Disney’s $71.3 billion acquisition of News Corp.’s 21st Century Fox film assets will make it the most powerful movie studio ever, but it’s also causing a lot of people to lose their jobs.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, “analysts say that by the time the dust settles, 4,000 of the jobs the conglomerate provides could be lost. Disney-skeptic analyst Rich Greenfield of BTIG even put the number at 5,000 to 10,000 over a longer time frame.”
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If you haven’t watched Season 1 of Titans through DC Universe in the US or on Netflix internationally (although if you’re a comic book fan, here’s why we think a DC Universe subscription is worth it following the company’s most recent update), you now have a new way to catch up with the flagship show from DC’s streaming service – Titans Season 1 is now available for digital purchase through online retailers for $24.99.
Marvel Studios has revealed the plot synopsis for Avengers: Endgame, and while it may seem to tell us information we already knew, certain word choices actually allude to some key plot points concerning big deaths and a rematch with a certain purple titan.
Warning: we’re about to read way too much into this plot synopsis!
The plot synopsis reads, “The grave course of events set in motion by Thanos that wiped out half the universe and fractured the Avengers ranks compels the remaining Avengers to take one final stand in Marvel Studios’ grand conclusion to twenty-two films, Avengers: Endgame.”
Emilia Clarke, best known for portraying Daenerys Targaryen, survived two rounds of brain surgeries while filming the early seasons of Game of Thrones.
Clarke revealed this information in a personal essay published by The New Yorker, where she described the events that could have ended her life. After filming of the first season of Game of Thrones, Clarke was exercising at a gym when she suddenly became ill.
“I reached the toilet, sank to my knees, and proceeded to be violently, voluminously ill,” said Clarke. “Meanwhile, the pain—shooting, stabbing, constricting pain—was getting worse. At some level, I knew what was happening: my brain was damaged… To keep my memory alive, I tried to recall, among other things, some lines from Game of Thrones.”
The Mortal Kombat 11 closed beta starts on Wednesday, March 27 at 8 AM PT in North America till Sunday, March 31 at 11:59 PM PT. Players who pre-order Mortal Kombat 11 on Playstation and Xbox will receive access to the Beta. During the beta, you’ll be able to participate in Online multiplayer matches and a single player mode called Towers of Time. Just recently, Kotal Kahn was announced as a playable character. Mortal Kombat 11 arrives April 23 for PlayStation, Xbox, PC and Nintendo Switch.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is full of tough enemies, like all of From Software’s titles. Fighting them requires quick reflexes as you block and deflect attacks while looking for an opening to strike back. But some enemies can be dealt with in more creative ways than just hacking away at them with your sword. As you work your way through Sekiro, you’ll also find additional weapons that often give you quick access to various baddies’ weaknesses.
These weapons get added to the Shinobi Prosthetic, the special prosthetic left arm that allows you to do all kinds of things in Sekiro, including grapple up onto buildings and trees. But in order to use the tools for the Shinobi Prosthetic, you’ll have to find them. There are a bunch, and they’re usually scattered throughout the game world. Some you can buy, some you’ll earn from boss fights, and some you’ll have to locate by exploring as you go.
There are three prosthetics early in Sekiro that are extremely easy to miss, but if you have them, they can make the game’s first few hours a whole lot easier. The Firecrackers, Shinobi Axe, and Flame Vent can give you the edge against a variety of different enemies, including a few tough early bosses. If you don’t know where to look for them, you can walk right past them, though–and that can make your first few hours in Sekiro a lot more trying.
Here’s where you need to go to find each of these three key prosthetics within the first few areas of the game, and what they’re useful for. Don’t sleep on these Shinobi Prosthetics, or you’re going to make the beginnings of Sekiro much tougher.
While you’re learning Sekiro’s early game, you’ll wan to read up on how death works. You may also want to check out our Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice review as well.
The Firecracker prosthetic is pretty handy in a lot of cases, most specifically against animals. You can use it to distract enemies and knock them out of attack animations, while also opening them up to attack while they’re momentarily stunned. Try firecrackers against the Blazing Bull and Gyoubu, the horseback general. You’ll need 500 Sen to snag the Firecracker, so you’ll want to save those coin purses you find in the first area of the game so you can snag it.
You’ll need to find a specific merchant to snag the Firecracker. He’s located in the Outskirts Wall — Gate Path area, near the stairs that lead to the Idol for the Outskirts Wall — Stairway area. Just past where you meet the woman who thinks you’re her son, you’ll see a gate and a stairway just beyond. At the top of the stairs is a guy who will spot you from a distance and shoot cannonballs at you. Instead of heading toward him, look to your left for a place where you can grapple up.
You’re now at the base of a stone tower. Look for more grapple points above you until you reach the top. There you’ll find a Merchant Mob tent and a guy inside. He’ll sell you Robert’s Firecrackers, which can be fitted into your prosthetic by the Sculptor back at the Dilapidated Temple.
The Flame Vent is really easy to miss, but pretty essential against certain enemy types. You’ll occasionally run across red-eyed berserker enemies that’ll come hard for you and who won’t be staggered by your attacks or deflections. The red-eyed enemies are afraid of fire, though–it doesn’t do extra damage, but it will cause them to recoil and break some of their attack animations, giving you some breathing room. Fire attacks also can inflict burn damage on enemies over time.
The Flame Vent is located in the Hirata Estate area that’s accessible from the Dilapidated Temple. You’ll first need to talk with the woman in the destroyed house in Ashina Outskirts. Let her think you’re her son and she’ll give you a bell as an offering to Buddha. Take that back to the Sculptor in the Dilapidated Temple and he’ll tell you to offer it to the Buddha sculpture beside him. When you do that, it’ll take you back in time to Hirata Estate as it’s being attacked and burned by bandits.
Once you’re in the past, continue forward until you hit the Estate Path area. From the Idol Statue, you’ll see a road ahead of you that terminates in a closed gate. To get around it, you’ll need to jump the wall to the right and enter an area of small huts. You’ll first pass a courtyard with three enemies in it, then hop another wall into an area with a row of huts where enemies are patrolling. There’s also an archer on one of the rooftops ahead and to the left when you first enter this section.
If you push to the back end of this area, you’ll find several enemies standing around a small campfire near one of the huts. Take them out, then check the campfire itself to discover the prosthetic hidden among the flames.
One of the more powerful, harder-hitting prosthetics is the axe, and you’ll want it for dealing with those annoying guys carrying wooden shields and the small assassins with the big hats. Swinging the axe at those guys smashes their defenses instantly, allowing you to go in for deathblows. You can also use it to send enemies reeling with it, which makes it handy in a lot of fights.
The axe is easy to miss, but it’s right after you find the Flame Vent. Again, head into the past using the bell you get from the woman in Ashina Outskirts and head to the Estate Path area. From the Idol Statue, head over the wall to the right and through the area with the rows of huts and the patrolling enemies. Past the campfire where several enemies sit and you found the Flame Vent, you’ll find a path that leads up some stairs. This road takes you behind the closed gate you saw previously, and you’ll find a hurt Samurai who will tell you to find the Shinobi Axe in a nearby shrine.
When you get back on the main path, you’ll see two enemies to your right standing in front of a closed gate. Instead, turn the other way, so you’re headed back toward the closed gate. Hop up on the wall to your left and you should see two men standing in front of a small building. You can eavesdrop on them to hear them talking about deciding not to burn the shrine. Kill them and open it up to find the Shinobi Axe inside.
Triple H is a 14-time world champion and one WWE’s most successful and well-known superstars. But you wouldn’t know it from his Wrestlemania win/loss record. In 22 matches, Triple H has racked up 9 wins and 13 losses.
That’s because for the majority of his career, Triple H was the biggest, most dominant villain in the WWE. And when Triple H loses at Wrestlemania, it’s usually to give the fans a “happy ending,” after months of disappointment and frustration at the hands of a nefarious heel. Triple H dominates, cheats, and manipulates his way to victory 11 months out of the year. But at Wrestlemania? He’s at his most vulnerable, and the crowd is all the more wild for it.
This is also why his entrances are invariably grand, high-budget spectacles. The more mighty and monstrous Triple H looks, the bigger the accomplishment is when he’s taken down. Here are all 22 of Triple H’s Wrestlemania entrances, ranked from worst to best. If you liked this gallery, check out our countdown of the best Undertaker entrances. And keep track of our ongoing coverage of Wrestlemania 35 on April 7. We’ll be covering the Showcase of the Immortals extensively over the next several weeks.
It’s taken 13 years, but the Deadwood movie, which continues the story of the HBO series that ended in 2006, is finally ready to show itself to the world. HBO has announced that the film will premiere on the network on May 31 and released the first teaser trailer, giving fans a small taste of what to expect.
The movie returns to the town of Deadwood as South Dakota celebrates its statehood in 1889. The plot synopsis from HBO reads, “Former rivalries are reignited, alliances are tested and old wounds reopened as all are left to navigate the inevitable changes that modernity and time have wrought.”
Perhaps most exciting is practically the entire cast is returning for the project, including Ian McShane, Timothy Olyphant, Molly Parker, Paula Malcomson, John Hawkes, Anna Gunn, Dayton Callie, Brad Dourif, Robin Weigert, William Sanderson, Kim Dickens, Gerald McRaney, Sean Bridgers, W. Earl Brown, and Keone Young. Additionally, Jade Pettyjohn (The Last Ship) is joining the ensemble. They have joined forces once more with series creator David Milch, who wrote the film, and director Daniel Minahan, who helmed episodes of the series, as well as installments of Game of Thrones, Grey’s Anatomy, and American Crime Story.
It was less than a year ago that HBO programming president Casey Bloys confirmed that the film was actually coming to the network. At the time, corporate communications chief Quentin Schaffer joking, “We’ve been asked the Deadwood question for 11 consecutive years.” Now the answer is set in stone.
Deadwood: The Movie premieres on HBO on May 31.
Epic Games disrupted the industry when it unveiled the Epic Games Store, a distribution platform similar to Valve’s Steam, late last year. Since then, we’ve seen a number of exclusive game releases on the Epic Games Store, skipping Steam at least for the time being. While Epic has a lot of catching up to do in terms of feature set, CEO Tim Sweeney has declared its stance on allowing “crappy” games onto the platform.
In an interview with PC Gamer, Sweeney said the Epic Games Store won’t distribute low-qualiy games, although it’s unclear how that quality will be determined. The Epic Games Store will have a vetting process to ensure only “reasonably good quality games, of any scale, whether small indie games to huge triple-A games” make the cut. “We’ll have a quality standard that doesn’t accept crappy games,” Sweeney said. “We’ll take everything up to, like, an R-rated movie or an M-rated game.”
Sweeney implied that its “quality standard” won’t gatekeep developers from experimenting with the Unreal Engine. “The side of Epic that makes creative tools like the Unreal Engine available to everybody says that you can use our tools for creating anything that’s legal,” Sweeney said. “And we have no creative say in it–we can’t veto, whether we find it controversial or tasteful or not.” However, Sweeney added, “We’ll be aware of the quality of what’s submitted prior to making a decision to list it in the store–somehow.”
This is in stark contrast to Steam’s policies, which allows a wider range of games on the service. The Epic Games Store, according to Sweeney, won’t be a home for “porn games or bloatware or asset flips, or any sort of thing that’s meant to shock players. The PC’s an open platform and if we don’t distribute it in our store you can still reach consumers directly.” We’ll have to wait and see if Sweeney and the team behind the Epic Games Store make good on those commitments.
The Epic Games Store launched in December 2018. Since then, a host of titles–from Metro Exodus to Tom Clancy’s The Division 2–have released exclusively through the platform. In an effort to brand itself, the Epic Games Store has released a free game every two weeks. The latest offering, Oxenfree, is available now.
Death is an old friend to fans of From Software’s Bloodborne and Dark Souls games, as the Soulsborne titles all implement mechanics and features that relate to dying. From Software’s newest game, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, is no different. However, death works a little bit differently in Sekiro.
In the following guide, we go over all the ways that death impacts your journey in Sekiro. Whether you want to know when the best time to use the revive mechanic is or how to deal with the effects of Dragonrot, read ahead to learn more.
Sekiro is available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. If you’re still on the fence about whether you want to buy the game, read our review-in-progress. In it, Tamoor Hussain gives the game a 9/10, writing, “Sekiro marries From Software’s unique brand of gameplay with stealth action to deliver an experience that is as challenging as it is gratifying.”
First and foremost, you need to treat death in Sekiro differently than what you may have experienced playing Darks Souls or Bloodborne. When it comes to death, the only similarity Sekiro shares with From Software’s previous titles is that its world is filled with innumerable ways to kill your character.
Upon death, your character, Wolf, loses some of his experience and half of the in-game currency in his possession. The former is used to upgrade Wolf’s abilities and unlock new moves, while the latter allows you to purchase items. You cannot recover what you’ve lost upon death, so it’s in your best interest to flee from fights you think you can’t win. To counter this, Wolf has the ability to receive Unseen Aid–providing a chance to keep your experience and coin upon death. You can see your probability of receiving Unseen Aid–which will decrease if Dragonrot has begun to spread–by either pausing the game or resting at an idol.
Speaking of Dragonrot, this deadly disease is also closely tied to death in Sekiro. Pretty much anyone Wolf meets and interacts with has the potential of contracting Dragonrot, which causes them to suffer violent coughing fits. The game will inform you whenever someone contracts the disease.
The more you die in Sekiro, the more the Dragonrot disease spreads. Die only a few times in your playthrough and only a couple of individuals will catch it. However, if Wolf falls in battle many times–which is much more likely as Sekiro is a very difficult game–then eventually everyone he knows will begin coughing. As stated before, you do not want this. With every character that contracts Dragonrot, Wolf’s possibility of receiving Unseen Aid diminishes. That’s not all, though. You won’t be able to complete questlines for characters who’ve caught the disease, as their coughing fits don’t allow them to properly answer you when you try to talk to them. Some of these questlines unlock new skills and prosthetic upgrades that help with the minibosses and bosses in the main story, so doing them is in your best interest.
Thankfully, Dragonrot isn’t fatal (or at least as far as we can tell), and there’s a cure. So you shouldn’t lose anyone and their respective side quests to the disease while you’re busy collecting the ingredients to make medicine.
In order to first discover the cure, you’ll need The Sculptor to fall ill to the Dragonrot. You’ll know when it happens because you’ll get a cutscene that highlights how sick he’s becoming. Go outside and talk to Emma about it and she’ll give you a quest for a cure. You just need to bring her the blood of someone else who has Dragonrot. When you get the notification that someone else is sick, go and talk to them. They’ll cough up some blood that you can take back to Emma. She’ll use the blood to synthesize a cure, called a Dragon Tear. Using the tear at an idol cures everyone plagued by the Dragonrot. However, if you die enough times, the disease will begin to spread once again. You’ll need to buy more Dragon Tears from specific merchants in order to cure the rot again. As far as we can tell, there isn’t an infinite amount to purchase, so save those tears for when you really need them.
Despite Sekiro’s title, you can actually die up to three times on one life. In the bottom left corner of the screen, you’ll notice two pinkish red orbs. They represent how many times you can revive. The first orb is filled by resting at an idol, and the second is filled by executing enemies with death blows.
When you die, you’ll have the choice of accepting death or reviving yourself. Choosing to revive uses your first orb and puts a black smear through the second. You’ll need to land a deathblow to remove the smear. Doing so allows you to revive a second time upon dying again.
You’ll need to be strategic about reviving a second time though. Remember, your second orb is filled through landing deathblows on enemies. So if you use your second orb during a boss fight and then die a third time, you’ll have to go out and farm enemies to recover a second revive for fighting the boss again. If you don’t think you have the necessary upgrades to beat the boss you’re currently fighting, you might want to just let the Wolf die and save your second revive for another run at the boss.