a commitment: Ubisoft keeps going all-in on generative AI, and it says it's got better games in the pipe. It's probably reasonable to expect, then, an increased presence of AI tech in Ubisoft's next three years of releases, quality pending.

Former Assassin's Creed Hexe lead says Ubisoft probably would have looked into AI-powered NPCs for one of his older games if the tech were more advanced at that time.