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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Immortals Fenyx Rising vs. Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 13 Biggest Similarities
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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.
Warner Bros. interfered with Peter Jackson’s filmmaking on The Hobbit, and it led to a lesser product in the end compared to The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. This is according to actor Jed Brophy, who has known Jackson for 30 years and has appeared in many of his movies over the decades, dating back to Braindead and running through The Hobbit.
In an interview with Kiwi Talkz (via ScreenRant), Brophy said one of the issues with The Hobbit was that non-creative studio bosses from Warner Bros. got in the way.
“They get in the way. They want to be ‘creative,”” Brophy said using air quotes in regards to these people. “Let the creatives do the job, man. Your job is to find the money and then sell it. Don’t get in the way of an auteur. I may be speaking out of turn here, and probably, if those people find me I’ll get slammed, but I think Warner Bros. kind of got in the way of Peter on The Hobbit. I think they got in the way of him being able to do what he does well.”
Brophy went on to say there was a “feeling of unease” on the set of The Hobbit due to this pressure. As Brophy tells it, Warner Bros. prevented Jackson from reaching the kind of “flow” state that he had on The Lord of the Rings because the studio heads wanted to make more money.
“I’ve known Peter for nearly 30 years now, and I can see that he wasn’t the affable, funny, relaxed person that he usually is,” Brophy said of The Hobbit. “You can feel that pressure–if you jump in bed with the devil and they give you $600 million dollars, you’re answerable. You’re answerable to their whims.”
“Warner Bros., love or hate them, they’re into franchises,” he added.
They’re into building a series of films that follow on from each other to generate income and to generate merchandising. They’ve got various people whose job that is to do, but none of them are auteurs, none of them are filmmakers. None of them are people who can actually look at a script and in their head imagine how you can get the best drama out of it. If you get in the way of that process, you’re actually stopping someone from actually getting a flow on, and that’s what I think happened [on The Hobbit]. That’s what I could see happening. There was not that same flow.”
Overall, Brophy said he experienced a feeling of “freedom” on The Lord of the Rings, which was contrasted by the feeling of “tightness” on The Hobbit.
The actor made it clear that he is only speaking from his own personal experience, and he can’t say for sure what others might think about The Hobbit and its production process.
For what it’s worth, Jackson was not even originally lined up to direct The Hobbit series. Guillermo del Toro was attached at first, but he left the project after two years of pre-production work. Jackson stepped in to direct what would become three movies, and, while the films made billions at the global box office, they were not as critically adored as the Lord of the Rings series.
