Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is the final entry in the Skywalker Saga that began in 1977. It’s expected to close the book on some storylines from throughout the franchise, and it’s now seemingly confirmed that the film has a super-sized length.
AMC Theatres has revealed that the film has a runtime of 155 minutes, which makes it the longest movie in the entire space opera series, according to IGN. The 1977 original, A New Hope, was the shortest of the main series at 121 minutes, while The Last Jedi was previously the longest at 152 minutes. 2008’s animated movie The Clone Wars was only 98 minutes.
The Rise of Skywalker will be one of the longest mainstream blockbusters ever, but it won’t hold that record. Avengers: Endgame, which like The Rise of Skywalker, was the final entry in a saga, clocked in at 181 minutes.
The tickets went on sale on October 21 alongside the release of a brand-new trailer. This video, which is said to be the “final” trailer before release, revealed a first look at Dominic Monaghan’s character, teased more of Palpatine, and showed some heart-breaking C-3PO dialogue. A new poster has also been released; check it out below.
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HBO has revealed that 1.5 million people tuned in to the debut of Watchmen.
As reported by Variety, Watchmen’s premiere was “up 21% in linear on last week’s “Succession” season finale, and up 20% from the 1.2 million multi-platform figure posted by the “Succession” season 2 premiere.”
It was, however, down almost 30% compared to the season 2 premiere of Westworld that drew in 2.1 million viewers.
Watch our spoiler-filled discussion/review of the first episode of HBO’s Watchmen!
Another Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker trailer has arrived, but nothing has yet disproved this theory of where Rey began and where she’s headed. In fact, in light of the history of misdirection in Star Wars trailers, hearing Palpatine’s voice say “your coming together… is your undoing” suggesting that Rey and Kylo Ren uniting against a common foe actually points to it meaning something completely different. It could, for example, mean that Rey and her fellow clones meeting is what Palpatine had planned… ever since his previous plan resulted in him being tossed down a garbage chute.
Microsoft only just recently released Gears 5, and to be clear, no sequel has been announced. However, one of the game’s developers, art director Aryan Hanbeck, has now spoken at a very high level about some of his ideas for Gears 6.
He said on video game composer Hamidreza Nikoofar’s podcast, Wassup Conversations, that he’s telling his art team to watch The Handmaid’s Tale for inspiration. Hanbeck said Hulu’s dystopian show is shot beautifully and creatively, and the next Gears game could benefit from taking some inspiration from it.
“One thing–the guys here will probably laugh if they see this–but I’ve been telling all the artists nonstop to go watch Handmaid’s Tale… The composition, the color, and just the cinematography and symbolism actually is just off the charts,” Hanbeck said (via IGN). “So, I watched that and I’m like, ‘Wow we gotta find a way to get more of this stuff in Gears 6.'”
The Handmaid’s Tale has a sort of grainy and dark presentation style. It is eye-catching, for sure. Gears 5, meanwhile, expanded on the franchise’s traditionally dark and grimy art style with its introduction of more bright and colorful sequences.
Gears 5 was a big critical and commercial success, so it is expected that Microsoft will eventually make Gears 6. It likely won’t be released anytime soon, however.
While fans might have to wait a while for Gears 6, developer The Coalition plans to update and support Gears 5 with lots of extra content–including free maps and more–over time.
The big changes to Xbox Live gamertags announced back at E3 in June have now gone live more broadly on console, it seems. As announced previously, players on Xbox One can now choose gamertag you want, even if it’s already taken. If you choose a gamertag that is already claimed, Xbox will auto-generate an ID suffix of numbers after an # symbol.
For example, if you wanted CoDFan1 and it’s already taken, you could be CoDFan#107 or some other variation of that. The suffix font size is smaller and the color is different, so the name you want will stand out. You can see an example of this in the image below.
These changes are seemingly inspired by similar systems already employed on Battle.net and Discord. Importantly, this is only a new option. Existing gamertags will remain intact and no one will be able to take your exact name (unless you relinquish it).
It’s also worth mentioning that Microsoft’s code of conduct still applies to the new gamertag system, so you won’t be allowed to use hate speech or other offending terms. There is a max character limit of 12.
The first gamertag name change is free, and you can do that on Microsoft’s website here. Players will see their new name on the dashboard immediately, but any new title you choose won’t show up in games until 2020, according to VentureBeat.
If you’re looking to change your gamertag, there are many more options than there used to be. Gamertags now support more alphabets to work with more than 200 languages from around the world. The newly supported character sets include:
Basic Latin
Latin-1 Supplement
Hangul
Katakana
Hiragana
CJK Symbols for languages in China, Japan, and Korea
Apex Legends is in the midst of Fight or Fright, the first limited-time event for Season 3: Meltdown and the first holiday-themed event the battle royale game has ever had. Like Iron Crown and Voidwalker, Fight or Fright temporarily introduces a new mode for you to play.
The new mode, Shadowfall, is spookily fun, but also quite challenging. In the following gallery, we detail different tips for winning a match–which you’ll have to do to unlock some of Fight or Fright’s Halloween-themed cosmetics. Shadowfall is a solo gametype, forcing you to drop on your own alongside 34 other opponents onto a nightmarish version of Kings Canyon.
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Each match is overseen by a death-loving necromancer–likely Apex Legends next playable character, Revenant–who resuscitates all fallen Legends as members of the Shadow Squad. As a shadow, you can no longer open doors, equip weapons or armor, or use your character abilities. But you gain enhanced speed, climbing, and melee damage.
Your endgame goal is dependent on whether you’re still a member of the living or a shadow by a match’s end. If you manage to stay alive until there are only 10 survivors, the game flips the script on you and makes you all allies, tasking you with working together to reach a dropship and escape. However, if you were killed and reborn as a member of the Shadow Squad, you must coordinate with your fellow shadows and kill the survivors before they can get away.
Since you can end up on two different squads, there are two different ways to win a Shadowfall match. We’ll be going into strategies for both squads in the following article.
To win as a Legend in Shadowfall, you need to outlast and outrun shadows. So when picking a character, you should be looking at the Legends that can best outmaneuver their opponents or keep enemies at bay for long periods of time.
Of the lot, your two best choices are probably Wraith and Pathfinder. When surrounded by murderous shadows, Wraith can easily get out of the sticky situation by using Into the Void. Combining Dimensional Rift and Into the Void also gives Wraith tremendous speed and invulnerability, giving her an edge in that final sprint to the dropship. Pathfinder can’t make himself temporarily invulnerable, but his Grappling Hook and Zipline Gun are both great for navigating the map at a height most other characters can’t reach. Just be careful, the shadows can use your zipline too.
Octane makes a decent pick too. His Stim and Launch Pad are great for escaping shadows, though neither are as effective as Pathfinder’s abilities. A surprisingly good pick for Shadowfall is Mirage, but he requires a bit more strategy than the aforementioned Legends. Bamboozling shadows with Mirage’s Psyche Out can buy you precious seconds. And when it’s time to run for the dropship, use Vanishing Act to go invisible and sneak your way onboard while your teammates continue to fight the shadows.
Of course, any Legend can win in Shadowfall. But Bangalore, Bloodhound, Caustic, and Wattson struggle to be as useful as the characters mentioned above. Lifeline, Crypto, and Gibraltar are perhaps the most useless of all, as none of their abilities will aid you in escaping or effectively combating the shadows.
Legend Squad – Best Drop Spots
Strategies for best drop spots will, of course, change depending on the travel path of the dropship. That said, there are a few strategies you want to keep in mind–especially since you’ll be dropping alone and won’t have a teammate to watch your back until there are only 10 of you left.
The original circle is pretty slow and Kings Canyon is much smaller than World’s Edge, so you can afford to be a little daring and land well outside the advertised safe zone at the start where there’s likely to be far fewer players–especially if you’re Pathfinder, Wraith, or Octane as all three can use their abilities to quickly get inside the ring.
Though you should be aiming for buildings to grab loot, try to avoid the largest of the landmarks where other players are almost always likely to drop. The Cage seems to attract the most players, so avoiding it as a drop spot is probably a good idea unless you’re very confident that you’re skilled enough to win against multiple opponents. Bunker, Water Treatment, and Artillery should also be avoided for similar reasons, though there’s less of a chance of running into large groups of players at these locations in comparison to The Cage.
Remember, you don’t actually need to kill anyone to win, you just need to make sure that you don’t die.
Legend Squad – Best Weapons
Many of the best guns for normal Apex Legends play are not as good for Shadowfall. Normally, dealing out tremendous amounts of damage is the best way to win. However, given that shadows in Shadowfall can run significantly faster than you, jump much higher than you, and can kill you in one or two melee attacks, doing damage as fast as possible if far more important than dealing large amounts over time–especially since shadows only have 30 health so it’s not like you need to deal a ton of damage.
So, for example, the EVA-8 shotgun is a better choice than the Peacekeeper. Though the Peacekeeper with a Precision Choke attachment is one of the best damage dealing options in Apex Legends, the EVA-8 has a far faster fire rate. The R-301 and Flatline are the better assault rifle options, Spitfire is the best choice among the LMGs, and G7 Scout should be your go-to sniper rifle–remember that energy weapons like the Havoc assault rifle, Devotion LMG, and Charge Rifle sniper rifle require a wind-up before firing.
If you manage to find one, grab an R-99 submachine gun. Though not that strong, the R-99 possesses the fastest fire rate of any gun in the game. It’s not that good without an extended magazine and stacks of light ammo though, so looking for submachine gun attachments and a bigger backpack should be your first priority if you go for an R-99.
Shadow Squad – Best Drop Spots
If you’re aiming to win as the Shadow Squad, your best bet is to just drop immediately and fall off the edge of the map. Ending your life will instantly revive you as a member of the Shadow Squad and see you falling back onto Kings Canyon before most players have had a chance to touch down and start looting. Just look for any lingering jump jet trails and angle yourself towards them–chances are you’ll be right on another player’s heels before they can even equip a weapon.
You want to recruit more shadows to your side as quickly as possible. Though the second phase will traditionally always start with 25 shadows and 10 Legends no matter how you get to those numbers, getting to that phase as quickly as possible prevents the survivors from being able to grow too strong and outfit themselves.
If you get killed as a shadow, you should use respawning as a chance to get the drop on survivors. When killed, the person who offed you will be marked on your map. If they’re still outdoors, go and pounce on them from above (in my experience, players haven’t kept eyes upward while playing Shadowfall). If they manage to get indoors, it will be a bit trickier as they can use closed doors to buy themselves a few seconds, so maybe peel off and land somewhere else. You’ll also be alerted to locations where both survivors or shadows have died. In either case, there’s a chance a living Legend is still around. Just drop nearby and go hunting.
Shadow Squad – Best Ambush Techniques
When a shadow is in a Legends’ presence, the Legend hears strange music that alerts them to the approaching threat. Given your meager health on the Shadow Squad, it’s in your best interest to act fast before a Legend has a chance to react. The aforementioned pounce from the sky while dropping is one of the best ways, but that’s impossible to do if the person you’re hunting is indoors. Thankfully, you have more than speed at your disposal–you also have fear.
Survivors will regularly post up in buildings to give themselves an added sense of protection. Your job as a shadow is to make that building feel like a cage. Dart around the building and scurry across the roof to make the survivor’s in-game music fluctuate and fill their headset with the patter of your feet. Slash at all the doors as you pass them–it creates a loud, jump-scare like sound and if you’re fast enough to break enough doors in a row it makes it sound like more than one shadow is invading the building.
And then just keep doing this. Either the survivor will panic and flee, making them much easier to kill or they’ll try and fight and the gunfire will attract more shadows. In some cases (usually when you’re dealing with a Wattson or Caustic) the Legend will hold their ground and keep quiet, secure in defenses they’ve set up for themselves. In those cases, just wait. Eventually, the dropship will appear and force the Legend to abandon their hole to go and escape. Patience is an effective tactic. Use the pressure of your presence to force the survivor to make a mistake.
HBO’s newest show, Watchmen, is off to a good start, it seems. The network announced that the series premiere drew 1.5 million viewers across all of its channels on Sunday.
This represented the strongest start for a new HBO show since Westworld’s premiere back in 2016, according to numbers crunched by Variety.
By comparison, HBO’s Game of Thrones had 17.4 million viewers for its Season 8 premiere back in April. That show was one of the most popular in TV history, so comparisons against are difficult. A closer comparison might be Succession, which picked up 1.2 million viewers for its Season 2 premiere.
HBO’s Watchmen is based on the DC graphic novel from Dave Gibbons. The show is set in a world where superheroes and villains are outlawed but they still exist and are fighting.
“The pilot is steeped in that sensibility. Sure, superheroes play a major role, and yes, there’s no shortage of commentary about the complicated interplay between vigilantism and heroism, but at its heart, Episode 1 feels like the start of something truly special for fans of science fiction television,” reviewer Meg Downey wrote.
For more on Watchmen, check out the stories below.
