One of the most critical choices you will make in a Borderlands game is picking your Vault Hunter. Fortunately, every Vault Hunter in Borderlands 3 is a ton of fun, and you can’t go wrong playing as any of them. That said, they are designed differently around specific playstyles, so it helps to know a little about how they play before starting the game. In the article below, you can find an overview to help you see which Vault Hunter is right for you.
We hope you find what we’ve detailed helpful for you in deciding which character you want to play first. For more Borderlands 3 features, be on the lookout for our beginner’s guide and gallery highlighting all the craziest guns. We’ll also be updating this feature in the coming days with links to standalone guides about each Vault Hunter, so be sure to check often. And if you haven’t already, be sure to read our Borderlands 3 review.
If you liked playing as Brick in Borderlands and Kreig in Borderlands 2, you’d most likely enjoy Amara as she’s the Siren equivalent of those two put together. Though she does come with some support and defensive abilities, Amara is almost entirely offense-focused and at her best when she’s in the middle of a fight, punching bandits with her fists and crushing soldiers with her elemental arms. If you want to be aggressive, like all the time, then you want to pick Amara.
Each of Amara’s three active skills is designed to get her into an opponent’s face as quickly as possible. Many of them can be evolved with secondary perks to aid Amara in close-quarters combat–like keeping her elemental arms out to deflect bullets or extend the reach and power of her melee attack. She never wants to leave the fight.
As Amara, you’re always charging forward because her attack power grows when closer to an enemy. So if you pick Amara, you’ll always want to be surrounded. Playing her requires good spatial awareness–there’s a lot to account for when multiple enemies are hitting you from more than one direction. Shotguns and close-range pistols are your best friends. If you enjoy tossing grenades and sniping enemies from a distance, then Amara is not for you.
Amara is a bit more challenging to use in comparison to her fellow Vault Hunters as a result of her emphasis on overwhelming her opponent with close-quarters elemental damage. Some late-game enemies and bosses can fly or have sturdy elemental resistances, both of which put Amara at a disadvantage. You may want to hold off on picking her for your first playthrough if this is your first Borderlands game. But if you think guns are silly and that you’d rather punch every enemy to death, then look no further than Amara.
Zane (The Hit-And-Run Grenade Throwing Maniac…with a Drone)
Zane is a hit-and-run character and a grenade stacking maniac. Unlike other Vault Hunters, he can use two active skills at once–though there is no reason to do so in your early playthrough due to the second skill taking the place of grenades. Part of what makes Zane such a capable hit-and-run tactician is his potential to blow up everything in the immediate area and then instantly teleport out. This power comes from his Digi-Clone ability.
The Digi-Clone is one of Zane’s active skills in his Double Agent skill tree that allows him to summon a stationary copy of himself. Zane can swap places with the clone at any time and even use the clone to revive from the “Fight for Your Life” state. The clone can be used creatively to bound up a battlefield, fall back to reload, or only as a distraction to draw fire.
As Zane progresses down his Double Agent tree, several abilities begin to increase his explosive power. For example, Fractal Frags where the clone throws a copy of your grenade, Duct Tape Mod where Zane will randomly fire a grenade, and Dobblebanger where the clone explodes at the end of the skill timer. Combining these abilities with any grenade that has the MIRV trait, which splits into multiple munitions, can be satisfyingly destructive. However, the biggest threat to Zane is himself. It’s essential to retreat from an area blanketed with grenades by leaving the Digi-Clone behind.
If you want a completely different Zane–one that posts up behind a barrier and sends out a drone to flush enemies from cover–then his other two active skills Barrier and SNTNL make him into less of a solo build and more of a support team player. You can even pick up and move with his shield.
The final thing to know about Zane is he’s a pretty funny guy and acknowledges his age. He wheezes if you run for any length of time and often makes it clear he’d instead be drinking in a bar somewhere else. If you’re looking for a character who got smarter and deadlier with age, then Zane is your Vault Hunter.
Moze (The Scrappy Mech-Driving Soldier)
Moze is perfect for series newcomers and highly recommended to those with an itchy trigger finger. On her own, she doesn’t have much combat abilities, but when you jump into her Iron Bear mech, a world of possibility is available to you.
The Iron Bear is only available for a limited time, but in that short duration, it’s well-capable of wiping out entire rooms of enemies. It starts with three weapons: the V35 Grenade Launcher, the Minigun, and the Railgun, but that arsenal expands by investing in each of Moze’s three skill trees–opening up options to equip other types of firepower, like a flamethrower and a rocket volley. And each can also be customized with skills that modify their capabilities.
The Iron Bear can be used in a variety of strategic ways: you can summon it frequently to rain down everlasting hell upon your enemies, or you might keep it as your ace in the hole during boss fights or when a firefight goes south. Heck, you can take both approaches; it’s up to you! Moze can also be useful as a tank (conceptually and literally) for other players. After all, the Iron Bear is a near-invincible wall that can quickly pull enemy aggro off teammates.
None of this is to say that Moze isn’t as capable outside the mech. In fact, she’s just as deadly on-foot. Her skill tree has plenty of bonuses that amplify her capabilities, such as improved reload speed, bonus incendiary damage, and enhanced shield strength. Many of Moze’s skills optimize her ability to inflict damage as aggressively as possible while occasionally buffing teammates and even letting them hop aboard the Iron Bear’s manned turret.
As Moze, you are regularly switching between wiping out enemies on-foot and devastating them with the Iron Bear. She’s a scrappy, agile, and adaptable character whose most significant strength is stacking up a plethora of damage in a short time and taking the heat off friends.
In many ways, Moze is essentially a Titanfall pilot without the wall-running. So if that doesn’t make you want to play as her, then we don’t know what does.
FL4K (The Long-Range Beast Tamer)
Every Vault Hunter is perfectly viable to play with solo, but FL4K is designed around working by themselves. Instead of real friends, you can make up the difference with one of FL4K’s three pets. Not only do their kills count for getting a second chance if you’re downed, but you can eventually invest in a passive skill that lets them revive you. Each pet behaves differently and can be swapped around at any time, allowing for a lot of experimentation.
The Master tree is all about boasting the pets, but even if you don’t spec in this tree, it’s essential to understand that FL4K’s pets are a crucial part of their playstyle and if you aren’t using them all the time then you aren’t taking full advantage of what FL4K can do.
There are a lot of aspects from previous Vault Hunters Mordecai and Zero present in FL4K’s other skill trees. “Fade Away” lets you turn invisible for a short period and “Rakk Attack!” throws out a group of Rakk’s to assault enemies. So yeah, if you liked those characters, FL4K will be familiar to you. And also like those characters, FL4K is best suited for long-range sniping. Their Hunter Skill tree is all about increasing crit damage. So if you like playing from a distance, using sniper rifles, and getting headshots, then FL4K is for you! Jakobs guns, which are all about bolt action precision damage, are going to be your best friends.
FL4K is going to work best for players that manage their pets, along with their skills, to team up on enemies and take them out together. They may not be as visually flashy as the other Vault Hunters but make no mistake, in the hands of a skilled player FL4K, can dish out some severe damage.
Our one warning for picking FL4K is that their pets tend to walk in front of you during important emotional moments with characters, which can be annoying.
Earlier this year, Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame surpassed James Cameron’s Avatar to become the all-time highest-grossing movie ever worldwide with $2.79 billion. It dethroned Avatar ($2.78 billion), which had held the No. 1 position since 2009. Cameron isn’t salty about his movie’s record being broken, however, as he explained in a recent interview that the enormous success of Avengers proves that people are still willing and eager to go to the theatre–and that’s good for the movie business all up.
“It gives me a lot of hope,” Cameron told Deadline. “Avengers: Endgame is demonstrable proof that people will still go to movie theaters. The thing that scared me most about making Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 was that the market might have shifted so much that it simply was no longer possible to get people that excited about going and sitting in a dark room with a bunch of strangers to watch something.”
Avatar 2 is slated to hit theatres in December 2021, with Avatar 3 coming in December 2023. Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 are slated to hit cinemas in 2024 and 2027, but Deadline points out that these movies might not happen if the first two sequels don’t succeed at the box office.
Cameron said he isn’t sure if the Avatar sequels can be as enormously successful at capturing “the zeitgeist” like Endgame did. However, Endgame proves that it is possible, and that’s a big deal, he said.
“Will Avatar 2 and 3 be able to create that kind of success in the zeitgeist? Who knows. We’re trying. Maybe we do, maybe we don’t, but the point is, it’s still possible,” Cameron said. “I’m happy to see it.”
With the rise of Netflix and streaming, some have wondered how that may impact the eagerness of people to leave their homes and watch movies in a theatre. It remains to be seen how it will all shake out, and as for Cameron, he said he’s happy to see the traditional movie-going experience remaining popular. He said there is an “alternate scenario” focused more on streaming and away from theatres that could have led to a situation where big, tentpole movies might not succeed on the level they do today.
While Cameron’s Avatar was knocked down to No. 2, his earlier movie, Titanic ($2.18 billion), sits at No. 3 all time not adjusted for inflation, so he’s doing just fine. With inflation factored in, however, Avatar remains ahead of Avengers: Endgame in some categories.
No new Avengers movies have been announced, but Marvel’s Phase 4 includes a number of anticipated films like Black Widow, The Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder, among others.
What started as an April Fool’s joke has become a reality, as turn-based strategy game Sid Meier’s Civilization VI sees a battle royale mode called Red Death added to its September update. The update also features a smorgasbord of new content, and it’s free for PC owners who own the base game.
Red Death tasks you with besting up to 12 other players as you race to secure the only spot on the last ship ditching the planet. It’s not the complete Civ VI experience, as it only features eight apocalypse-themed factions with a variety of in-game advantages. Publisher 2K Games shared a detailed promotional video, below, outlining everything available in Red Death. There’s no confirmation on whether the mode will appear on other platforms.
A press release elaborated on Red Death’s origin. Multiplayer engineering lead Bradley Olson implemented the battle royale mode in an April 1 build of Civ VI. Not a single developer on the team noticed. After Olson pointed out the mode’s stealthy addition at a design meeting, a play session was set up so everyone could try it out. Not long after, with the art team developing assets and the design team expanding the scope, Red Death was born as Civ VI’s first battle royale mode.
Civ VI’s September update is available to download now and with it comes an assortment of new features, balance tweaks, and fixes. Lead producer Dennis Shirk shared what’s new and what’s changed in a YouTube video. Some of these include strengthening coastal cities, adding six new maps, giving Great Admirals new bonuses, and more. You can check out the full patch notes below.
Civilization VI September update patch notes
Features
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Red Death Multiplayer Scenario
General notes
If you still have a Civilian unit, then you are still in the game. Once your last Civilian is killed, you will have been eliminated. Be the last remaining player with a Civilian to win.
The Red Death is the radioactive mass that is consuming the planet. A Safe Zone ring will appear on the map. Periodically this ring will shrink. Keep your units inside the ring to avoid the Red Death.
On the top-left on the in-game screen is the Red Death tracker. The left portion tells the player how many turns until the ring shrinks, and the right-hand portion tells the player how much damage units will take if they end their turn inside the Red Death.
Red Death damage increases as the game progresses.
When the ring shrinks, the Red Death will advance each turn until it reaches the ring. This gives units caught outside of the ring some time to reach the safe zone.
Units cannot heal in the Red Death.
You can gain new units and supplies in the following ways:
Find and clear City Ruins to gain equipment. These appear as war-torn cities with stacks of crates and flares around them. A Ruined City can grant experience points, an Infantry, a Machine Gunner, an AT crew, or another Civilian.
Clearing a Raider Camp grants either a Helicopter Gunship, an AT Crew, or a Thermonuclear device (once you receive one, any of your combat units can use it).
Once the “Red Death” ring starts to advance, Supply Drops can appear near the ring edge (also has a notification so you can find them). These lucrative drops can grant either a Tank, a Mobile Artillery, or a Thermonuclear device.
Oceans and Lakes are corrosive and will damage your units each turn as you cross, so be quick!
Global heal rate increased from normal for fast-paced gameplay.
Units have unique promotion trees. Promoting units heals only 25 HP.
Raiders are random opponents that wander the map, making opportunity attacks on players from their camps. Raider units take no damage from the Red Death.
A typical match will take anywhere from 15-50 minutes depending on the number of players, and skill of play.
Factions:
Cultists: “Observing The End,” All units have +3 sight.
Doomsday Preppers: “Always Prepare for The Worst,” All units have +100% experience bonus.
Borderlords: “Living On The Edge,” +10 Combat Strength when 3 hexes or closer to the Safe Zone border.
Jocks: “Witness Perfection,” +5 Combat Strength.
Mad Scientists: “This Will Only Hurt A Bit,” All units heal 2x faster.
Mutants: “Radiant Personalities,” -50 Red Death damage. “Radioactive Movement,” +3 Movement for all units in the Red Death.
Pirates: “Water Logged,” All units take 50% less water damage and ignore additional movement cost from embarking and disembarking.
Wanderers: “See You Later,” Infantry and Machine Gunners, as well as Civilians in formation with them, have faster Movement on Woods, Rainforest, and Hill terrain.
UI:
Quick-join matchmaking added to front-end menu
“How to Play” section added to front-end menu.
Safe Zone displayed as a blue area on the map and mini map. Red Death displayed as a red area on the map and mini map.
Changed mini map tooltips to be more useful for the scenario. Tooltip displays whether tiles are in the Safe Zone or the Red Death.
Added mini map icons for the City Ruins, Supply Drops, and Raider Camps.
New Maps
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Mirror Map: Randomly generated, balanced four-player map ideal for competitive multiplayer matches. Has option to mirror start positions as well.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Terra: A continents map where all major civilizations start on the largest continent.
Primordial: A map from an early time with unpredictable continents and islands. More volatile conditions exist with extra coastal lowlands and volcanoes. Try it on Disaster 4!
Tilted Axis: A polar projection of a continents map.
Splintered Fractal: A highly random map that will often form thin, snaky continents and islands.
Continents and Islands: Continents with more islands.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Add Lakes map to all rulesets
Add more small lakes to the Lakes map.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Move Seven Seas and Small Continents to all rule sets (before it was Gathering Storm only).
Balance/Polish
Civs
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Exploitive Agenda: Adjusted some of the parameters on the Exploitative Agenda to make it care more about how many tiles are improved. Also bumped up the threshold for “sparsely improved”.
Maori Civ Ability: Change the production from Unimproved Rainforest and Woods. Before it read “Unimproved Woods and Rainforest are +1 Production, becoming +2 once the Conservation civic is unlocked.” Now it reads “Unimproved Woods and Rainforest are +1 Production. Additional +1 Production from Mercantilism and +2 Production from Conservation.
[XP1, XP2] Georgia Civ Ability Addition: +50% Production towards defensive buildings.
Governments
Added an extra policy card slot for each of the Tier 4 Governments: 3 Military for Corporate Libertarianism (was 2), 3 Diplomatic for Digital Democracy (was 2), 3 Economic for Synthetic Technocracy (was 2).
Great People
Great Admirals
Themistocles: Instantly creates a Quadrireme unit. +20% Production towards units of the Naval Ranged promotion class.
Leif Erikson: +1 Sight Range for all naval units. Allows all naval units to move over ocean tiles without the required technology.
Rajendra Chola: +3 Combat Strength for all naval units.
Zheng He: Grants a free Trader unit in this city and increases Trade Route capacity by 1. Foreign Trade Routes to this city provides +2 Gold to both cities.
Francis Drake: Instantly creates a Privateer with 1 promotion level. Military units get +50% rewards for plundering sea Trade Routes.
Ferdinand Magellan: Grants 1 free copy of the Luxury resource on this tile to your Capital city. Gain 300 gold (on Standard speed).
Ching Shih: Gain 500 Gold (on Standard speed). Military units get +60% rewards for plundering sea Trade Routes.
Horatio Nelson: Instantly builds a Lighthouse and Shipyard in this district. +50% flanking bonus for all naval units.
Chester Nimitz: Instantly creates a Submarine unit with 1 promotion level. Grants 1 Oil per turn. +20% Production towards units of the Naval Raider promotion class.
Grace Hopper: Unlocks 2 random technologies.
Improvements, Buildings, and Wonders
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Mausoleum at Halicarnassus: +1 Science, +1 Faith, and +1 Culture on all Coast tiles for this city. Great Engineers have an additional charge. Must be built adjacent to a Harbor district.
Lighthouse: Now also provides +2 Housing if Harbor is adjacent to City Center.
Fishery: Now also provides 0.5 Housing.
Shipyard: Now also provides +1 Production to all unimproved coastal tiles in this city.
Camp: Now provides +2 Gold. Synthetic Materials also provides additional gold.
Plantation: Feudalism now increases Plantation yield by +1 Food.
Fishing Boats: Colonialism increases Fishing Boats yield by +1 Production.
Districts
Campuses now also receive a major adjacency for Reefs.
Map Gen
Increase the Water Luxuries on Splintered Fractal.
Reefs are no longer placed adjacent to Rivers.
Rock Bands
Promotions
Album Cover Art: Performs as if 1 level more experienced on Wonder tiles (Reduced from 2 levels).
Indie: Performing a concert causes that city to lose 40 loyalty (Reduced from 50 loyalty).
Music Festival: Can now also perform concerts on National Wonders.
Pop Star: Earn Gold equal to 25% of the Tourism generated (Was 50% Gold).
Space Rock: Performs at Spaceports and Campuses for +500 Tourism and 1 level more experienced (Can play at Campuses w/ no Uni for 500 or with Uni for 1000) (Was 1000 tourism at Spaceports and 1 Level).
Surf Band: Performs at Seaside Resorts and Harbors for +500 Tourism and 1 level more experienced (Can play at Harbors w/ no Shipyard for 500 or with Shipyard for 1000) (Was 500 tourism at Seaside Resorts and 1 Level).
World Congress
Nobel Prize in Physics: (Gold tier gets the Silver tier as well which is the same for all scored competitions)
Gold Tier: 1 Tech boost, Increases the accumulation of resources in cities with a University by 1 (Updated).
Silver Tier: 1 Tech boost, Increases the accumulation of resources in cities with a Research Lab by 1 (Updated).
Bronze Tier: 1 Tech boost (same).
Diplomacy
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Protectorate War no longer triggers a Betrayal Emergency.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Unit Abilities UI Exposures
Multiple Leader and Civ assigned unit modifiers have been converted to unit abilities so they can be tracked in the UI.
Units with Anti-Air strength now have unit ability text describing its function.
Added abilities and text descriptions for Ranged and Bombard unit buffs/debuffs.
Unit modifiers granted by retiring Great Generals and Great Admirals are now applied as unit abilities so they can be displayed in the unit abilities UI list.
Natural Disasters
Reduce the likelihood of most damage effects from Hurricanes by a third.
The Veterancy Military Policy (unlocked by Military Training a Classical Civic) now includes Harbors and Harbor buildings.
UI – All Game Versions
Front End
Change “Additional Content” to be a sub-menu that hosts “MODS, Hall of Fame, and Credits”. This reduces the main menu from 10 items (information overload) to 8 items.
New Map Type UI when starting a new game that features filtering and icon visualizations for the different maps. Only on “Create Game” and “Advanced Setup” menus in single player.
Single Player “Jersey” Support: Setup/Advanced Setup now allows the player to select their civilization color (jersey).
Leader list is now alphabetical, rather than grouped by release.
End Game
Add quick fade up of leader portrait (without a movie it looked jarring to snap from hide to show).
Fix ESC restarting end game movie.
Pantheon Chooser
Selected pantheon can now be cleared by clicking the button in the top panel.
Chooser now plays its slide animation when opening.
Adjusted button working/style to match other Chooser screens.
The Religion keybinding will now properly open/close the Pantheon Chooser.
Misc
Government Screen: Government card policy slot icons will squish together if they overflow the Government card to avoid overlap.
Pagination for Gossip Report added.
Added hotkey for the Power Lens.
Add a confirmation dialog box for when you are going to remove a feature by settling.
AI
Domination
Improve ability to use GDR’s (or other mixed melee/range) to take cities.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Allow units to move out of threatened areas when endangered, even on neutral territory. This manifested in AI units staying still and fortified while being attacked by ranged or air until they were dead.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Some bias adjustments to improve attacks on enemy cities.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Improve range/bombard garrisoning and improve melee garrison logic to attack when it is safe.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Don’t try to assemble city attacks for target cities that have an unclear or hidden path. Improve ability to protect embarked units.
World Congress
Favor Trades: Adjust some favor trade values to make deals more viable.
Normalize evaluation of emergency projects (Send Aid was especially overvalued).
Mercenary Companies: AI no longer always chooses choice B, “Faith.”
Great Works
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Rework of how AI arranges and places Great Works to maximize culture generation. Corrected an issue that could cause the AI to “throw away” a Great Work.
Misc
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Ensure AI finds rally points that are on the map.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Try to improve culture civ’s race for Theater Squares.
Performance
Significant optimization and improvements to Volcano VFX.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Perf optimizations to both Shaka and Mansu Musa.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Reduced memory usage.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Additional graphics performance improvements.
Bugs
Production Overflow
Add the concept of ‘salvage’ production to the Build Queue. Previously, when salvaging production from a lost Wonder build, the production was added directly back to the build queue. This caused problems of not knowing where the extra overflow came from as well as causing build production to happen when the player’s turn was not active.
e. Player A and B are making the same Wonder. Player A takes their turn, then Player B takes their turn and finishes the Wonder. The salvage production would be added to Player A’s build queue immediately, possibly causing something to complete if the player had multiple things in their build queue.
Now, when the salvage production is given to player A, it is stored and then applied to player A’s production overflow when player A becomes turn active again. This also fixes the issue of losing legitimate overflow, where we force clear production overflow on turn end to prevent a user from ‘banking’ overflow by force-ending their turn when a city has no production.
Fixed an issue where production on a unit could be transferred to something else by removing that unit from the production queue.
UI
When purchasing something in a city, make sure that if it was already in the build queue, it goes through the motions of removing the item in the build queue as if it were complete, so that if it was the first item, the next item in the build queue starts building properly.
The user was able to open but was unable to close the World Congress screen while the game is paused in multiplayer.
Fixed multiple Gossip reports issues.
Fix usable scroll area and logo clipping for various resolutions.
Remove the rank border designating a score tier while participating in a non-scored Emergency during gameplay.
A misleading “Location Pin” icon was present for Projects, Competitions, and Emergencies when the player views the Active Effects menu in the World Congress.
The “previous results” icon was appearing in low resolution when voting on a Resolution that has appeared before in the World Congress.
The target civ icon was appearing low resolution when viewing a Military Emergency.
The Alliance Points appeared with a zero denominator when viewed after an Alliance expires during expansion gameplay.
Climate Screen – Use the territory name as a fallback for continent name for climate events which will usually give us names for bodies of water.
Production/Gold/Faith production buttons will now be highlighted properly based on which production panel is currently selected.
Gameplay
Fixed a bug where pillaged districts in a conquered city would cost the full production price to repair. Now they cost 25% as intended.
Fixed a bug where pillaged districts would not regain applied bonuses upon repair.
Changed Mapuche’s Toqui experience bonus ability to be permanent on units so that it remains even after the governor is removed from the city.
Pillaged dams no longer prevent flooding.
The Swap Units operation was ignoring the ZoC state of the units, giving you the possibility of an extra move for a unit in the ZoC.
Fixed an issue that was preventing units that have the appropriate ability from attacking twice in a single turn.
Don’t apply Grievances if a player conquers a City-State you have never met.
Prevent Laurier from taking the Exploitative random agenda
Eject rock bands from a player’s territory when they adopt the Music Censorship policy.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Tomyris’ heal after kill ability was incorrectly being applied multiple times.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Polish Hussar pushback ability was not working correctly.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Air units can no longer attack plots marked as impassable.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Fixed an issue with military buildings not applying their XP bonus correctly.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Fixed incorrect modifier being applied by Royal Navy Dockyard.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Fix the Colossal Heads not providing faith with every 2 adjacent woods.
Unit Abilities
Fixed missing text description for Drone unit bonus ability. Changed Drone unit Civilopedia description text to be more accurate.
Fixed missing unit ability description for Observation Balloon range bonus. Changed Observation Balloon Civilopedia description to be more accurate.
Fixed text description for Supply Convoy movement bonus ability.
Misc
Mountain Tunnels, Qhapaq Nan, and Ski Resorts (improvements on Mountains) can no longer be destroyed (or pillaged) by natural disasters.
Transfer canal navigation properties on city capture.
Crash
Multiple crash fixes as seen in the public bug collector.
Fix a crash in the Australia scenario that could occur after a random event.
Art
Adding a low-quality version of the volcano that gets used if the VFX quality setting is low.
Apply FOW blending in river overlay pass.
the game camera on the Ski Resort will now shake the snow. Why? Just ‘cuz.
Adjusted volcano visuals to feel more volumetric and rolling/boiling.
Modding
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] World Builder
Added first pass at hand-drawn river flooding.
Edge case notes:
Only works for floodplains at least 3-long.
Only works for hand-created maps, not adjusted map-script created maps.
There are a couple places where a user may place a floodplain where it will never flood (like sharing a plain with another river branch, for example).
Use our own custom overlay type for Continent mode with more vibrant colors.
Normalize order of tool hotkeys and added them to the tooltips for user discoverability.
Integrate World Builder properly into the main menu flow instead of hanging off a weird button in the mods screen.
Fix several usability issues in Map Editor.
Add tooltips to the placement and plot mode buttons.
Stop the placement panel from eating the mouse around it.
Expose wonder distance check to Lua and wire up specific error message.
Fix many bugs related to changing terrain type and having resources/features/improvements go away when they’re no longer compatible.
Show different continents in different colors when in Continent mode.
Only show spawn location icons in Advanced Mode.
Hide the tools palette when the Player Editor or Map Editor are up. This is necessary for 1024×768 screens.
Don’t show labels options in World Builder that don’t work.
Allow brush usage in Continent mode.
Fix some flipped tests that were locking out improvements unnecessarily.
Fixed text for rivers and cliffs to distinguish between placing and removing.
Split feature and Natural Wonder placement modes.
Fixup Natural Wonder undo when dealing with multi-tile features, especially ones that also modify the terrain as well. i.e. Lake NWs changing the terrain to coast.
Advanced Mode
Don’t show spurious “Wonder” district in Player Editor anymore.
Add labels to all the items in the General tab of the player editor.
Don’t create any units alongside a barbarian camp in the WB editor.
We don’t support Garrison strength editing so don’t even show it.
Districts are now placeable through the Plot Editor Districts can now be pillaged by the Placement Tool or Plot Editor.
Delete units when a player is edited.
Fix case where capital city would have no name if you changed a civ’s leader to not match (Should help with mod civs too).
Fixed issues with the Plot Editor Improvement Pillaged checkbox. Fixed null error which prevented the Placement tool from placing improvements. Pillaged checkbox for Improvements now works with the Placement tool.
Tiled Map Importer
Fix additional crashes seen in the wild when importing maps from Tiled editor.
Misc
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Removed constraint on map start positions that only allowed 1 entry for map/plot, as it was too restrictive for modders.
[ALL GAME VERSIONS] Looking up localized text in mods will now fall-back to other languages before failing.
Concerning expectations, what first comes to find when you think of a “whodunit” is probably a classic tale of a bunch of rich people gathering for some unknown or nefarious purpose at a mansion before one of them gets murdered. Though murder-mysteries are still around, few movies have been able to deconstruct the genre or make a parody of it that also works as an actual mystery. Clue did it in 1985, and now writer and director Rian Johnson follows in those footsteps with Knives Out.
Here, it begins with a death. Only this isn’t really a murder, but the apparent suicide of wealthy crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) the morning after his 85th birthday party. Though it should be an open-and-shut case, famed southern detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) suspects foul play. Even though there is no physical evidence of someone being with Harlan when he died, the fact that he slit his throat is unusual. Then again, nothing about the Thrombeys is usual.
Starting from the opening scene, which begins with a wide shot of a creepy and huge mansion, accompanied by Nathan Johnson’s excellent ethereal orchestral score, Rian Johnson gives the movie a grand and classic feel that pays homage to Agatha Christie mysteries and Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, while giving the film a good dose of broad comedy.
Blanc mostly sits in the background and observes as two police detectives (the wonderful and hilarious duo of LaKeith Stanfield and surprising stand-out Noah Segan, who deserve their own spin-off) investigate this increasingly suspicious family. Johnson uses this structure to introduce the audience to the whole cast, which is an impressive list of names. The family consists of a variety of well-defined characters, including a neo-nazi social media troll, the head of a Goop-like self-help company, and of course the black sheep of the family, here in the form of the vulgar Ransom (Chris Evans), who everyone heard fighting with Harlan the night of his death.
The interrogation is an absurd and hilarious way to not only get to know these characters, but the way they feel about each other. One character will begin to tell what happened the night of the party, only for the film to immediately cut to another person contradicting everything the first said. This is paired with flashbacks that showcase cinematographer Steve Yedlin’s excellent camerawork, which uses whip pans and tracking shots to tell us everything we need to know about the party and what the guests did.
It’s as Blanc begins to piece together the events of the night that he takes a liking to Harlan’s longtime caregiver, Marta (Ana de Armas). Despite the fact that she’s devastated by what she’s seen, Blanc decides to enlist her to be the Watson to his Sherlock because of her inherent kindness and her physical inability to lie. It’s here that the whodunit evolves into something more.
Despite not being advertised as a main character, Marta is the heart and soul of the movie, and this is de Armas’s best performance yet. She’s able to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders as the one person who was closest to Harlan, not to mention the sadness of having been the one to discover the body. But she also excels at comedy, especially when it comes to her physical reaction to lying.
In a film with such a large ensemble, some are bound to make bigger impressions than others. Though the casting is pitch-perfect and there is no weak link, there are definite standouts. Noah Segan steals every scene he’s in, dishing out irreverent and hilarious one-liners. Daniel Craig gives a fantastic performance that should make everyone excited for his post-Bond career. His Poirot-inspired detective with a thick Kentucky accent and a liking for metaphors about donuts is very over the top, but Craig’s delivery of quick and witty lines with extreme gravitas makes it believable. Chris Evans delivers a very different performance than Captain America, but fans of Scott Pilgrim will eat up his role as a douchey rich guy with utter disdain for his equally douchey family.
Despite how you may think this story will end, by the end, that will all go out the window. Knives Out employs certain tropes of the genre, but it does it by chewing them up, spitting them out, and rearranging them to create something new. Nothing is as it seems–this is more Columbo than Clue. And though the film has a very old school feel to it, Rian Johnson isn’t above making current references like a joke about Hamilton or a nod to Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver.
In taking the genre into modern times, Knives Out also has some important things to say about current politics. Just like with the tropes of the genre, Rian Johnson looks at the politics of classic whodunits–affluent people being suspicious of the maid or butler murdering them–and updates them to become irrational fears of rich people who think that immigrants are coming to the country to take over jobs and destroy some notion of an ancestral home or a non-existent birthright. The Thrombeys can tell Marta that she is like part of the family as many times as they want, and they may promise that they’ll take care of her now that her employer is dead, but they can’t even remember where she’s originally from, and are willing to turn against her as soon as it becomes convenient for them.
Taking a well-established–if old-fashioned–genre and updating it to resonate with modern audiences is no small feat. Making a 130-minute movie feel like 1-hour is even harder. But when it comes to making a movie that’s entertaining, thoughtful, sharply written, and undeniably creative, Rian Johnson is guilty as charged.
Nintendo has released a new update for Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Following the recent Switch firmware update, which resolved an issue preventing certain players from booting the title up, this patch introduces a more challenging difficulty mode, along with the game’s second wave of Expansion Pass content.
First, the update adds the new Maddening difficultly setting for players looking for even more of a challenge. If you’re able to clear Maddening mode without beginning a New Game+, Nintendo teases that the game’s title screen will change. Additionally, Nintendo has increased the bonus Renown for starting New Game+ and implemented protagonist Byleth’s new male English voiceovers, following abuse allegations that surfaced regarding the previous voice actor.
The update also brings a new assortment of content for Expansion Pass holders. First, you’ll find the following handful of helpful supplies waiting for you in Byleth’s personal quarters:
Sacred Galewind Shoes (Movement +1)
Sacred Floral Robe (HP +7)
Sacred Snowmelt Drop (Strength +3)
Sacred Moonstone (Speed +3)
Expansion Pass holders also have access to new “loungewear” outfits for Byleth and other characters, as well as glasses for Byleth. Rounding out the Expansion Pass content is a handful of new auxiliary battles, which may give you special rewards such as status-up items and more Gold. Finally, the update fixes an assortment of bugs and other issues in the game. You can check out the full patch notes, taken from Nintendo’s support website, below.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses launched on Switch this past July and has been a big commercial success, recording the highest first-month sales in the series’ history in the US. The game was also received very warmly by critics. GameSpot awarded it a 9/10 in our Fire Emblem: Three Houses review and wrote, “Fire Emblem: Three Houses asks a lot of you. Every piece, from battle to friendships to training your units, must be managed both individually and as part of a whole. It can be intimidating, but when it all clicks together, it really clicks.”
Fire Emblem: Three Houses Patch Notes
New and Updated Features
Added Maddening mode to the New Game difficulty options. Note that if you clear Maddening mode without selecting New Game +, the title screen will change.
Increased the bonus Renown for selecting New Game + at the start of the game.
In addition to the usual difficulty bonus, 10,000 Pts. will now be added each time you clear a path.
The max threshold for bonus Renown is now 50,000 Pts.
If you already started playing using New Game + before applying the DLC data, 10,000 Pts. per cleared path will be added to each save slot the first time it is loaded.
Up to Ver.1.0.1, only the type of path cleared was saved but not the number of clears for the same path, which will now be saved applying the DLC Ver.1.0.2.
Added Goddess Tower to the Event Gallery in Extras. Use the ZL/ZR Buttons to select the Goddess Tower page, then choose a character event to replay.
The Event Gallery is unlocked once you’ve cleared the game.
Implemented new English voice for Byleth (male).
New Expansion Pass Content:
A new set of items
You can receive this set of items as DLC Supplies from the bed in Byleth’s Personal Quarters. Each save file can receive these supplies: Sacred Galewind Shoes (Movement +1), Sacred Floral Robe (HP +7), Sacred Snowmelt Drop (Strength +3), Sacred Moonstone (Speed +3).
Additional auxiliary battles
There are five additional auxiliary battles in the Expansion Pass: Battle at Lake Teutates, Battle in the Forest, Battle at Gronder Field, Battle at the Sealed Forest, and Battle at Conand Tower.
Depending on your progress, one of them will be listed in the battle-selection screen.
These additional auxiliary battles will be marked with the yellow “!” icon in the battle-selection screen. As a bonus, these battles may give you status-up items, such as Ailell Pomegranate, and an increased Gold reward in addition to the Bullions.
All maps will consume one activity point to start.
A new song (Corridor of the Tempest)
You can access the new song (Corridor of the Tempest) from the System menu while you are in an auxiliary battle. You can also listen to it in the Music Library.
New attire/accessory (House Loungewear / Glasses for Byleth)
The new attire (House Loungewear) is for the protagonist and students. Swap outfits in Byleth’s Personal Quarters from the Journal. These outfits are only wearable inside the monastery, or for specific unit classes during battle (this varies by character).
The new attire cannot be sent along with a traveler.
The new accessory (Glasses) can also be put on in Byleth’s Personal Quarters. They can be combined with any other attire. The glasses can be worn in the monastery and during battle.
A confirmation message is now displayed when you abandon an item during battle.
General
Fixed the bug that caused the game to freeze when Fortify was used while equipped with a certain skill.
Addressed the incorrect character design in event still images.
Fixed the bug that incorrectly displayed a Caspar line as Linhardt’s during the White Heron Cup.
Fixed the bug that displayed a “TBD” message when mastering combat.
Fixed the bug in the cut-in sequence for a CRITICAL attack.
Fixed the bug that prevented Rescue magic from working properly to move an ally to a space near the user.
Fixed the bug that accidentally let the player enter the closed-off desk corridor in the Cardinals’ Room.
Some text has been revised.
The gameplay has been improved by addressing a few additional bugs.
