Month: December 2018

Ubisoft has announced the next update for Ghost Recon Wildlands, titled Special Operations 3. The update launches on all platforms on December 11 and mostly introduces new PvP features.

Special Operations 3 includes a new PvE mission and in-game rewards, including two PvP classes inspired by the theme of the update’s mission. Ubisoft has not announced what the theme of this mission might be, but previous ones have included characters from other Tom Clancy games like Rainbow Six Siege and Splinter Cell. The update also adds two new PvP multiplayer maps.

The mission, in-game rewards, and maps will be available for all players starting December 11. Both new PvP classes will only be available for Year 2 Pass owners on December 11, and will only unlock for other players one week later.

A new Photo Mode is also included in Special Operations 3. The mode will allow players to capture any in-game moment, as well as edit pictures with effects and filters. Special Operations 3 also implements community feedback into Wildlands’ in-game store. Over 90 new items will be added, and changes will be made to the game’s Prestige Economy. Ubisoft has announced it will release more information on what those changes might be “soon.”

In our Ghost Recon Wildlands review, Miguel Concepcion gave the game a 7/10, writing, “As only the second open world game in the Clancyverse, Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a middlingly safe tactical shooter and a slightly wasted opportunity given the ambitious scope of its seemingly boundless map. While its main strength is its mission diversity, it doesn’t take long to lose the motivation after reaching El Sueno’s doorstep. Even with a foursome of highly trained friends, Wildlands eventually reveals its diminishing returns. The feeling of positive immediacy and dopamine hits begin to wane sooner than you expected from a game with such a large and diverse world.”

Ghost Recon Wildlands is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is just around the corner, and although it’s bringing some fresh faces to the forefront with Miles Morales and his friends, it’s also drawing on some pretty familiar comic book history. Or more accurately, you could call it recent history–Miles himself is less a decade old in terms of publication, so don’t be too hard on yourself if you’re not familiar with all of his background. There’s been a lot of it in not a lot of time.

One of those background elements revolves around a new version of a familiar Spider-Man baddie, a man called The Prowler, who was completely reimagined for Miles’ universe and is subsequently being brought to life for Into The Spider-Verse. He may not be the most famous villain making an animated big screen debut, but he’s probably going to be one of the most painful challenges Miles has to face for the movie, and it’s all thanks to one simple fact: If the movie keeps his backstory the same as the comics, Prowler will turn out to actually be Miles’ uncle, Aaron Davis.

To really understand what that means, you’ll have to wrap your head around the basic concept of the “Spider-Verse” as a whole. Miles exists in a reality that is actually separate from the traditional Spider-Man story–Miles’ world, the Ultimate Universe, has its own Peter Parker, who is still Spider-Man, and it’s still populated with heroes and villains with names you’d know. But there are some major differences, too. It’s essentially an alternate reality where only some things are changed. Back on the standard Spider-Man Earth–the one we know from the comics, generally called Earth 616 for the sake of clarity–Prowler is essentially a d-list villain who has had a couple of incarnations, none of them all that impactful.

Ultimate Prowler is a different situation, however, and a whole lot more relevant to the situation at hand. Aaron Davis actually had a direct hand in Miles’ spider-empowerment in the comics. A petty thief and cat burglar, Aaron had attempted to steal a case of experimental tech from an Oscorp lab, but in doing so, unknowingly spirited one of the genetically modified spiders Norman Osborn had been working with (in an attempt to replicate the Spider-Man phenomena) out of the building. Miles, not realizing what his uncle had just done, visited Aaron’s apartment only to be bit by the spider and, well, you know how that particular story goes. Miles and Peter aren’t that different when it comes to how they actually got their powers.

Prior to the spider-incident, Miles and Aaron had been pretty close, much to the dismay of Miles’ father, Jefferson, who used to run with the same less-than-reputable crews as his brother before going straight and becoming a cop. However, with the Oscorp job officially botched and Aaron now on the run–not to mention the complications built into Miles’ new dual identity as the new Spider-Man–things began to get pretty rocky. Aaron went on the run, Miles came into his superheroic own, and Jefferson forbade Miles to spend time with his uncle should he ever come back.

He did come back, of course, and things began to go even more down hill. Aside from the obvious conflicts between Prowler, a costumed villain, and Spider-Man, a superhero, there was also the matter of Aaron slowly piecing together just what had happened with his nephew and, eventually, learning his secret. The knowledge put him at a crossroads, not wanting to hurt his nephew, but seeing the opportunity it presented for things like blackmail. Afterall, the life of a supervillain gets considerably easier when they’re able to keep the local heroes off their back.

Prowler’s career blackmailing his own nephew came to a tragic conclusion after a showdown between he and Miles resulted in the fatal malfunction of his gear–or, at least, the sort of fatal malfunction of his gear. Despite “dying” in the Ultimate Universe, Aaron Davis was mysteriously resurrected following the massive multiverse-wide event known as Secret Wars, which transplanted Miles from his home Earth to Earth-616. Somewhere in the chaos, Aaron was returned to life and brought to Earth-616 as well, where he co-opted the Iron Spider identity and began working for the Sinister Six.

So what does this mean for Into The Spider-Verse? Well, it’s a little complicated. We know from our sneak peak at NYCC that Aaron and Miles are going to have a relationship at the start of things that is pretty similar to their comics counterparts. Miles sees Aaron as a cool mentor figure, despite his dad’s reservations. Miles’ origin story is slightly modified for the movie, however, so Aaron’s attempted robbery of Oscorp isn’t how Miles ends up getting spider-bitten.

That said, it would seem like Aaron is still an active criminal in the Spider-Verse universe. In the Venom post-credits scene, we saw Prowler–or at least, a version of Prowler–pursuing Miles (and an unconscious alternate dimension Peter Parker.) The interesting thing to observe here is that Miles is not actually disguised for this chase, so if the Prowler hunting him and Peter down actually is his Uncle Aaron, he may already be aware of Miles’ secret identity at this point in the movie.

(It’s worth noting, as an aside, that Aaron Davis was also portrayed in Spider-Man: Homecoming, albeit as more of a cameo. He was played by Donald Glover and Tom Holland’s Peter Parker confronted him in a parking garage.)

The other possibility here, given the multiversal shenanigans in play for all of Into The Spider-Verse, is that there are actually two different versions of Aaron Davis in play–the one Miles knows and loves, and a considerably crueler one from another dimension, working for Kingpin. Either way, Miles is probably going to get a very rude awakening about his favorite uncle when and if that purple mask comes off.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse hits theaters December 14. Read our full review to find out what we thought.

Crunchyroll has announced the Anime Awards are coming back for a third year in a row. The ceremony itself won’t happen until 2019, in order to give 2018 Fall anime series time to conclude.

The full list of categories and the roster of judges will be announced in mid-December, and voting will start on January 11, 2019 before ending on January 18. Winners for each category will be revealed on February 16, 2019.

The hit series My Hero Academia dominated the second annual Anime Awards, winning Best Animation, Best Opening, Best Action, Best Boy, Best Girl, Hero of the Year, and Villain of the Year. The show did not, however, nab the top prize of Anime of Year, which instead went to Made in Abyss. Other notable standouts were Your Name for Best Film, Land of the Lustrous for Best CGI, and My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness for Manga of the Year.

If you need to catch up on anime prior to Crunchyroll’s Anime Awards, refer to our guide of anime you should be watching for the Fall 2018 season. It lists every series airing on Crunchyroll, Funimation, Hidive, Netflix, and Amazon so you can catch up on dozens of quality anime. Bloom Into You is a notable standout, telling the story of two girls who struggle with accepting themselves until they learn to rely on each other. Zombie Land Saga is also a pretty good show this season, mixing together idol tropes and zombie story stereotypes to create a story that runs the gambit of bizarre to heartfelt. If you’re not watching either one, you should consider adding them to your queue.

18. Rhea Seehorn (Better Call Saul)

The title of Better Call Saul might reference shady lawyer Saul Goodman–real name Jimmy McGill–but fans of the Breaking Bad-spinoff know that the most important character is Kim Wexler. The constant girlfriend, business partner, supporter, and defender of the increasingly undeserving Jimmy, Kim is one of TV’s strongest and most interesting female characters, brilliantly played by Rhea Seehorn. This year’s Season 4 was the one where she really came into her own, as the gulf between her and Jimmy grew even wider. As Jimmy killed time working in a phone store while temporarily banned from practicing law, Kim worked, negotiated, and hustled her way to a dream job, basically cancelling out the plans that she and Jimmy had to work together. And yet she still found time to help Jimmy get back on his feet.

Better Call Saul is a show populated by gangsters, drug dealers, and money-hungry lawyers, and Seehorn’s sympathetic, captivating performance provides the show with a much-needed antidote. Sure, Kim is not above bending the rules, but always at the service of someone else, never for her own gain. While the Episode 9 showdown with Jimmy was filled with verbal fireworks, it was the final moments of Episode 10 that resonate most. As Kim realizes that Jimmy’s “performance” in the appeal to get his license back was built entirely on deception, her face falls from jubilation to a look of surprise, disappointment, and disgust. It’s no accident that the final shot in the entire season is not of Jimmy, but of Kim, standing betrayed and alone.–Dan Auty

Season 6 of Fortnite is coming to an end this week, which means Season 7 of the hit battle royale game is just around the corner. As it has done in the lead up to previous seasons, developer Epic has now shared the first teaser image for Season 7 on Twitter, confirming that the season will kick off later this week.

“A bitter ice spreads… 3 days to Season 7,” the official Fortnite Twitter account tweeted. That means that the new season is set to begin this Thursday, December 6–the same day that Season 6 formally ends. That’s a much shorter gap between seasons than usual; typically, there would be at least a day or two between when one season ended and the next one began, as was the case with Season 6.

The tweet also seems to confirm that Season 7 will have some sort of winter theme, as players had speculated. The accompanying teaser image further reinforces this, as it features a mysterious icy silhouette of what will presumably be one of the new skins coming to the game. If that wasn’t enough, the right side of the image also features a character skiing or snowboarding down a slope.

Players first began speculating that Season 7 would be winter themed when they noticed distant clouds appear in the ocean surrounding the island. Since then, there have been other subtle indications that the temperature on the island is dropping, and players have discovered that the aforementioned clouds are actually shrouding an iceberg that is slowly approaching.

What all this means for Season 7 remains to be seen, but we won’t have to wait too long to find out. In the meantime, you still have a few more days to complete any remaining Season 6 challenges and unlock the last Season 6 Battle Pass rewards. If you need a helping hand, you can find tips for the trickier missions in our complete Season 6 challenges guide.