Author: Trafficblast

The original Apex Legends hot drop location, Skull Town, as featured on the game’s battle royale map Kings Canyon, is back, now in the form of a self-contained Arenas map. It’s just one part of the game’s new Genesis event, which will also revert Kings Canyon and World’s Edge back to their original layouts for a limited time starting on June 29.

“We heard you,” the game’s patch notes read. “Five minutes after we announced Arenas, we were seeing pleas for a Skull Town Arena. Well, here it is!”

Apex Legends’ Genesis event will also be adding a number of new cosmetics for players to unlock, ranging from a scythe heirloom for Revenant to legendary skins for both the Charge Rifle and EVA-8 shotgun.

Balance updates are coming to the game as well. Revenant has had his hitbox size reduced and received some changes both positive and negative to his abilities, while Lifeline’s hitbox has been slightly increased. Bloodhound is receiving nerfs to their “Eye of the Allfather” scanning ability as well as their “Beast of the Hunt” ultimate, with the devs stating the character has remained “a popular and powerful pick for multiple seasons now.”

One of the game’s more dominant weapons, the Spitfire, has received a nerf, with the LMG now being less accurate when fired from the hip. Other weapons, like the Longbow, P2020 pistol, and 30-30 Repeater have been slightly buffed.

A number of balance updates are also coming to the 3v3 Arenas mode, with prices for a number of weapons and upgrades being tweaked. Care packages will start landing five seconds earlier than before in order to make the loot within a more viable option before a round ends, while from round 3 onward, players will start with a shield battery in addition to two syringes and two shield cells. Character specific changes will be coming too, such as Pathfinder’s starting Grapple charges being reduced and and the cooldown for Octane’s Launch Pad being increased to every other round.

The Apex Legends Genesis event goes live June 29 and runs until July 13. Full patch notes are below:

LEGEND BALANCE UPDATES

Octane

• Launch Pad cooldown increased from 60 seconds to 90 seconds.

Dev Note: Octane remains the most popular legend by a large margin even after the stim nerf. Turns out jump pads are fun, but with the added utility from the two launch options, it’s only fair to bump up the cooldown.

Revenant

• Slightly slimmed down hitbox (specifically his midsection, arms, and upper legs).

• Stalker climb height significantly increased. It’s not literally unlimited now, but… that boy can really climb.
• Silence duration decreased from 20 seconds to 15 seconds.
• Reduced the duration of death protection by 5 seconds while using the Death Totem.

Dev Note: Revenant’s large frame places him at a significant disadvantage in gunfights, particularly against smaller legends who no longer have Low Profile. We’re shrinking some of his hitboxes to counteract this disadvantage, while also improving his ability to climb up walls and attack from unexpected angles. (We know this can be frustrating given how silent he is, so we’ll continue to monitor and add sound if necessary.) That said, we’re taking this opportunity to reduce some of the frustration that comes when playing against his tactical and ultimate.

Lifeline

• Increased hit box size, mostly in the legs and waist.

Dev Note: Unlike Revenant, Lifeline excels in gunfights given her small hitbox. Even with the res shield gone, it’s no surprise the smallest character in the game saw an uptick in performance with the removal of Low Profile. She remains small, but these hitbox changes bring her closer to the medium sized legends.

Bloodhound

• Eye of the Allfather scan revealed time decreased from 4 seconds to 3 seconds.
• Beast of the Hunt duration decreased from 35 seconds to 30 seconds. Time can still be added by downing enemies.

Dev Note: Bloodhound has remained a popular and powerful pick for multiple seasons now, mostly because of the sheer amount of information that can be gained with one tap of their tactical. Shortening the scan duration still provides a snapshot of information for Bloodhound’s team without stifling all enemies caught anywhere in the large range for a full 4 seconds.

Wattson

• Major Buff: Wattson can now place more than one Nessie on the map at a time with her Epic emote.

Dev Note: There can now be up to 20 Nessies active at once on any given map. Until that cap is reached, any Wattson can place as many as she likes. When the cap is hit, the oldest Nessie belonging to the Wattson who currently owns the most Nessies is removed.

WEAPONS BALANCE UPDATES

P2020

• Increased Fire Rate from 6.25 -> 7.0
• Increased Base Ammo from 12 -> 14
• Increased Lvl 1 Mag from 14 -> 16
• Increased Lvl 2 Mag from 16 -> 18
• Increased Lvl 3 and Lvl 4 Mag from 18 -> 21

Spitfire

• Increased Hip Fire spread

Dev Note: The Spitfire has continued to over perform so we’re hitting it’s close range hip fire accuracy which should help bring it in line.

30-30 Repeater

• Slightly increased projectile speed
• Reduced charge time from 0.5s -> 0.35s

Longbow

• Damage increased from 55 -> 60

ARENAS UPDATES

ARENAS PRICE ADJUSTMENTS

The figures below represent changes to the cost in materials to unlock or upgrade weapons, utilities, and Legend abilities in Arenas matches.

Weapon Prices

• P2020 Lvl 1 Upgrade: 50 -> 25
• P2020 Lvl 2 Upgrade: 125 -> 75
• P2020 Lvl 3 Upgrade: 200 -> 150
• RE45: 250 -> 200
• EVA: 250 -> 300
• Mastiff: 500 -> 400
• R99: 550 -> 500
• Volt: 500 -> 550
• Spitfire: 550 -> 600
• L-Star: 400 -> 500
• R301 Lvl 2 Upgrade: 300 -> 350
• G7 Scout: 350 -> 400
• G7 Scout Lvl 3 Upgrade: 250 -> 200
• 30-30: 350 -> 400
• 30-30 Lvl 3 Upgrade: 250 -> 200

Utility Prices

• Arc Star: 100 -> 125
• Gold Backpack: 250 -> 300

Legend Ability Prices

• Crypto EMP: 600 -> 500
• Crypto Drone: 100 -> 50
• Revenant Death Totem: 600 -> 500
• Lifeline DOC Drone 50 -> 75
• Fuse Knuckle Cluster 150 -> 75
• Bloodhound Ult 350 -> 450

ARENAS BALANCE CHANGES

Legend Ability Adjustments

• Pathfinder’s Grapple starting charges reduced to 2 charges from 3.
• Pathfinder’s Zipline round cooldown increased from every round to every other round.
• Rampart’s Sheila round cooldown reduced from every 3 rounds to every other round.
• Wattson’s Interception Pylon round cooldown increased from every round to every other round.
• Octane’s Launch Pad cooldown increased from every round to every other round.
• Octane’s Stim starting charges reduced to 2 charges from 3.

Other

• Added a scoreboard to the map screen.

• You can now report players by pressing [SPACE / Y] in the map screen

• From Round 3 and onward, you’ll now start with a shield battery in addition to 2 syringes and 2 shield cells.
• Care packages will also land 5s earlier to make the contained weapons a more viable option before the round closes out.
• 6x scope moved from base sniper weapons to Lvl 1 upgrade.

ARENAS MAP ADJUSTMENTS

Party Crasher

• Adjusted circle logic to favor downtown a bit more.
• Simplified the minimap’s visual language.

Phase Runner

• Raised cover height on certain props throughout the map to prevent unfair advantages to large rig Legends.
• Added a few trees to reduce the ease of spawn sniping (looking at you, Reptar…).

ARENAS BUG FIXES

• The UI for Purple devotion now shows the attached turbocharger.
• Players will no longer be chosen as Jump Masters during the legend select screen.
• Updated the sniper stock to show an empty slot when needed.
• Can no longer get stuck in the crouch position after dying while reviving a teammate during a round in Arenas.

QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES

Valkyrie

• Updated fuel gauge UI to better indicate when you’re using fuel and when you’re running low.

Rampart

• Will now have custom animations for LMG reload. These have no impact on her current reload times.

MISC

• Added VO for when your Ultimate is ready, or not ready.
  • When your Ultimate gets to 100%, you’ll be prompted to tell your team with new VO for each Legend.
  • At any point in time, you can ping your Ultimate icon (in your inventory) to show your teammate what percentage you’re at (in quickchat).
• Added VO for when you enter a Replicator, so your teammates know you are crafting and won’t leave you behind! Probably.
• Added VO for pinging a friendly Trident, in addition to the neutral and enemy states that already existed.
• You can now turn off FOV scaling when certain abilities are used. Look in the options.
• Reduced the frequency of Ring endings near out-of-bounds areas (like canyon walls or map edges).
• Healing items will now play the entire healing sound when used by other players, instead of just the beginning and ending.
• Muting players will now also mute text to speech.

BUG FIXES

Bloodhound

• Passive tracker icons will no longer be shown in the end-of-game screen.

Caustic

• Fixed an issue with enemies not getting highlighted when in Caustic’s Nox Gas.

Fuse

• Players can now see the number of grenades in the grenades stack when viewed on floor.
• Fixed the 1P arm color on “Board to Death” to match the 3P view.
• Fuse will no longer produce a third arm when ADS’ing and using the tactical at the same time.

Gibraltar

• Being struck by a direct hit of Fuse’s Knucklecluster will no longer cause Gibraltar’s Gun shield to take unnecessary damage.
• Gibby’s Ultimate will no longer damage a friendly’s Horizon’s Ult.
• Gun Shield will no longer take additional bleed through damage.

Horizon

• Horizon’s tactical will no longer ascend Caustic’s gas traps or Octane’s Jump pads to the heavens.
• Fixed an issue with the appearance of Horizon’s teeth when using the “Golden Boson” skin.

Lifeline

• Lifeline will no longer use Wraith’s animations while in the boxing ring.
• Enemy Care packages will now have loot if the enemy Lifeline leaves the game before it lands.
• Fixed an issue that was preventing Lifeline’s tactical from functioning properly while in Caustic gas.

Loba

• Completed another pass to prevent Loba from getting into unallowed areas.
• Fixed an issue causing Loba’s tactical to improperly fail on the Phase Runner map in Arenas.
• Fixed an issue that caused Loba’s tactical to be improperly disrupted by Horizon’s gravity lift.

Mirage

• Corrected an issue with Mirage flickering while in the Lobby.

Octane

• Fixed obstructed ADSing while using the Compound bow and the 3x sight.

Pathfinder

• Can no longer swap weapons faster if the holster animation is canceled.
• Did a Zipline pass on Arena Maps to prevent Pathfinder getting into unfair positions.

Rampart

• Fixed a logic error when using Wraith’s Portal and Sheila at the same time.
• Did a pass to allow more places to place Amped Walls on Olympus.
• Fixed an audio issue with Rampart’s Tactical when in close quarters.
• Fixed an issue with Sheila disappearing off of Rampart’s back if shot during an emote.
• Players no longer fall under the ground when using Shelia on certain slopes.

Revenant

• Death Totem can now be damaged in Firing Range.

Valkyrie

• Did an environment pass to prevent Valk from entering areas not meant to be entered.
• Amped cover will no longer push players into geo if Skyward Dive is initiated near it.
• Valkyrie’s Ult UI no longer remains on screen if observer switches to another POV.
• First person view no longer obstructed when using a shield battery.
• Fixed an issue with players not being able to cancel being hooked up to Valks Ult.

Wattson

• Wattson no longer uses Wraith’s animation in the boxing ring.
• The Nessie that Watton leaves behind with her Epic emote should no longer fall over dead when using a Legendary skin.

Wraith

• Addressed a bug that sometimes caused Wraith’s portal to improperly appear as open after a player entered it just before it closed.

Other

• Fixed a bug where players have to play one Ranked game after a Season or Split reset for the reset to fully take effect. Note that players who have not played a Ranked game recently before this update will still have to play one more game of Ranked with their RP changing before this bug is completely fixed.
• Matchmaking will be canceled if the party leader changes the playlist to a mode that a party member is not eligible for.
• Fixed an issue preventing Switch users from scrolling through all their emotes while in handheld mode.
• Resolved an issue that was sometimes slowing down controller players’ turn speeds when running at high FPS.
• Addressed some audio issues with Phoenix Kits.
• Entering the Fight Night ring on Olympus should no longer cause you to experience glitches with gunfire audio.
• Solved a performance problem caused by having large numbers of friends via Steam and/or Origin.
• Knocked legends can now open the inner door inside Explosive Holds as normal.
• Your scope sight should no longer flicker when ADSing using the Bocek Bow while riding a Trident.
• Similarly to the above, ADSing with the Bocek Bow while riding a zipline should no longer cause flickering.
• Resolved an issue that was preventing ping VO from playing when at a distance from teammates.
• Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented players from joining a friend’s lobby when using the “join” button from the Friends tab.
• Solved an issue that was preventing Respawn beacon audio from triggering properly.
• Fixed some buttons with weird “hitboxes” in the Clubs tab.
• Rejecting invites from the Clubs tab should now work as expected.
• Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented loot from appearing as expected in death boxes.
• The consumables interface should no longer show up on the podium screen.
• Resolved a rare bug that allowed you to use a Shield Battery even when shields were full.
• Fixed an issue preventing some colorblind settings from appropriately changing the color of enemy HP bars.
• Colorblind settings are now properly applied to trackers in the Legends tab.
• Addressed an issue that sometimes caused the ring to become silent for recently-respawned players.
• Solved a bug with “Death UI” being shown to players who reconnected early in the match.
• The “random” music pack should no longer play default music on the match summary screen or the lobby.
• Fixed some VFX issues with Legendary knockdown shields.

The Video Game History Foundation has shared a look at what the video game black market looked like in the 1990s. On Twitter, the nonprofit organization focused on preserving the history of video games shared images of a mail-order catalog selling bootleg Nintendo cartridges with multiple games on them.

The catalog from Games Unlimited Company offered cartridges with multiple games, ranging from 16 to 110 games on a single cart. The Video Game History Foundation noted that these games were likely coming from Canada because the flier mentions not being able to get the games “without a plane ticket to Canada.” The 110 game cartridge cost $138, which is slightly more than one dollar per game, a steal in the 1990s and in 2021–literally.

The flier also advertises the Game Genie, which was barred from sale in the United States at that time. The organization also shared a Game Genie ad where Camerica “thanked Canada” since that was the only way for an American to acquire the device at the time.

Nintendo was able to stop the majority of bootleg import games from making it into the U.S. Nintendo has been coming after bootleg games, as well as fan-made versions of its games, for a very long time.

Pokemon Go Fest 2021 is only a few weeks away, and developer Niantic has now shared more details about the second day of the event. Whereas day 1 is themed around catching wild Pokemon, day 2 is all about Raids, and you’ll have another chance to encounter every single Legendary that has appeared in Pokemon Go thus far throughout the day.

As detailed on the Pokemon Go blog, every Legendary Pokemon is returning to five-star Raids during the second day of Pokemon Go Fest 2021. Like the virtual habitats running on day 1, there will be different themed Raid hours rotating throughout the day, each of which will feature different types of Legendary Pokemon. You can see the full Raid schedule and the Legendaries that will appear during each hour below:

Pokemon Go Fest Day 2 Raid Schedule

Wind Hour

Times

• 10-11 AM
• 2-3 PM

Legendaries

• Mewtwo
• Ho-Oh
• Latios
• Latias
• Regigigas
• Altered Forme Giratina
• Cresselia
• Therian Forme Tornadus
• Virizion

Lava Hour

Times

• 11 AM – 12 PM
• 3-4 PM

Legendaries

• Motres
• Entei
• Regirock
• Groudon
• Heatran
• Reshiram
• Therian Forme Landorus
• Terrakion
• Yveltal

Frost Hour

Times

• 12-1 PM
• 4-5 PM

Legendaries

• Articuno
• Suicune
• Lugia
• Regice
• Kyogre
• Palkia
• Kyurem
• Azelf, Mesprit, Uxie (in their respective regions)

Thunder Hour

Times

• 1-2 PM
• 5-6 PM

Legendaries

• Zapdos
• Raikou
• Registeel
• Rayquaza
• Dialga
• Therian Forme Thundurus
• Cobalion
• Zekrom
• Xerneas

Niantic notes that Mythical Pokemon, such as Mew and Deoxys, will not be appearing in Raids during Pokemon Go Fest 2021, but a new one will be available. The studio recently confirmed that the Mythical Pokemon Meloetta will debut during day 1 of the event via a new Special Research story quest for Go Fest ticket holders.

Pokemon Go Fest 2021 runs from July 17-18. Like last year, there will be some exclusive benefits and features for those who purchase a ticket for the event, including increased chances to catch Shiny Pokemon and special challenges. You can purchase a Go Fest ticket through the in-game shop for $5 USD.

In the meantime, Pokemon Go’s Bidoof event runs from June 25 to July 1. Bidoof will be appearing much more frequently in the wild and Raid Battles throughout the event, and you’ll have your first chance to catch a Shiny Bidoof in the game. Shortly afterward, July’s Community Day will take place on July 3. The featured Pokemon this time is Tepig, the Fire-type starter from Pokemon Black and White.

We’re halfway through the first season of Disney+ original series Star Wars: The Bad Batch, which is a spin-off of The Clone Wars. There are eight episodes left for Season 1, and Disney has released a mid-season sneak peek to give you a look at what is to come.

Minor spoilers for The Bad Batch ahead, so if you’re not caught up, you may want to back out. Leading into the middle of the season, The Bad Batch continues to protect Omega, as they parted ways with what has become the Empire after Order 66 was executed by Palpatine. Additionally, one of their own–Crosshair–is hunting them down. Check out the video below.

Season 1 of the Bad Batch will wrap up on August 13 with Episode 16. The Star Wars series is one of the final original shows to have new episodes air on Disney+ on Fridays, as Disney recently announced that new shows will air on Wednesdays now.

One of the most interesting aspects of the new series is that the main antagonist is one of their own, as a result of Order 66. “It’s exciting that I get to continue that story and tell a little bit more about what happens to the clones,” series head writer and executive producer Jennifer Corbett told StarWars.com. “That’s why I feel bad for Crosshair and all the clones. He didn’t have a choice. The chip was planted and none of them have a say in what they did. He’s an interesting character. I can’t wait for you to see where it goes.”

New episodes of The Bad Batch air on Fridays.

Konami has announced a new werewolf-style game set in a futuristic London, called Crimesight. It’s coming to PC, and currently has sign-ups available for a closed beta test starting tomorrow.

Crimesight takes place in London in 2075, where AI predictions of when and where crimes will happen have all but eradicated actual crime. A special AI, dubbed “Sherlock,” is developed to help avoid a future where the world falls into ruin, but an AI rival, dubbed “Moriarty,” stands to untangle all its efforts.

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The game divides players into teams without revealing their identities, where the Moriarty players must meet certain conditions to get away with murdering a target NPC, while the Sherlock players must deduce not only who the culprits are, but also who the victim of the crime will be in a multiplayer competitive social deduction game.

Though it does not yet have a release date, sign-ups are now open for a closed beta for Crimesight on its official website and will remain open through July 10. The closed beta itself runs from June 25 through July 11 and will take place via Steam.

Crimesight joins a rising trend of popularity for social deduction games like Among Us, SpyParty, and tons of variations on the classic Werewolf. Another variation, Werewolves Within, just got its own film release.

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Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

The ’90s really are alive and kicking again at Marvel Comics. No sooner has the publisher wrapped up its Heroes Reborn re-imagining than we’ve learned Peter Parker’s clone Ben Reilly is coming back to reclaim the Spider-Man mantle.

This big status quo change kicks off in September’s The Amazing Spider-Man #75. That issue features the debut of a new creative team and a return to the thrice-monthly release schedule introduced during the “Brand New Day” era of the series. The Amazing Spider-Man will now feature rotating creative teams, including writers Zeb Wells (Hellions), Kelly Thompson (Captain Marvel), Saladin Ahmed (Miles Morales: Spider-Man) and Cody Zigler (Marvel’s She-Hulk TV series). It appears current ASM artist Patrick Geason will be both writing and drawing upcoming issues of the series.

Ben Reilly’s return comes at a particularly low point in Peter Parker’s life. Following the conclusion of Nick Spencer’s Amazing Spider-Man run, Peter is grappling with his failure as a hero, apparently to the point that he’s willing to cede the mantle back to his clone. Ben’s mission is to prove himself the greatest Spider-Man of them all, and he’s even got the backing of the mysterious Beyond Corporation and a redesigned costume.

Get a closer look at the new Spider-suit and other teaser art in the slideshow gallery below:

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Editor Nick Lowe reveals the new status quo was originally developed by Wells, with Thompson and Ahmed brought in to expand that growing saga and help the series meet its new thrice-monthly schedule.

“The whole point of working on Spider-Man is trying to put new unliftable weights on top of him—physical, metaphysical, emotional, psychological—and seeing if he can lift them,” said Lowe in Marvel’s press release. “But what if that weight truly is too heavy? What if someone with the exact same skills and formative years could do better? Ben Reilly is back and, with Aunt May and Uncle Ben’s lessons in the back of HIS mind as well, he’s here to step in where Peter Parker failed. Can he accomplish things the original Spider-Man never could? These questions are what sold me on this story.”

Lowe continued, “When Zeb Wells started building this story it became apparent that it needed a narrative velocity and a team of the best of the best to make it happen. So we gathered some of the greatest writers and artists in comics to join us and the story got even better and bigger and more surprising.

For those not up to date on the convoluted history of Ben Reilly, the character technically debuted way back in 1975’s The Amazing Spider-Man #149, which features The Jackal pitting Spider-Man against his clone. Though he was seemingly incinerated in that story, the clone survived and resurfaced under his new Ben Reilly identity in 1994’s Spider-Man #51. Thus began the infamous Clone Saga that dominated the Spider-Man franchise for several years. For a time, Ben became the new Spider-Man (wrongly believing himself to be the original Peter Parker) before finally sacrificing his own life.

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More recently, Ben returned to life and took on a more antagonistic role in Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy. But following yet another death and resurrection, Ben seems to be back on the heroic path and ready to prove himself as Spider-Man.

The foundation of this new storyline will be established in Free Comic Book Day 2021: Spider-Man/Venom #1, which will be offered on Saturday, August 14. From there, Ben’s story continues in The Amazing Spider-Man #75, which is due out in September.

This big Spidey revamp is just one of several key developments in the franchise. Al Ewing and Bryan Hitch are spearheading a Venom relaunch in November, and Miles Morales is getting a brand new costume, fresh off of dealing with his own Clone Saga.

Let us know in the comments below if you’re psyched for the return of Ben Reilly.

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Crimesight

Konami has announced a new video game called CrimeSight, a tabletop-style multiplayer game where an AI Sherlock must try and prevent an AI Moriarty from forcing a character to murder another one. The game is currently only announced for PC and the company is looking for participants in an upcoming closed beta.

Announced on Twitter, the upcoming title features two to four players in an online session, with players either working for Sherlock or Moriarty. Players can command the pawns to perform actions as the Sherlock team looks to deduce which pawn is the killer and which pawn is the victim before the crime actually occurs. Moriarty must have the murder take place within four days or else they lose.

CrimeSight has a closed beta running from June 25 through July 11 on Steam and anyone looking to get access needs to retweet this tweet and follow the game’s official Twitter account. You can also apply via Discord by joining the game’s channel and filling out the application there.

While Konami has announced and published a few smaller games in recent years, like Skelattack and upcoming Getsufumaden: Undying Moon, it seems as though the publisher is sticking to its reported plan of no longer developing AAA games other than PES. Konami also pulled out of E3 2021, stating that while it has several key projects in the works, it would not be ready to show them during the virtual event.

Just because Amazon Prime Day has come and gone doesn’t mean there aren’t still great deals to be found at the retailer, especially if you’re in the market for a great pair of headphones. The Apple AirPods Max are the company’s first premium, over-ear set of cans, with a distinct design and suitably high price. But you can grab a pair today for the lowest price ever, shaving $60 off what it’s usually sold for.

The Apple AirPods Max definitely look like an Apple product, starting with the knit-mesh headband to the memory foam earcups that sit next to the metal exterior that covers the headphone drivers. There’s a familiar dial on one earcup for volume control as well as a single button for numerous uses (pause and play, summoning Siri, and more), which might please you if you’re not a fan of the touch controls found on competitors like the Sony WH-1000MX4.

What’s important though is the sound quality, and that’s where the AirPods Max excel. That’s especially true if you’re pairing them with an Apple device, allowing you to make use of spatial audio across a range of music streaming services, while also having a painless pairing process that makes getting to listening easier than ever. With active noise cancelling and transparency modes you can tune exactly what to let into your headphones depending on your environment, with the AirPods Max building on the already excellent noise cancelling found in the regular AirPods Pro.

The AirPods Max come with a carrying case (which is far more divisive than the headphones themselves) and a USB-C to Lightning cable for charging. Apple comes up against stiff competition at this price range, with both Sony and Bose offering compelling options for less. But if you’re already invested in Apple’s ecosystem and have been patient, this seems like a great time to finally pick these up.

Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire will be coming to AMC and AMC+ as a new series in 2022.

According to a press release producer Mark Johnson, who previously worked on shows like Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and Halt and Catch Fire, will lead the development of the full Anne Rice collection that AMC has acquired.

Friday Night Lights’ Rolin Jones will serve as creator and showrunner for Interview and will lead the eight-episode first season.

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“The challenge of adapting for television the groundbreaking and immensely compelling work of Anne Rice is both intimidating and exhilarating,” says Johnson in a statement. 

“In 1973, a grieving mother and extraordinary writer began what would become the finest Vampire novel ever written (all respects to Mr. Stoker),” Jones adds. “Nearly fifty years later we know what’s expected of us. We know how much this book and the ones that follow mean to their massive fan base.”

AMC announced it acquired the rights to Anne Rice’s novels in 2020 with plans to turn The Vampire Chronicles into an interconnected TV universe.

Interview With the Vampire is the first in a series of Vampire novels written by Anne Rice starting in 1976. The series primarily follows Lestat de Lioncourt, a French nobleman-turned-vampire who stars in several of Rice’s Vampire novels.

A movie adaptation of Interview with the Vampire was released in 1994 starring Tom Cruise as Lioncourt and became a box-office success.

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AMC’s president of original programming Dan McDermott says the Anne Rice series will sit alongside The Walking Dead and an upcoming Agatha Christie adaptation as part of a growing library of franchises for the network.

Given the numerous spinoffs AMC has produced for The Walking Dead and the size of the Anne Rice collection, the network seems eager to expand the Vampire universe as far as it can go. 

Meanwhile, AMC will continue to focus on developing movies and shows off popular franchises like The Walking Dead, which now include three upcoming movies starring Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes.

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Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s News Editor.

A new update for Borderlands 3 has rolled out on most platforms that makes some changes to the looter-shooter, particularly enabling cross-play support.

Cross-play lets users on PC, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S play together through SHiFT Matchmaking. Because of that, players must create a display name–which has to be unique, between 3-16 characters long, and contain no special symbols–to enable the feature. The display name can be changed on the SHiFT website or in the game’s menu. Back in May, publisher Gearbox Software said cross-play would not launch on PlayStation consoles, and it remains unclear if the feature will hit PS4 and PS5.

The new update also bumps up the maximum level cap to 72. There are now 70 more skill points for players to play around with.

The Revengeance of Revenge of the Cartels, a riff on the 2020 seasonal event Revenge of the Cartels, debuts. Players must eliminate various Cartel Operatives in the game before taking down Joey Ultraviolet. Again. Completing the challenges unlocks cosmetics for characters and weapons.

As part of the cross-play update, seasonal events no longer have “end dates,” meaning the fan-favorite Revenge of the Cartels is here to stay. Events can be perused on the main menu, where players can replay them endlessly. However, this infinite replayability only applies to seasonal events; players cannot go back into previous mini-events like the Arms Race and True Trials.

Elsewhere, the True Trials is set to wrap up on July 1, with all six of the mini-event’s effects active until its conclusion. This means all Trials bosses will get significant buffs and drop their respective Legendaries when defeated. Furthermore, the end chest for each Trial will be full of Legendary loot.

In other Borderlands news, Gearbox unveiled Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands during E3 2021. A completely standalone spin-off, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands launches in 2022 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.