Paul Briden 22/12/2016 - 10:03am

Samsung has trademarked the name "Beast Mode" in Europe

As we've mentioned before, Samsung needs the Galaxy S8 to impress consumers into buying tons of them in 2017; it needs this anyway, as all manufacturers do of their lead flagship devices, but there's added pressure as the firm needs to make up for the losses - both financially and in terms of reputation/consumer trust - following the Galaxy Note 7 "explosiongate" debacle which saw the phablet discontinued.

New rumours suggest Samsung may be implementing a high-performance mode users can toggle on for the Galaxy S8 to significantly boost its capabilities - such a mechanism already exists on the Galaxy S7 series, but there is evidence to suggest the feature may be amped up on the Galaxy S8 as a leading USP. Samsung has now filed in Europe for a trademark of the name "Beast Mode" apparently relating to the software functionality. The name is clearly a link to the common internet meme; Beast Mode being a state of power and awesomeness that a person or being can enter into, it's not unusual to see if someone ranks up a ton of kills in an online first-person-shooter, for example, for them to be described as entering Beast Mode. Similarly, people are sometimes described as entering Beast Mode at the gym. Likewise there are many example of funny pictures or animated GIFs of people and animals with "Beast Mode Activated" text imposed on top.

At present there are no further details on what exactly Samsung's Galaxy S8 Beast Mode will involve, but as the phone has been rumoured to be designed with high-performance VR applications in mind via Google's Daydream project, it is plausible it relates to the demands of VR.