Manufacturers have been able to cram more impressive hardware into gaming laptops over the years, and MSI’s latest devicelatest device–revealed at CES 2021–continues that trend. Having shaved more micro-inches off of its chassis, the Stealth 15M is the world’s thinnest portable gaming PC with a 15-inch screen.
With a height of 0.63 inches high when closed, the MSI Stealth 15M is slightly slimmer than similar products on the market such as the Razer Blade 15 laptop, the Lenovo Legion 7 Slim, or Alienware’s M15.
MSI Stealth 15M
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Ultra-thin gaming laptops usually require some serious concessions in order to be shrunk down to that size, but the Stealth 15M still packs some impressive hardware inside of its aluminum frame. The recently-revealed Intel H35 Tiger Lake CPU Core i7-11375 CPU, 16GB RAM, a 512GB SSD, and an RTX 3060 laptop GPU are all part of the package, which also includes a 1920×1080 IPS display that has a refresh rate of 144Hz.
For input options, there’s a Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port, a normal USB-C port, two USB-A ports, and an HDMI output in case you want to play your games on a television screen.
Pricing starts at $1399, with the MSI Stealth 15M being available in either Carbon Grey or Pure White color schemes.
This review contains spoilers for Marvel’s WandaVision episodes 1 and 2. For a spoiler-free look at the show, please take a look at our WandaVision preview.
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Was a scene featuring Vision singing a rendition of The Coasters’ “Yakety Yak” on your MCU wish list? Almost certainly not. But the two-part premiere of WandaVision effortlessly proves why it should have been. Marvel’s first attempt at a sitcom is a delight, and much of that success is down to Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen’s wonderful handling of its vintage-styled script.
Right out the gate, WandaVision makes it clear that the show is a sitcom. Yes, there’s also the tantalising mystery that SWORD may possibly be pulling the strings (more on that later), but the majority of WandaVision’s run time – at least in these two episodes – is dedicated to situational comedy. Writers Jac Schaeffer and Gretchen Enders provide some fantastic gags, despite working in what can sometimes feel like antiquated parameters due to the slavish replication of the 1950s and ‘60s settings. Vision’s joke about chewing gum being for mastication, for example, had me howling, both at the wordplay and the old-school response from his friends. The ‘drunken’ robot performance that follows this, combined with the authentic Hanna-Barbera-style animations, only escalates the humour. Who’d have thought the ethereal Paul Bettany from the Avengers could be such a natural comedian?
Of the two episodes, the second is distinctly the funniest, as it spins fewer plates than the opening half-hour, and thus can dedicate more of itself to Wanda and Vision’s talent show ordeal. In contrast, the ‘50s-set first scenario, in addition to being a loving homage to classics like I Love Lucy, does a lot of heavy lifting to get the show’s rather meta concept off the ground. Through the use of a delightful theme tune and self-aware title cards that use the characters’ names rather than their actors, it firmly establishes the show’s false reality, generating a sense of unease around the vintage styling. The pair’s confusion about the August 23 calendar date helps provide further fuel for the mystery, while also doubling as a pretty typical sitcom plot to deliver the homage. That so many elements in this first half-hour are able to work on both the in-show universe and meta levels is quite a feat of writing. Perhaps the best example of this is Wanda’s comment on Vision’s indestructible head, which works as a cute housewife quip while also acting as dark dramatic irony, since we as viewers know that his head was torn apart by Thanos in Infinity War.
While I do genuinely like the sitcom elements and admire the show’s dedication to this unlikely format, the darker side of WandaVision is the thing that really pulls me through this opening act. Of particular note are the visual techniques the show uses to deal with this, such as splashes of bright red colour injected into the monochrome palette. This is rather striking when Dottie cuts her hand on broken glass, and her response is muted enough to maintain the mystery as to whether the people of Westview are in on the secret or not. The best example, however, comes in episode one, when Fred Melamed’s Mr. Hart begins to choke on his food. Director Matt Shakman switches from a classic multi-camera sitcom set-up to a more dramatic single-camera format, bringing the lens right to the dinner table and performing slow, ominous zooms. It’s a fascinating way to break the fourth wall that’s practically Lynchian in design, and serves as a promise that the show is much darker than much of its twee material would suggest.
At this stage though, that’s largely what it is: a promise. Because for as enjoyable and mysterious as this two-part premiere is, it does feel all set-up and very little in the form of plot development. This would feel less of a quibble if this premiere was not two distinct episodes, and was instead a single hour-long introduction. But as it stands, the second episode – while more amusing and more confident – treads almost identical ground to the first. The meta-level reveals present minimal advancement on episode one’s mystery cliffhanger, and so it does feel almost as if the show has stalled for a beat. We can only hope that this is a design decision to ensure the audience is comfortable with the high-concept premise (which, admittedly, may require some bedding in for more casual viewers). The slow advancement of the more traditional MCU elements does provide space to introduce Wanda’s pregnancy, though, an event that seems to indicate we should invest in the sitcom itself, rather than pin all expectations on the underlying mystery to propel the show’s plot.
But what a mystery that is! At the end of episode one we’re presented with a mysterious observer watching WandaVision, surrounded by equipment displaying the SWORD logo. Seemingly teased for inclusion in the MCU at the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home, the Sentient World Observation and Response Department (or whatever it stands for in the MCU) is one of Marvel’s key organisations in the comic books, and essentially operates as a cosmic counterpart to SHIELD. Quite exactly how that relates to Wanda and Vision is nowhere close to clear right now, least of all because neither characters come under the organisation’s typical jurisdiction in the comics. Furthermore, the presentation of SWORD so far depicts them in a much more sinister fashion that the comics, especially the agent surrounded by… bees? Does SWORD have a bee division now?
Additionally, while Wanda does appear to be trapped in a sweet television nightmare that reunites her with Vision, it does seem as if she has some control over this reality, as highlighted by her ability to rewind the SWORD agent and add colour to the world. Is Wanda imprisoned, or is this a world of her own making? WandaVision may be keeping its cards held tight to its chest right now, but it has certainly provided enough mystery fuel to keep us engaged.
As the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to grow and evolve, it gets harder and harder to find direct correlations between the shows and movies, and the comics that inspire them–and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. One of the strongest and most interesting things the MCU has brought to the table over the last decade is its twists on comic book storylines that ought to be very old hat to certain fans. From the early days of Iron Man 3’s surprise Mandarin fake-out to the completely unique take on the Civil War storyline, the MCU’s tendency to remix source material shows absolutely no signs of going away or slowing down any time soon.
This presents us with an interesting challenge for a show like WandaVision, however–not only is it the first Disney+ streaming MCU show and the first official entry into the much-delayed Phase 4, it’s also the first of its kind in a purely narrative sense. Put simply, we have absolutely no idea what’s going on here, why it’s happening, how it’s happening, or what it means for anything–even after the debut of the first two episodes, we’ve been left with more questions than ever and no answers for any of them. So, we’re left to return to our tried and true roots: wild speculation and theories.
And, for the MCU, the best place to start brewing these sorts of hypotheses is the comics–even if that means bringing an innate understanding that we’re definitely not going to be dealing with a one-to-one conversion from page to screen.
The Low Hanging Fruit: Vision and House of M
Early on during the WandaVision press cycle, when concept images and vague premises were all that were available, there were two books that fans continued to reference time and time again when trying to get a grasp on what they might be in for: Tom King and Gabriel Walta’s 12-issue limited series simply called Vision, and the 8-issue miniseries House of M by Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel. It’s pretty obvious why that is when you take one look at them both.
In House of M, Wanda’s reality-warping powers spiral out of control and create an alternate reality where Magneto and his extended family rule mutant kind. It’s one in a long line of stories dealing with the “threat” of having a person like Wanda lose control–and it generally meets the concept of a surreal-yet-familiar alternate dimension where (almost) no one seems to know or remember that they’re not living in the “real world” head on.
However, looking at the first two episodes of WandaVision a bit closer make the House of M parallels a bit harder to pick out–aside from the fact that it is most certainly not the “real” world, there’s very little to establish that Wanda herself is generating it. After all, why would a Sokovian 20-something be this deeply invested in a spot-on recreation of American pop culture tropes that predate her own birth by decades? And why would there be a disembodied voice asking her to explain who is “doing this” to her?
Of course, elements of House of M could be borrowed and repurposed as the MCU is wont to do–but there might be a more streamlined inspirational link to the comics that would require a bit less retrofitting. More on this in a second.
For Vision, not only is it the most recent Vision solo series Marvel’s put out, it literally deals with Vision settling down into a quietly surreal suburban life, trying to blend in like a normal human with a normal human family.
The family in this case is a group of synthezoid robots he’s created, of course, complete with a green, artificial dog–and the dream of suburban bliss obviously doesn’t last long–but the aesthetic sensibilities are all still there, on the surface. It’s just that, in Vision the series, Vision and his fake family aren’t living through any sort of alternate reality or retro-future. They’re also not directly involved with Wanda herself (though she does play a major role in the story later on).
So, while the stylistic elements and some themes from Vision are likely to crop up in WandaVision, it’s unlikely that it’s the book to look at in terms of actually cracking the case–after all, WandaVision’s story seems to be literally occurring in a sitcom-inspired version of the past, right down to the costumes and the dialogue. This isn’t a show about Wanda and Vision escaping the superhero life to go live in a quaint little neighborhood outside of Washington DC–there’s something much more insidious (and likely supernatural, or technological) at play.
Thankfully, this is a premise that isn’t entirely foreign in recent Marvel history–if you know where to look.
The Dark Horse: Avengers: Standoff
On the surface, the Avengers: Standoff doesn’t seem like a very viable candidate to inspire a show about Wanda or Vision–neither of them are featured players in the event. It revolves almost exclusively around Captain America-adjacent heroes like Bucky Barnes and B and C list villains pulled from various Thunderbolts rosters, but hear me out for a second.
The premise of Avengers: Standoff is (relatively) simple. It revolves around SHIELD’s Maria Hill, functioning as Director, using a Cosmic Cube project to create a sort of “alternate reality” prison for villains called Pleasant Hill. Using the Cosmic Cube (made sentient and turned into a child named Kobik) Hill was able to functionally re-write the memories, appearances, and personal histories of anyone she saw fit, placing them into a constructed, idyllic town where they could go about their daily lives believing themselves to be just regular, everyday citizens.
Of course, they couldn’t leave Pleasant Hill and the Truman Show-style theatricality of it wasn’t always perfect–but it largely did the job, at least until people started to realize just how well and truly insidious the whole thing was while some of Pleasant Hill’s most “clever” (read: evil) residents began to wake up and understand something was very, very wrong with their reality.
So what does this have to do with WandaVision? Well, possibly nothing–the MCU’s version of the Cosmic Cube, the Tesseract, is one of the Infinity Stones and doesn’t function the same way it does in the comics. It’s very unlikely that a character like Kobik is going to make a big screen debut, and it’s similarly unlikely that Maria Hill is going to get such a dramatic heel turn any time soon–especially with Nick Fury still around.
However.
We can intuit from the first two episodes of WandaVision that someone is “doing” something to Wanda–“who’s doing this to you?” is a question that seems to disrupt this strange version of reality over and over again. And it doesn’t take a genius to realize that there’s something out of sorts with everything else about Westview, and we know from the end of episode 1 that someone working with the organization SWORD is surveilling Wanda and Vision by “watching” their “TV show.”
It’s impossible to tell whether or not SWORD is behind the strange break in reality or if they’re trying to solve it, not to mention whether Wanda is a victim, like the question “who’s doing this to you?” seems to imply, or the source of Westview all together. But if we look at Avengers: Standoff as a possible blueprint, and fudge some of the more nitpicky details–say, adjusting SHIELD and Maria Hill for either SWORD or HYDRA (both seem to have a presence in this reality one way or another) and Kobik’s reality-warping abilities for Wanda and her own–we might just be on to something.
After all, in Captain America: Civil War, the question as to whether or not someone as powerful as Wanda should be trusted to just roam the streets was posed and never directly answered–Thanos interrupted any possible resolution to that story with the snap. But now that the world is, presumably, returning to mostly normal, Wanda’s still an issue that needs to be dealt with. And if we reflect back to Wanda’s MCU origin in Age of Ultron, we can confirm that an organization like HYDRA is not only aware of her existence, but keenly aware of her abilities.
And what better way to imprison a person with functionally unlimited power than by making them believe they’re somewhere they actually want to be?
The bigger question becomes: If Westview is the MCU’s version of Pleasant Hill with a more villainous twist, are Wanda and Vision’s neighbors prisoners, too? What about Vision himself–is he simply a construct of whatever reality they’re living in, or was his consciousness somehow preserved after the events of Avengers: Infinity War? Or is there something even more devious going on under the surface?
HYDRA, SWORD, and Baron Strucker all have a place in the retro-sitcom surrealism of the MCU Phase 4’s first TV show.
After a full year of vacation from the MCU, Phase 4 is finally here–and it’s really weird. WandaVision, the first Marvel TV show to hit the Disney+ streaming service, has dropped its first two episodes, introducing us to the inexplicably screwball, completely bizarre, undeniably retro world of, well, Wanda and Vision.
What the show doesn’t have, however, is much context. The first two episodes give us nothing in terms of answers for how either of them wound up in this place, why Vision is alive, what’s real and what’s fake, or what it all means in the bigger picture. These are pretty big questions to have hanging when you consider that, last we checked, Vision was dead and Wanda had just finished fighting Thanos.
Still, while we may be light on solutions to the show’s many mysteries, we do have an abundance of clues. From references and nods to real-life TV history that may or may not be setting the stage for a big reveal to call-backs to MCU lore you may have forgotten about entirely, WandaVision is jam-packed with breadcrumbs. Now we just have to figure out where they’re all leading.
What are your theories after the first two episodes? Share them in the comments below.
The Disneyland and Disney California Adventure theme parks in California remain closed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, once they open there will be a massive change at both parks: Disney has announced it’s ending its long-running annual pass program.
In an email sent to annual pass holders, Disneyland Resort president Ken Potrock said, “For nearly four decades, our Annual Passport program has been an important part of connecting with some of our most valued Guests. We are incredibly honored and grateful for that legacy, and the memories and magical moments you have helped us create over the years… I know that sunsetting the Annual Passport program will be disappointing to many of our Passholders who are just as anxious as we are to reopen our gates and welcome Guests back when the time is right.” The company also released a statement on Twitter, which you can see below.
Those who have active passes will receive refunds from the company and, according to Disney, there will be “membership offerings” announced at some point. It remains to be seen what those would entail.
This news comes as Disneyland has been closed for 10 months. The company’s parks at Florida’s Walt Disney World are open, though operating at reduced capacities. It’s not just the theme park restrictions that have financially impacted Disney during the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s also the long list of movies that have been delayed due to theaters being closed.
While there’s no telling when Disneyland will open again, the park’s parking lot is about to get pretty busy. It was recently announced the lot would become a site supplying the COVID-19 vaccine to local residents. It’s expected that the location will be able to administer thousands of vaccine doses each day, once up and running.
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In the age of social media, we get movie leaks from social media and forums. Matt Reeves’ The Batman is going for a decidedly old-school look, so it feels appropriate that we get our first official look at one of its main characters in an old-school way: on a soda label.
Spotted by BestProducts, The Riddler is getting his own flavor of Mountain Dew. This flavor actually surfaced a few months back, but quickly disappeared, as noted on the Mountain Dew wiki, which is a thing that exists. Back then, keen-eyed Redditors spotted the Riddler’s Brew along with a Catwoman-themed Mountain Dew Zero Sugar and a standard Mountain Dew with Batman on the label.
The drink is called Riddler’s Brew, and the label features a look at the villain, who looks much as he did in the first moments of the Batman teaser we got during DC Fandome earlier this year. The extra space around him is adorned with his favorite punctuation mark. We did get a clear look at him in the trailer, but this is the first official marrying of the goggled character and the Riddler name that we’re aware of.
Interestingly, this is not the first time that Batman and Mountain Dew have joined marketing forces, and it’s not the first time Batman has had a dark blue soda. Back in 2021, a Dark Berry flavor was released in partnership with The Dark Knight Rises, and was described as “Dew with a blast of mixed berry and other natural flavors.” The product shot obtained by BestProducts only describes Riddler’s Brew as having “natural and artificial flavors,” which is a description you can apply to every object that exists. If we were pressed, though, we’d bet that Mountain Dew is resurrecting its Dark Berry flavor for this product.
It is interesting, though, that Mountain Dew and Warner Bros. are matching the dark blue brew with the Riddler. The character’s association with the color green is beaten only by the Green Arrow and Green Lantern in DC comics. Dark blue is more Batman’s color, generally speaking.
There’s no word on when this will hit shelves, but we’re betting it’s going to be close to the March 4, 2022 debut of The Batman.
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Gearbox Software has released the full patch notes for the latest update for Borderlands 3, now live in the game. The update adds a new limited-time mini-event called Supercharged Crystals and makes a few in-game quality-of-life adjustments.
Supercharged Crystals ensures that all the crystals in the Takedown of the Guardian Breach, an optional endgame mission, do not lose their charge after you move away from them. Normally, these crystals lose their charge when no one is charging them–only maintaining their charge once you’ve capped them off–and if any become completely empty, then you have to restart from a checkpoint.
So basically, this mini-event ensures you can’t be wiped during the crystal charging parts of this Takedown, allowing you to more easily reach the next phase. For folks who haven’t managed to beat Takedown of the Guardian Breach, this mini-event is the ideal time to try again. Supercharged Crystals ends on January 21 at 9AM PT / 12PM ET.
For those who haven’t yet attempted Takedown of the Guardian Breach, it’s the second of Borderlands 3’s Takedowns, which is the loot shooter’s version of a super challenging multi-part raid. We recommend bringing along a full team of four players, and most (if not all) should be max level, have invested in their character’s ideal loadout, and possess some really good loot.
Beyond this mini-event, the new update makes some balancing adjustments to Borderlands 3 as well, which are detailed below.
Borderlands 3 January 14 Hotfix Gear Adjustments
Techspert Operative Class Mod
Increased the chance on kill to recharge SNTNL Cooldown and Duration from 15% to 35%
D.N.A.
Increased Weapon Damage, Magazine Size, Fire Rate, and Projectile Speed
Decreased Reload Time
Ripper
Increased weapon damage
SF Force
Increased weapon damage
Malak’s Bane
Increased weapon damage
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With the release of the Beyond Light expansion, Bungie removed several of Destiny 2‘s destinations. One of the major issues the game has faced since then, however, is that some of its remaining destinations aren’t really worth visiting thanks to changes to its weapons system. Luckily, the next season of Destiny 2 will see that changed, with Bungie reworking its loot system to make the Dreaming City and the Moon into places you’re going to want to go to shoot aliens.
Bungie ran down a bunch of changes to its loot system in its This Week at Bungie blog, detailing the changes it’ll make to two of its destinations, and the high-level activities you can complete there. As it stands right now, weapons and armor earned from the Dreaming City and the Moon have caps placed on their Power levels, the numbers that determine how strong those pieces of gear can be (and, when averaged with the rest of your gear, how strong your character is overall). Not too long ago, Bungie instituted a time-based system to cap the Power levels of weapons and armor, so that it can slowly phase out old gear in favor of new stuff. Since the loot from the Dreaming City is from the Forsaken expansion and the Moon loot is from the Shadowkeep expansion, it’s all old enough that it has reached its cap, thus making it effectively obsolete.
In its next content season, Bungie is tweaking rewards from those locations to make them viable again. Armor sets from the Dreaming City and the Moon are getting reissued, along with four guns from both locations. One of those guns at each location will only be accessible through dungeons, the Pit of Heresy and the Shattered Throne. Here’s the rundown of loot changes:
Season 13 Dreaming City and Moon Loot Changes
Reissued Dreaming City Reverie Dawn and Moon Dreambane armor.
These will also drop with high stats when earned in Shattered Throne or Pit of Heresy.
The final chest in Pit of Heresy will no longer drop a fully Masterworked Dreambane armor piece.
Instead, the Dreambane armor piece that drops will have 7 armor energy and is guaranteed to drop with at least a +16 in two different stats and higher stats overall.
Dreambane class items will not drop from this chest.
Reissued 4 weapons for Dreaming City with new Perk Pools.
Waking Vigil, Sleepless, Vouchsafe, and Retold Tale.
Dreaming City weapons that drop in the Shattered Throne dungeon can roll with perks that are unavailable from drops from other reward sources.
Reissued 4 weapons for the Moon with new Perk Pools.
Premonition (Pit of Heresy only), Heretic, Blasphemer, and Apostate.
Weapons that drop in the Pit of Heresy dungeon can roll with perks that are unavailable from drops from other reward sources.
Expanding Lost Sector Legend and Master rotation to 4 Moon Sectors.
K1 Logistics, K1 Communication, K1 Crew Quarters, and K1 Revelation.
We’re also going to see rewards change for the Strike, Gambit, and Crucible playlists (what Bungie calls “ritual” activities) in Season 13. Bungie is changing how the reputation system works with those vendors, so that as you turn in the “tokens” you earn for completing activities, you’ll increase your reputation with each specific vendor. You’ll still get the Ritual Engram you would earn for increasing your rank as you do right now, but ranking up will lead to additional specific rewards as well:
Ritual Activity Reputation Rewards
Rank 4: 3x Upgrade Modules
Rank 7: 3x Enhancement Cores
Rank 10: Seasonal Ritual Shader (changes to 3x Enhancement Cores after resetting your rank)
Rank 13: 2x Enhancement Prisms
Rank 16: Seasonal Ritual Emblem (changes to 2x Enhancement Prisms after resetting your rank)
Reset Reward: Ascendant Shard (changes to Exotic Engram after resetting your rank)
We’ll also see more ritual-specific guns in Season 13. Right now, there’s one gun in each activity that can’t be earned anywhere else, but Bungie is doubling that number, so you’ll have two unique guns to find from doing Strikes, two from completing Crucible matches, and two from Gambit matches.
The TWAB also runs down a few of the items that’ll be in next week’s hotfix patch, Update 3.0.2. The patch is going to fix a number of ongoing problems, while also nerfing Hunters’ Shatterdive ability, which was added in the Beyond Light expansion. Here’s a preview of the patch’s changes:
Issues Expected To Be Resolved In Update 3.0.2
Hive bosses, In Ananh, Brood Queen and Xillox, were not counting as Hive boss kills in bounties.
Some players couldn’t respawn if they died during the boss fight of the Inverted Spire strike.
Players could get out of environment in several Crucible maps.
Some quest items were not dropping in the Moon Freeroam activity. This prevented completion of several “Essence” quests, such as Essence of Rage, Essence of Insanity, and Essence of Servitude.
The Unrelenting perk was not triggering health regeneration.
MIDA Multi-Tool’s catalyst wasn’t dropping from Competitive Crucible wins.
Taken Psions were replicating too rapidly in some Prophecy dungeon encounters.
Garden of Salvation flawless completions were not awarding the “Inherent Perfection” Triumph.
The High Celebrant sometimes wouldn’t take damage nor go to the Ascendant Plane.
Fixed an exploit where players could have “Shelter From the Storm” permanently applied in the Deep Stone Crypt raid.
Fixed an issue where Cloudstrike hits on the Divinity cage counted as two precision hits.
Fixed an issue where the Grandmaster Nightfall timer was set to 30 minutes.
Fixed an issue on PlayStation 5 preventing clan rosters from loading.
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Crossovers have become a staple of the CW’s growing collection of DC superhero shows, uniting the actors and characters across a multi-part story, with last year culminating in the huge Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. Thanks to COVID-19, though, that annual event is off–at least for this year.
After the Crisis event last year, the CW had been looking to go with a smaller crossover according network president Mark Pedowitz, who said in May that the crossover would be a two-hour event, most likely including Batwoman and the upcoming Superman & Lois show.
In a new interview with EW, though, Batwoman showrunner Caroline Dries confirmed what we’d already assumed.
“When we were getting crossed with Superman & Lois, I was really looking forward to seeing Batwoman on the Kent farm,” Dries said to EW.
“We’re not really able to cross over because physically, we can’t cross crews due to the fear of exposure to COVID,” Dries told TVLine, who said that the anticipated meeting between Batwoman and Supergirl is off, too. “If Supergirl weren’t ending this year, I would say there would be more of a possibility. But I’m afraid that at least this year, we’re not going to be able to tap into that dynamic.”
The lack of a crossover is understandable due to the severity of the ongoing pandemic, but it’s heartbreaking for everyone–the fans, cast, and crew of these shows alike. Even without the pandemic, the upcoming season of CW’s superhero shows was set to be complicated. Batwoman’s sophomore season had to contend with the departure of series star Ruby Rose and her character Kate Kane, and the arrival of the new Batwoman, Javicia Leslie’s Ryan Wilder. Meanwhile, both Black Lightning and Supergirl will air their final seasons this year.
“I’m so heartbroken about the COVID situation because I know that it’s Black Lightning’s last season, and I would have loved to do a crossover with them. Nafessa [Williams] and Jordan [Calloway] are really good friends of mine, and it would have been great to play with them and be superheroes all on the same show. That would have been epic,” Leslie said to TVLine. “Whatever show that has Black people on it, I’m going to do these crossovers because I just want it to be a super Black crossover.”
The Batwoman Season 2 premiere airs on Sunday, January 17 at 8PM, followed a few weeks later by Black Lightning Season 4 on February 8 at 9PM. Flash Season 7 premieres on Tuesday, February 23 at 8PM, with Superman & Lois’s series premiere right after at 9PM the same night. Supergirl and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow do not yet have air dates. Supergirl’s filming is dependent on star Melissa Benoist’s pregnancy, while Legends of Tomorrow has typically aired later in the season anyway.
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Almost six years after its launch, Axiom Verge is getting its first piece of post-launch content–and it’s free! The new content is a Randomizer Mode, which is currently live in beta for the PC version of the game. The mode will be released for consoles (also for free) at a later date.
Originally existing as an unofficial mod, Randomizer Mode has been worked on by Axiom Verge speedrunners NoReset Games, Chris Couture (aka VideoGameRoulette), Dimitrios Lianopoulos (GVirus), Mark Rawls (Willow), Lars Lehmann (Leemyy), and CrowdControl’s Matthew Jakubowski (Jaku)–as well as the mod’s creator, Pozzum, for years. Now, the mod is being officially implemented into the game.
“They spent years working on this and refused any compensation I offered,” Axiom Verge developer Thomas Happ wrote in a blog post. “It was a labor of love, and I’m hugely grateful to all of them.”
As the name suggests, Randomizer Mode randomizes the order in which you acquire items and power-ups in Axiom Verge. In order to ensure that you’re never stuck, you’ll always find an item that at least allows you to progress, though you may be doing so in a way that’s different from how you’re supposed to beat the game.
“The Randomizer is smart enough to know that in certain areas you need weapons with certain characteristics to progress,” Happ writes. “For example, the first item you get in the game really only needs to be able to shoot. Without that, you wouldn’t be able to get through the barrier on the right. So the Randomizer knows not to give you, say, a health node.”
To access Randomizer Mode, open your PC storefront of choice and then open your library. On Steam, right click on Axiom Verge, select Betas, and then navigate to the Randomizer beta. If you use Epic, the Randomizer Mode beta will appear as a separate game that you just need to launch.
Once you’ve booted up the new mode, there are actually three different difficulty levels of randomization you can pick from. Beginner randomizes the items in a way that assumes you’ve beaten the game and knows how every power-up works. Advanced randomizes the items in a way that assumes you know about speedrunning exploits to find ways past seemingly insurmountable obstacles. And finally, Masochist randomizes the items similarly to Advanced but also assumes you can complete the game with a low completion percentage.
“As of right now, there are exactly four people in the world able to play [Masochist],” Happ writes. “If you don’t know that you’re one of them, you’re probably not.”
Additionally, the team that’s working on the Randomizer Mode is also designing additional Saved State and Crowd Control features. The former will allow players to practice speedrunning specific sections of Axiom Verge, while the latter will allow a Twitch chat to influence the layout of a streamer’s Randomizer mode. Both features are scheduled to arrive at a later date.
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