Author: Trafficblast

WandaVision: Our Favorite Theories About The Biggest Mystery In The MCU

WandaVision on Disney+ is sparking some interesting conspiracy theories all around the internet.

WandaVision on Disney+ is sparking some interesting conspiracy theories all around the internet.

With Episode 4 in the books and Episode 5 right around the corner, we’ve officially hit mid-season in WandaVision, the first ever MCU TV show–and, surprising no one, the show’s core mysteries are only getting more and more complex as more information is revealed.

While fans of the MCU are no stranger to wild speculation and conspiracy theory building, WandaVision has presented us with an unusual challenge. Not only are we getting new clues doled out on a week-to-week basis, leaving plenty of room for red herrings and false starts, we’re also trying to piece together the very first official entry into Phase 4, meaning we’ve got to try and figure out where the pieces we’re putting down might fit in a mostly obscured bigger picture. After all, with all the status quo changes in Avengers: Endgame, it really does feel like anything is possible for Marvel movies going forward.

Of course this is exciting, but it’s also a bit overwhelming–especially if you’re trying your best to figure it out as you go along, rather than waiting for all nine episodes to be available for bingeing. We get it–we’re in the same boat. And that’s exactly why we’ve compiled a list of our favorite working theories for the show, ranging from absolutely bonkers off-the-wall improbabilities to involvement from the actual, literal devil.

It takes all kinds here in Westview.

Let us know your favorite WandaVision theories, no matter how bizarre, in the comments below.

Battlefield 6 Reveal Coming This Spring, Will Support More Players Than Ever

As part of Electronic Arts’ earnings report, the company shared some details on the next Battlefield game. Management said the game will offer “all-out military warfare” and support more players than ever before for the Battlefield series.

The current player cap for Battlefield is 32 v 32, so presumably this new Battlefield game will offer something more. EA also said the new Battlefield game will offer more player agency, but the company did not elaborate on what that means.

What’s more, this new game is tracking ahead of EA’s own internal milestones. EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said the new game is scheduled to reach “feature complete” status faster than any other Battlefield game in franchise history.

This new game, whatever is ends up being called, is scheduled to be revealed in Spring 2021 before releasing in Holiday 2021. EA CEO Andrew Wilson said this new Battlefield game will take advantage of the “full power” of the PS5 and Xbox Series X as it attempts to usher in a new era for the Battlefield series.

Here are EA’s full comments on the new Battlefield game:

“We’re looking forward to sharing a lot more about our FY22 plan in the months ahead, including our next Battlefield experience, which will mark a return to all-out military warfare. The game takes full advantage of the power of next-generation platforms to bring massive and immersive battles to life with more players than ever before. Featuring maps with unprecedented scale, the next vision of Battlefield takes all the destruction, player agency, and vehicle and weapon combat that the franchise is known for and elevates it to another level. The team is focused, and the game is ahead of our internal milestones. We will reveal the game in the spring and deliver the defining Battlefield experience for our players in the 2021 holiday season.”

Apex Legends Releases On Nintendo Switch In March

Apex Legends is coming to Switch on March 9, following the start of Season 8: Mayhem. Season 8 is currently live, implementing several balancing adjustments (as listed in the update’s patch notes) and adding playable character Fuse, the 30-30 Repeater Rifle, and map changes to Kings Canyon.

“Porting Apex Legends to its smallest screen yet is a major achievement, and we couldn’t have done it without our partners at Panic Button,” Apex Legends game director Chad Grenier said in a press release. “We’re very proud of what the team has been able to achieve with some smart optimizations for the Switch port to deliver a full-featured Apex Legends experience on the go.”

The Switch version of Apex Legends supports all the existing content and features on the Xbox One, PS4, and PC versions of the game. This includes cross-play support, so Switch owners will be folded into Apex Legends’ overall player pool as opposed to existing separately.

This version of the game will be launching more than a month after the debut of Season 8. To help ensure Switch players aren’t at a disadvantage, those who buy the Battle Pass will earn 30 free levels. Additionally, double XP will be awarded during the first two weeks after the game launches, helping players to continue leveling up more quickly.

Now is the perfect time to jump into Apex Legends, following the battle royale game’s transformative second year. With Fuse’s addition, the roster of playable characters reaches 16, officially doubling the starting number of eight when Apex Legends first launched in February 2019. Plus, Respawn’s commitment to balancing the game and hosting in-game events continues to create enough incentive for players to regularly log in.

Now Playing: Apex Legends Season 8 – Official Mayhem Gameplay Trailer

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Pokemon Go Lunar New Year Event Returns February 9, Adds Mega Gyarados And More

Pokemon Go‘s Lunar New Year event is returning from February 9-14. The event will feature a line of Timed Research tasks revolving around Tauros, as well as increased spawns of red-colored Pokemon and other in-game bonuses.

Throughout the Lunar New Year event, Krabby, Goldeen, Magmar, Magikarp, Tepig, and other red-colored Pokemon will appear in the wild more frequently than usual. Gyarados will also be appearing, and you’ll have a chance to encounter a Shiny red Gyarados.

In addition to the wild Pokemon spawns, Pokemon that are based on animals associated with Lunar New Year–such as Ekans, Rattata, Torchic, Ponyta, and others–will be hatching from 5 km eggs throughout the event. You’ll also have a chance to encounter the following Pokemon in Raid Battles:

  • One-star Raids: Meditite, Carvanha, Duskull, Skorupi, and Darumaka
  • Three-star Raids: Miltank, Octillery, Blaziken, Camerupt, and Absol

Those aren’t the only Raid bosses that will be available during the Lunar New Year event. The Legendary Eon Pokemon Latios and Latias will also return to five-star Raids from February 9-20, while Mega Ampharos, Mega Pidgeot, and the debuting Mega Gyarados will be featured in Mega Raids during the same timeframe.

Finally, Niantic will offer a variety of in-game bonuses throughout the Lunar New Year event. Gifts you receive from friends will contain more Poke Balls than usual, and you’re more likely to become Lucky Friends with other players. On top of that, Pokemon you receive in trades are more likely to become Lucky. To take advantage of that bonus, Niantic is increasing trading distance to 40 km for the event.

In the meantime, the Team Go Rocket Celebration event is underway. February’s Community Day also takes place this weekend, while Suicune is returning to Raid Battles from February 4-9. You can see all the other big February events happening in Pokemon Go in our roundup.

Now Playing: Pokemon – Official 25 Years Of Memories Trailer

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Monster Hunter Movie Releases On Home Video February 16

The Monster Hunter movie will be heading for a home-video release on digital on February 16 according to a tweet from the film’s official Twitter account, with the Blu-ray release to follow on March 2. These releases will reportedly include “deleted scenes, a featurette on the cast and characters, a featurette on the weaponry in the film, and a featurette detailing the journey from video game to the big screen.”

The movie was one of the handful of movies whose release date was actually moved up in 2020, which now means fans will have an even shorter wait to finally own the film later this month. We weren’t blown away by the film, but video game movies are consistently polarizing even among fans who are interested in such things. What was always clear–and nobody can argue against–is that director Paul W.S. Anderson (Mortal Kombat in 1995) set out to make audiences feel like they were in the game.

That much comes across in the film’s official synopsis: “Behind our world, there is another: a world of dangerous and powerful monsters that rule their domain with deadly ferocity. When an unexpected sandstorm transports Captain Artemis (Milla Jovovich) and her unit (T.I. Harris, Meagan Good, Diego Boneta) to a new world, the soldiers are shocked to discover that this hostile and unknown environment is home to enormous and terrifying monsters immune to their firepower.” The trio are joined by a mysterious hunter (Tony Jaa), who band together to fight for and save each other’s worlds.

The next exciting thing to look forward to in the Monster Hunter world is the upcoming Monster Hunter Rise Nintendo Switch game, which is expected to launch on March 26.

Preorder Monster Hunter

Amazon CEO And Founder Jeff Bezos Is Stepping Down, But He’s Not Retiring

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is stepping down from his role as the chief executive of the mega-corporation. He announced that he will transition to a new role as executive chair on the Board of Directors. Andy Jassy, the former CEO of Amazon Web Services and a 23-year-plus veteran, will take over as CEO of Amazon going forward.

“In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence,” Bezos said.

Bezos also reflected on his life and career in his email to staffers, which was also published online.

“This journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name. The question I was asked most frequently at that time was, ‘What’s the internet?’ Blessedly, I haven’t had to explain that in a long while,” Bezos said. “Today, we employ 1.3 million talented, dedicated people, serve hundreds of millions of customers and businesses, and are widely recognized as one of the most successful companies in the world.”

Bezos said that it was invention that was Amazon’s root of success.

“We’ve done crazy things together, and then made them normal. We pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalized recommendations, Prime’s insanely-fast shipping, Just Walk Out shopping, the Climate Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, marketplace, infrastructure cloud computing, Career Choice, and much more,” he said. “If you get it right, a few years after a surprising invention, the new thing has become normal. People yawn. And that yawn is the greatest compliment an inventor can receive.”

Bezos said it is difficult and consuming to be the CEO of Amazon, and his role as chief executive limited what he was able to do outside of that. In his new role on the board, Bezos said he will remain “engaged” in Amazon’s major initiatives, but he won’t be as busy with day-to-day items. With that extra time, Bezos said he will focus more on his charitable campaigns, along with his other properties such as The Washington Post and his rocket company, Blue Origin.

“I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring. I’m super passionate about the impact I think these organizations can have,” he said. “Amazon couldn’t be better positioned for the future. We are firing on all cylinders, just as the world needs us to. We have things in the pipeline that will continue to astonish. We serve individuals and enterprises, and we’ve pioneered two complete industries and a whole new class of devices. We are leaders in areas as varied as machine learning and logistics, and if an Amazonian’s idea requires yet another new institutional skill, we’re flexible enough and patient enough to learn it.”

This change comes not long after a Bloomberg report shone a light on the struggles that Amazon has had to get its gaming efforts off the ground. Amazon continues to develop games, including a new Lord of the Rings MMO made by former Destiny and Planetside developers.

Call of Duty: Warzone Bans Over 60,000 Cheaters

Activision has begun banning Call of Duty Warzone cheaters in what’s reportedly one of the biggest waves of bans ever for the game.

This time, the company banned more than 60,000 cheaters in the latest drop of its banhammer, according to Vice, which learned of this wave of bans from three sources familiar with Activision. This is the third large wave of bans since the game’s launch last year. Over 50,000 players were banned in the first wave last April and an additional 20,000 last September.

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This ban comes just a day after popular Warzone streamer, Vikkstar123, announced that he would no longer play the game, as noted by Vice. He echoed sentiments found throughout the Warzone streaming community at the moment that the game is in the worst state it’s ever been in due to hackers and cheaters.

Sources close to Vice said this ban wave targeted cheaters using EngineOwning as all EngineOwning account holders using the software to cheat in the game have been “wiped out.” On EngineOwning’s site, the cheat developers say they are working to update the cheat, according to Vice.

Meanwhile, the EngineOwning Discord channel is full of account owners upset that their accounts have been banned by Activision.

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This ban wave came somewhat out of nowhere considering that Activision previously warned of incoming ban waves before actually dropping the hammer in past instances. Activision laid out at that time what software they consider worthy of a ban and it included “aimbots, wallhacks, trainers, stats hacks, texture hacks, leaderboard hacks, injectors, hex editors or any software used to deliberately modify game data or memory.”

For more Warzone, check out this trailer of the first season featuring content from Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and then read about how the battle royale has helped the series earn $3 billion over the last 12 months.

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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes. 

Breaking: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Steps Down as CEO

Amazon has announced that CEO and founder Jeff Bezos will resign from his position during the third quarter of 2021, and will transition to executive chair of Amazon’s board. Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Andy Jassy will replace Bezos, according to CNBC.

“I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO,” Bezos wrote in a statement sent to employees. “In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence.”

Bezos continued his statement saying that he will use his new role as executive chair of Amazon’s board to focus on initiatives like Amazon’s Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, the Washington Post, and others.

Bezos originally founded Amazon in 1994, growing what began as an online bookstore into a massive online retailer that competes in numerous sectors, including food delivery, technology, and movie and television streaming. Amazon passed a $1 trillion market cap in 2020 under Bezos’ leadership.

Bezos is worth approximately $182 billion as of last December, according to NPR, making him the wealthiest person on the planet.

Jassy joined Amazon in 1997. He has directed work on Amazon Web Services since its launch in 2006. AWS provides a wide variety of cloud computing and API services to individuals and companies, including data storage, networking, developer tools, and more. To give you an idea of how important AWS had become to Amazon’s success, CNBC reports that AWS accounted for 52% of Amazon’s operating income in October 2020.

AWS supports various game developers’ operations, including Clash of Clans’ developer Supercell, Borderlands 3’s Gearbox Software, and Monster Hunter World’s Capcom.

Amazon’s forays into first-party video game development have gone considerably less successful in the past year, with their free-to-play team shooter Crucible shutting down in November last year. An extensive report from Bloomberg in January shed light on Amazon Game Studios’ alleged culture of sexual discrimination and mismanagement.

Amazon’s game streaming platform, Amazon Luna, is also currently in beta. Amazon’s MMO, New World, is expected to launch in Spring 2021.

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After stepping further away from day-to-day operations at Amazon, Bezos found himself pulled back in due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the logistical complications that arose as a result, according to the New York Times.

Bezos has also been criticized numerous times in the past for anti-worker policies, including aggressively monitoring employee behavior to stop unionization efforts, according to CNBC.

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Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer for IGN.

Pokemon Go Tour Kanto Event: How To Pick Your Event Version

Pokemon Go is celebrating the series’ 25th anniversary with the Pokemon Go Tour: Kanto, a one-day event revolving around the original 150 Pokemon. As with the original games, the event will be available in two flavors, a Red Version and a Green Version, and now developer Niantic has explained how you’ll be able to choose your event version when the festivities begin later this month.

How To Choose Your Event Version

The Pokemon Go Tour: Kanto event takes place on Saturday, February 20. Before you can participate, however, you’ll need to choose which “version” of the event you want to experience. Once the event is underway, open your item bag and select your Pokemon Go Tour: Kanto virtual ticket. After that, you’ll see a prompt asking you to Choose Red or Choose Green. Simply tap on the event version you’d like to experience to make your choice. Bear in mind that your choice is final, so think carefully before making your selection.

Version Differences

As was the case with the original Pokemon Red and Pokemon Green games, the primary difference between the event versions boils down to Pokemon selection. Some monsters will be more likely to appear depending on which version of the event you choose. You can see the full list of event-exclusive Pokemon below:

Red Version

Attracted to Incense:

  • Ekans
  • Oddish
  • Mankey
  • Growlithe
  • Scyther
  • Electabuzz

Possible Shiny encounters:

  • Bulbasaur
  • Charmander
  • Squirtle
  • Pidgey
  • Ekans
  • Pikachu
  • Nidoran (F)
  • Oddish
  • Diglett
  • Mankey
  • Growlithe
  • Ponyta
  • Shellder
  • Drowzee
  • Krabby
  • Hitmonlee
  • Lickitung
  • Scyther
  • Electabuzz
  • Eevee
  • Kabuto
  • Dratini

Green Version

Attracted to Incense:

  • Sandshrew
  • Vulpix
  • Meowth
  • Bellsprout
  • Magmar
  • Pinsir

Possible Shiny encounters:

  • Bulbasaur
  • Charmander
  • Squirtle
  • Pidgey
  • Pikachu
  • Sandshrew
  • Nidoran (M)
  • Vulpix
  • Meowth
  • Psyduck
  • Bellsprout
  • Geodude
  • Exeggcute
  • Hitmonchan
  • Koffing
  • Tangela
  • Horsea
  • Magmar
  • Pinsir
  • Eevee
  • Omanyte
  • Dratini

The Pokemon Go Tour: Kanto event begins at 9 AM local time and runs for 12 hours, concluding at 9 PM local time. You can read more details about the event on the official Pokemon Go blog.

In the meantime, a Team Go Rocket Celebration event is underway in Pokemon Go. The Legendary Raikou is also back in Raids until February 4, when it will be replaced by Suicune. Shortly after that, Niantic is hosting February’s Community Day. This month’s featured Pokemon is Roselia, and any that you evolve into Roserade up to two hours after the event ends will know the special moves Bullet Seed and Weather Ball.

Now Playing: Pokemon – Official 25 Years Of Memories Trailer

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Disney+ Announces Marvel’s Behind The Mask Documentary Special Airing February 12

Disney+ and Marvel have announced Marvel’s Behind the Mask, a new upcoming documentary special slated to hit the streaming service on February 12. You can check out the official trailer for the special below.

Marvel’s Behind the Mask will let fans behind the curtain to “discover the inspiration behind Marvel’s greatest heroes” in what looks to be a deep dive into the company’s history and evolving creative philosophies.

According to an announcement posted on Marvel’s website, the documentary will also “feature guests from across Marvel’s 80-year legacy, including the writers and artists behind the rise of characters like Black Panther, Miles Morales, Ms. Marvel, Luke Cage, the X-Men, Captain Marvel, and many other characters in the Marvel Universe, highlighting Marvel’s impact on pop culture and media.” The documentary will serve as a nice counterpart for Marvel Studio: Legends, a new series that revisits some of the most iconic moments from the MCU, one character at a time.

The film is directed by Michael Jacobs and produced by Chris Gary and Ryan Simon for Tarmac Creative and Strike Anywhere. Joe Quesada, Shane Rahmani, Stephen Wacker, John Cerilli, Harry Go, and Sarah Amos serve as executive producers for Marvel.

Given everything going on and about to get underway with Marvel and Phase 4 this year, the time is just about right for a look back at how far Marvel–and the artform of comics–has come.