Month: January 2020

The next big thing in Destiny 2‘s Season of Dawn is coming with its weekly reset on Tuesday, February 4: The Empyrean Foundation. It’s another step in the ongoing story surrounding Osiris’s Sundial, the rescue of Saint-14, and stopping the Cabal from using time travel to mess with the solar system–and you can get ready for it right now.

As Bungie detailed in its This Week At Bungie blog post, the Empyrean Foundation will be a community-wide event to which all Guardians can contribute. Unlike other parts of the Season of Dawn, this will be an event everyone can participate in, whether you’ve purchased the season pass for this season or are using the free-to-play version of the game.

The Empyrean Foundation will find Saint-14 asking players to donate Polarized Fractaline to the cause of building a beacon that can help draw new people to the Last Safe City, the center of life for Destiny 2’s good guys. You earn Polarized Fractaline by completing the Sundial activity, running various activities throughout the solar system, and completing bounties from Saint-14 and the four Sundial Obelisks scattered on different planets. To prepare for the event, you’re going to want to spend Fractaline to upgrade your Obelisks as much as you can (all their benefits unlock fully at Level 11, so that’s probably a good bar to shoot for), and then bank up Polarized Fractaline to donate to Saint’s cause.

According to Bungie, you earn a new emblem and a Triumph for donating more than 5,000 Polarized Fractaline, which you can earn right now. You’ll likely need to donate the 5,000 Fractaline to unlock this season’s Triumph Seal, so it’s a good idea to stockpile it early if you can. You’ll also get free Fractaline from the Tower Obelisk depending on its Resonance Power (read: how much you’ve upgraded the other Obelisks), which should make earning it a little easier.

As the community donates more Fractaline, everyone will earn shaders. There are seven levels to hit in total, with a new shader for each one, but Bungie hasn’t fully detailed them. Here’s the list as it appears right now:

• Stage 1: 400,000,000
• Stage 2: 700,000,000
• Stage 3: 1,200,000,000
• Stage 4: ???
• Stage 5: ???
• Stage 6: ???
• Stage 7: ???

If you need other stuff to do in Destiny 2 while you wait for the Empyrean Foundation, you can use our Bastion guide to unlock the game’s latest Exotic weapon, a Kinetic fusion rifle that once belonged to Saint-14. And if you missed the community’s last big effort, the Corridors of Time, you can check out our Corridors guide to see what it was all about, and read how its changes to Destiny 2’s storytelling made it especially cool.

February 27 marks the anniversary of Pokemon Red and Green‘s release in Japan, and The Pokemon Company is once again commemorating the occasion with a big reveal. Last year, the series’ latest installments, Sword and Shield, were officially unveiled on Pokemon Day, and this year, we’ll get our first look at a brand-new Pokemon for the games.

Serebii reports that The Pokemon Company will unveil a brand-new Mythical Pokemon on February 27. This special monster will appear in Sword and Shield as well as the upcoming Pokemon film, titled Pokemon the Movie: Coco. Additionally, the company will kick off a new Max Raid event in Sword and Shield that day, as well as a special event in Pokemon Go.

No further information about the new Pokemon has been revealed so far, but Serebii notes that the monster is separate from Urshifu and Calyrex, the two new Legendaries being introduced in Sword and Shield’s Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra expansions. Those are slated to launch this June and fall, respectively.

In the meantime, a new Max Raid event is now underway in Sword and Shield. While Gigantamax Alcremie spawn rates have returned to normal, you are now more likely to encounter its pre-evolved form, Milcery, in Max Raids until February 16. Many of these Milcery will be able to Gigantamax when they evolve. Additionally, you can receive Ribbon and Star Sweets as rewards for completing Milcery Raids, allowing you to evolve the Pokemon into new variants.

A new freebie for the games is also available now. You can claim 10 free Heal Balls via Mystery Gift until March 31. To receive the balls, select Mystery Gift from your game’s menu and enter the code G1GAGRANF1NALE. You can see all the other Pokemon Sword and Shield freebies up for grabs right now in our roundup.

Update version 1.10 is now live for Death Stranding on PlayStation 4. The latest patch adds some vague performance improvements and finally lets you disable one of the game’s most irritating features.

If you hop into the game settings on Death Stranding’s title screen, you’ll now find a new toggle for the BT Encounter Warning. This warning would previously happen every time you encountered a BT-infested area, forcing you to watch an unskippable cutscene of Sam Bridges’ Odradek springing into action. The new toggle lets you choose whether this extended warning continues to appear each time you encounter BTs, or if it only occurs the first time you come face-to-face with the game’s spectral enemies.

It’s a welcome quality-of-life addition, particularly for those travelling via roads where BTs aren’t usually a threat. Watching your vehicle come to a screeching halt just to watch a cutscene playout for the umpteenth time was beyond frustrating.

Death Stranding is currently available only on PS4, but a PC release is scheduled to appear in Summer 2020.

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Final Fantasy 7 launched 23 years ago today, January 31. To mark the occasion, Square Enix released a new trailer for its upcoming FF7 Remake for PS4, featuring the theme song, more battle footage, and a ton of familiar characters we haven’t seen shown in the remake yet.

The theme song is called “Hollow,” and it was composed by Nobuo Uematsu. It’s playing in the background of most of the trailer, so you can only catch it in snippets in between the action. Fortunately the action itself is pretty exciting for Final Fantasy fans, as it provides our first official look at iconic characters like Red-XIII.

The trailer also spends a significant amount of time introducing various members of the Shinra organization, including Scarlet, Reeve, and Palmer. In addition, we get an extended view of some new fight scenes, and a lot more detail about Cloud’s cross-dressing adventure at the Honey Bee Inn. Some of these new tidbits were known via a prior leak.

The FF7 Remake was recently delayed to April 10, from its original release date of March 3. The studio said at the time it was to get a few extra weeks so it could “deliver you with the best possible experience.” In the meantime, Square Enix is capitalizing on the fans’ love of the classic with merch like a pricey watch. For more details, check out our FF7 Remake pre-order guide.

The Animal Crossing: New Horizons-themed Switch console is almost too cute. As an owner of a launch model Switch, I’m trying to talk myself into buying it. Mainly I want one for the wonderful design, but the practical reason I’m trying to use is that it’s the updated model with better battery life. But $300 is a lot to ask for a console you already have. Luckily, Nintendo is selling the special edition Switch dock and Joy-Cons separately. Sadly, both accessories are only confirmed for release in Japan at this time.

Both the Joy-Cons and the dock release March 20–a week after the console releases–and will be available to pre-order from My Nintendo Store starting February 8. The Joy-Cons cost roughly $75, and the dock costs about $60.

Unfortunately, Nintendo Japan only delivers domestically, so hopefully a store that ships internationally, such as Play Asia, will carry them as well. Of course, it’d be ideal if Nintendo just releases both the Joy-Cons and the dock in the US.

Animal Crossing fans in the US will be able to get their hands on at least a few official accessories. Nintendo announced the New Horizons Aloha Edition carrying case alongside the console. It’ll be available for both the Switch and Switch Lite, but pre-orders aren’t available just yet. You can also grab a pair of Power A Animal Crossing-themed wireless controllers. If you still need to pre-order your copy of the game, our New Horizons pre-order guide outlines all of the bonuses you can get at various retailers.