NHL 21 is making some changes to the matchmaking experience that should result in a better time for players. A new update is coming soon that adds a “Max Average Ping” setting that players can use to restrict the maximum ping for an online match.
In a blog post, EA Sports said one of the loudest pieces of feedback it has received since launch is that players are willing to wait a longer period of time to find a match if that match has a good connection. This is particularly important in competitive modes.
With the new Max Average Ping setting, players should get a better experience because they can define what ping they are OK with. The ping range is between 20 ms and 100 ms. Players can also select “Any” if they don’t care about ping.
“Your Max Average Ping will not restrict you from finding a match on your most optimal server. For example, if you receive ~25ms Ping to your closest server, but set your Max Average Ping to 20ms, you will still be able to find matches on the server that gives ~25ms,” EA said.
This update also addresses what EA calls “match dodging.” Players who found a match but one with a poor connection rating would understandably leave before the game starts. But with the new Max Average Ping setting, players should know what they’re getting into from the start.
“With this change, HUT Rivals and HUT Champions games will now count towards your record once a matchup with your opponent is found. Players who quit out of a game at any point after a Matchup is made and the Loading screen begins will receive a loss,” EA said.
NHL 21 launched in October for PS4 and Xbox One. The game is playable on PS5 and Xbox Series X through backwards compatibility, and players might experience improvements in terms of frame rates and load times, but EA is not creating a bespoke version of NHL 21 for the next-gen systems.
Immortals Fenyx Rising imbues you with the powers of the gods. To that end, it has a few different kinds of upgrades, each with its own path and method of leveling up.
Under the Abilities menu, you’ll find both Skills and Godly Powers. Skills enhance your standard combat and traversal abilities, while Godly Powers are more significant, flashier finishers with cooldowns. Both are purchased at the Hall of the Gods with Coins of Charon, but Godly Powers cost significantly more Coins. Be sure to visit the Hall of the Gods to upgrade your abilities before taking on major new quests, because you can’t upgrade your character on the fly–it’s only available at that single location.
Another type of upgrade is Blessings, which has its own section on the menu. These unlock as you progress through the story and finish the quests of the four gods: Aphrodite, Ares, Athena, and Hephaistos. Each god has three powers to grant you which will unlock in sequence. The story paths for each get more difficult, so it’s probably best to complete each of their first quest phases, then each of the second. But since you can do them in any order, you are able to claim certain Blessings first to help you with the others.
If you’re just starting out, you’ll want to know what to prioritize your hard-earned Coins of Charon on, or which gods to visit first.
Best Abilities to Purchase First
In Immortals, you’ll be traveling through the open world a lot. A lot. Fast-travel points are relatively sparse, and quest points are usually separated by several hundred or even thousands of meters. For this reason, we highly recommend prioritizing traversal abilities first. Glide Boost makes your flight ability much faster, while Climb Leap makes it that much easier to scale the many vertical surfaces you’ll find. You can safely neglect the Swim Dash ability, though–with Glide Dash you won’t need it and swimming doesn’t come up very often.
Another nice quality-of-life upgrade is Telekinesis Gathering. Rather than having to pick a set of crafting materials one by one, a single button press will scoop them all up. It’s a real time-saver.
With those secured, most of the remaining abilities are all about combat. Many of the bigger baddies you’ll meet in Immortals are damage sponges and will be much easier to take down if you stagger them before wailing away. That makes investments in axe abilities like Axe Smash, Power Spin Finisher, and Axe Cleave especially useful. Each of those will give your axe attacks more stun damage, building up the stagger gauge faster.
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To help evade enemy attacks, consider purchasing Enhanced Dodge and Air Dodge. The first lets you dodge up to five times, which will let you duck and shuffle out of the way quickly for some of the bigger boss monsters that pursue you aggressively. The second, as you may expect, lets you dodge in mid-air. That’s especially useful as you may be leaping a lot to build stagger with your Axe Cleave ability.
We recommend saving the sword upgrades for later since those are mostly useful for mopping up smaller enemies quicker. It’s certainly convenient to make short work of them, but they’re not difficult in the first place, so it’s better to prioritize the others first.
In your Godly Powers menu, you’ll have to be more sparing with your upgrades since they generally cost almost twice as much as the other abilities. For starters, you may want to invest in Herakles’s Leap to close gaps, especially with airborne enemies that can be hard to reach any other way. Precision Control is also a good idea since it will help you steer your arrows with more precision for both puzzles and scoring headshots.
Blessings of the Gods
As mentioned, Blessings are granted by story progress as you help the four gods with their own quests to restore their powers. They can be tackled in any order, but knowing what each has to offer may help you plan your path through the game.
Aphrodite
Aphrodite’s Embrace: Refills all Health chunks when Health is depleted in combat. 20 minute cooldown.
Aphrodite’s Kiss: Being hit once does not reset the Combo Meter.
Aphrodite’s Rapture: Ignores damage from the first hit taken after using any Buff Potions.
Ares
Ares’s Command: Combo Meter lasts twice as long before resetting.
Ares’s Prowess: The Wings of Daidalos is replenished after an Axe or Sword Air Combo finisher.
Ares’s Fury: Combo Meter gains a fourth combo stage after 84 hits.
Athena
Athena’s Guidance: Arrows refill twice as fast.
Athena’s Draw: Bow shots can be charged even further to increase damage to 50.
Athena’s Strike: Athena’s Draw strikes up to 3 enemies with lightning on hit. Lightning deals an extra 25% damage.
Hephaistos
Hephaistos’s Spark: Perfectly timed dodges create a spark that inflicts 44 damage to nearby enemies.
Hephaistos’s Ingenuity: Perfectly timed parries create a fiery shockwave that inflicts 88 damage, 132 stun, and knocks back nearby enemies.
Hephaistos’s Focus: Finishers gain an additional hit that deals 10% damage and has extra reach.
By far the most useful ability, especially early in the game, is the first from Aphrodite, Aphrodite’s Embrace. The one-time full revival will bail you out of tricky battles and blunt the impact of powerful attacks you didn’t see coming. It has a lengthy cooldown, but usually, you won’t be getting into fierce battles often enough that it won’t reset. Aphrodite is the closest god on the map when you exit the starting area, so this seems aimed at being one of the first abilities you find.
Another useful starting Blessing is the first from Hephaistos, called Hephaistos’s Spark. You’ll be dodging a lot, especially in the early game when you haven’t built your upgrades around pulling off longer chains of combos. Giving you a small bit of bonus damage for a perfect dodge will help you learn the timing faster.
The least useful of the four is likely Athena’s first Blessing, Athena’s Guidance. Enemies in Immortals tend to close the gap on you, so arrows are pretty limited in their utility in general. You have a stock of six that refresh on a timer by default, and Athena helps them refresh faster. But the chances of going through six and needing more quickly is relatively low. Even Ares’ first Blessing, Ares’s Command, which helps you build more combo meter to gather more upgrade materials, is better on the whole.
Keep in mind that Blessings unlock sequentially. That means you can’t unlock Ares’s Prowess before unlocking Ares’s Command, for example. Those unlocks will come naturally as you complete favors for the gods, which makes up the bulk of the single-player story in Immortals.
FIFA 21 released for PS4 and Xbox One earlier this year, and players picking the game up those versions have been told they’ll be able to upgrade to the next-gen version within the same console family. Now, the update is live ahead of the December 4 release date that was initially promised, meaning that you can experience next-gen FIFA earlier than expected.
As Press Start has noted, multiple players have found themselves able to download the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of the game right now. While you cannot buy this version of the game yet, the free upgrade is available, and players can test out how the game looks and runs when it’s using the full grunt of new systems.
If you want to buy the next-gen versions of the game, they’ll cost $70–it’s cheaper to buy a previous-gen version and then get the free update. The PS4/Xbox One version of FIFA 21 was good enough to earn an 8/10 in GameSpot’s review.
Immortals: Fenyx Rising presents a vast open-world inspired by Greek mythology, filled with ancient beasts and monsters and deities. If you’re just getting started, the huge open-world can be daunting. Making your created hero into a powerhouse is a long journey but we can get you started on the right path.
This is an open-world Ubisoft game, so naturally, you’ll need to do some climbing. In this case, it’s the four statues of the gods, representing their respective regions on the maps: Aphrodite, Ares, Athena, and Hephaistos. Each has a special sync point at the top that de-fogs that portion of the map. And while you’re up there…
Use your Far Sight (Scan) Ability
While climbing the statues will remove the fog in an area, it doesn’t reveal points of interest. For that, you have to manually scan the landscape with your Far Sight ability, mapped to holding R3. You can use the statues as a good vantage point to look around the map and when you find a point-of-interest like a Vault of Tartaros, you can Reveal it with a button prompt. Spend some time Revealing at the top of each statue. You can use Far Sight anywhere in the world, as well, so if you just want to know what’s close-by you can check.
To reveal points of interest, you have to manually scan the landscape with your Far Sight ability, mapped to holding R3.
Visit All Four Gods
Climbing a god’s statue will prompt a quest icon to where you can find that god, which will begin their story quest and, shortly after, unlock their first Blessing ability. This is the main meat of the story campaign, doing tasks for each god to help them regain their powers and to help you defeat Typhon. You’ll probably need to skip around completing quests for each of them in turn, rather than finishing any one god’s full questline. So revealing each of them to start gives you a foothold, as well as fast travel points in the region.
But Visit Aphrodite First
Aphrodite is the closest god on the map when you first begin the game, and probably not coincidentally, her first Blessing is among the most useful in the game. Aphrodite’s Embrace is granted soon after you start her quests, and it gives you an automatic revival if you fall in battle (with a 20 minute cooldown time). This is extremely useful for subsequent quests involving heavy combat, so just aim for getting it first.
Get the Glide Boost ASAP
Since much of the game centers on traversing the open world, one of the most useful abilities in the game is Glide Boost. It helps you glide faster and use less stamina, letting you go further with each glide. Just climb to the highest point and make reaching your next location a breeze. (For more recommendations on skills to invest in first, check out our Abilities and Blessings guide.)
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You’ll find the ancient Greek landscape teeming with wild flora and fauna. Grab it all! These materials are necessary for crafting potions at Cauldron of Circe locations, which can give you healing and combat buffs. If you see a plant, grab it. (And consider investing in the Telekinesis Gathering ability to help it go faster.)
The Many, Many Upgrade Materials
Immortals is absolutely filthy with types of upgrades, so it’s important to understand how you gain each type of upgrade material if you’re aiming for a certain type of enhancement. Ambrosia upgrades your Maximum Health, while Zeus’s Lightning upgrades your Stamina. Ambrosia is found scattered around the world, usually in places that are difficult to reach like high cliffsides. Zeus’s Lightning is only found by completing Vaults of Tartaros, the bespoke dungeons that are marked by glowing red holes in the ground.
Zeus’s Lightning is only found by completing Vaults of Tartaros, the bespoke dungeons that are marked by glowing red holes in the ground
Your Abilities (Skills and Godly Powers) are upgraded with Coins of Charon, which are awarded by completing Myth Challenges. You can find these marked with golden icons when scanning your map. They come in a few varieties, like Navigation or Lyre challenges. Chests scattered around the world have Golden Amber, which can be used to upgrade your Potions. Again, these chests can be marked by scanning with Far Sight.
Finally, your various equipment is upgraded through four types of colored Adamantine Shards. Each color can be found in clusters around the world, but otherwise, they all have unique discovery methods. Yellow (Potion and Arrow storage upgrades) are found in chests, Blue (Weapons, Armor, and Helmet upgrades) are gained by defeating common enemies, Red (Weapon upgrades) are found by defeating stronger unique enemies and inside guarded chests, and Purple (Armor and Helmet upgrades) are found in epic chests.
Visit the Hall of the Gods Often
With all of these upgrade types, you might think you can just enhance your abilities or weapons on the fly. Nope! To upgrade absolutely anything you need to visit the Hall of the Gods, found in Aphrodite’s Valley of Eternal Spring. This is your hub area for different upgrade tables, as well as changing your cosmetic options. If you’ve been out exploring the open world for a while, chances are you’ve gathered enough material to upgrade something without even realizing it. Visit the Hall of the Gods and enhance your hero before moving on with the next phase of a major story quest. This is also the home of the Hermes Heroic Tasks Board, which gives you resource and gear rewards for completing quests like killing a certain number of monsters or opening Tartaros chests.
Cyberpunk 2077 is finally nearly upon us, with a release date set for December 10, and it’s anticipated that some players will get their games early. Between copies that shipped early, retail mistakes, and press/influencer copies, it’s possible that information will be out there ahead of launch–and developer CD Projekt Red is asking that anyone with a copy holds off on streaming.
In a tweet on the official Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account, the devs have asked people not to stream the game ahead of launch–and warned, in their own way, that action will be taken against anyone who does.
“We kindly ask you NOT TO stream/let’s play, or release similar content before December 9th, 12PM CET / 3 AM PST,” the post reads. Otherwise, they joke, in-game organization MAX-TAC will be sent after you (which means, probably, they’ll take action to have the video removed or stream ended).
You can read their full statement below.
Of course, one of the core tenants of the cyberpunk aesthetic is the rejection of authority figures, and rebellion against the powers that be–but CD Projekt Red probably won’t listen to that argument if you break this rule and try to make it.
Cyberpunk 2077 will have cool photography options, so it’s likely you’ll be creating content you want to share. The game is launching on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, and will be playable on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S through backwards compatibility. True next-gen versions of the game will come later.
DLC will come for the game, too, but it won’t be revealed until after launch.
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Wallace and Gromit studio Aardman and the game publisher Bandai Namco are working together again. Following their partnership on the game 11-11: Memories Retold, the companies have now announced they will create a new IP together.
This new project will cover “multiple media,” according to a press release from Aardman. The company said they will reach out to “partners” in 2021 to discuss the project, though the news release did not mention any companies by name for who may work on the project.
What they did say is that Aardman’s “talent in creating characters and worlds” will be employed in the development of the project, while Bandai Namco will contribute with its “expertise in publishing and development.” The partnership covers “stories tailored for current and future platforms.”
“Interactive entertainment is a huge growth area within the entertainment world, and with new emerging technology blurring the lines of watching and playing, we are keen to develop strategic partnerships with partners such as Bandai Namco that share our vision of creating new IP that embraces this new world and cement our studio’s reputation as a multi-disciplinary creative hub,” Aardman managing director Sean Clarke said.
Bandai Namco’s Herve Hoerdt said in his own statement that the new partnership with Aardman is a “dream come true” and that it “opens up a world of possibilities.”
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. More information about the partnership will be announced “at a later date,” the release days.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons received its big winter update a couple of weeks ago, and its companion NookLink app has now gotten an update of its own. Nintendo has added a handy new Catalog function to the mobile service, letting you more easily track all the items you’ve obtained in the game.
Through the newly added Catalog function, players can quickly look up furniture, clothing, and other items that they’ve acquired in New Horizons. The feature displays information about the items, including which color/design variants players have obtained, how much the item costs to purchase from Nook’s Cranny, and whether or not it can be customized. The Catalog function also has a section displaying your 20 most recently acquired items in the game.
NookLink is part of the Nintendo Switch Online mobile app. In addition to allowing voice chat for compatible games, the app offers game-specific services for a couple of other first-party titles. Splatoon 2 players can use the SplatNet 2 feature to track their stats, see map rotations, and order in-game items, while the Smash World service for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate lets players view and share screenshots and videos.
One of the new features that arrived in New Horizons’ winter update is the game’s Christmas event, Toy Day, which falls on December 24. Until then, Nook’s Cranny is selling festive toys in the seasonal corner of the shop. Two new limited-time seasonal items are also available to order from the Nook Shopping catalog this month: the Aurora wall and the Midwinter sweater.
Another big content update is coming to New Horizons in late January. Nintendo hasn’t detailed what that patch will contain, but the announcement was accompanied by a picture of Pave, who organizes the series’ Festivale event. A line of Super Mario furniture is also coming to the game in March 2021 in celebration of the Super Mario series’ 35th anniversary.
Twelve months ago, no one could’ve expected to see movies such as Black Widow, No Time To Die, F9: The Fast Saga, and Dune on a list of 2021’s most anticipated films. But that was before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down theaters across the world, leading studios to delay the release of their scheduled films. While a few titles were immediately pushed into 2021, most simply moved into the later part of the year. But as the months wore on, it became clear that normal theatrical releases in 2020 weren’t going to happen, and gradually the vast majority of the year’s movies were given new release dates in 2021.
Of course, things remain very uncertain right now, and there’s no guarantee that every movie on this list will arrive on its current scheduled date. But there’s no question that there’s an absolute wealth of high-profile cinema waiting in the wings when life does regain some normality, and 2021 has the possibility of being an incredible year for movie fans.
After an entire year without a single release in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are three set to arrive in 2021–Black Widow, The Eternals, and a new Spider-Man movie. The Bond film No Time To Die will finally be with us, as will the ninth Fast and Furious and seventh Mission Impossible, plus new movies in such popular series as Ghostbusters, The Kingsmen, and the Matrix.
Outside of these big franchises, there are adaptations of video games Mortal Kombat and Uncharted, more films in Sony’s universe of Spider-man spin-offs, and belated sequels to much-loved ’80s movies Top Gun and Coming To America. Horror is well represented with new Halloween, Purge, Conjuring, Candyman, and Saw movies, plus intriguing new scary films from Edgar Wright and Guillermo Del Toro. And of course, there’s loads of animated family releases on the way too, with another original movie from Pixar as well as Minions, Hotel Transylvania, and Addams Family sequels.
With any luck, very few of the movies on the following list will also appear on GameSpot’s rundown of biggest movies to watch in 2022 a year from now. So let’s stay optimistic, and look forward to an amazing year of cinema in 2021!
Wildfire, a slow-going platformer where fire is your best friend, launches on consoles this week. Its bite sized levels require you to find the best way to get from one point to another while completing various missions.
The Sneaky Bastards-developed stealth sidescroller originally launched on Steam in May and is coming to Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One on December 3. It’ll cost $14.99 on all platforms.
There’s a good variety of mission types.
Wildfire puts you in the shoes of a villager who’s town is burnt to a crisp by a “villainous force” of strange Amazonian women. You must find and saved your friends who have been captured by completing short, Celeste-like levels that are connected by an overarching narrative.
What makes Wildfire special are its burning mechanics. Your character is given special environmental powers, including the ability to control both water and fire. Every level is full of burnable terrain like bushes, vines, wooden bridges, barricades and more. You can try and get through levels quietly by hiding in bushes and dodging enemies or you can burn through levels, leaving no survivors. The game gives you plenty of choices in terms of how you want to play.
Wildfire has gorgeous pixel visuals.
You’ll earn points you can use to learn new abilities, like the ability to bounce fire off walls and use flames to double jump, as you progress. Levels will become more complex to match your abilities. Outside technical issues, including a lot of slow down at certain points on Nintendo Switch, there aren’t many difference between the console and PC versions of the game.
Wildfire launched to high praise from critics in May for how dynamic the burning mechanics felt. It’s a game full of fun little moments (you get to play as a bobcat!) that’s unlike other platformers.
Disclaimer: Dan Hindes, the creator of Wildfire, is a former editor of GameSpot.
