Author: Trafficblast

We’re not sure if you’ve noticed but Avengers: Endgame is out this week. To coincide with the launch of Marvel’s arthouse indie flick about a group of best buds taking on a radical activist, Epic Games has introduced a crossover event into its little multiplayer game Fortnite.

Over the next few days, those playing the Endgame LTM will be split into two teams. One team will be aligned with Thanos and the Chitauri, while the others will be taking on the role of the heroes. Team Thanos must find all the Infinity Stones and power up the mad titan so he can decimate the enemy forces, while the heroes can locate and equip weapons used by the Avengers to bring Thanos and his army down.

Tying into the LTM is a set of challenges which, when completed, will unlock some really cool cosmetic rewards. Arguably the most exciting is a new Glider that is modeled after the Quinjet. There are also sprays, emoticons, and banners themed after the franchise. The initial three challenges are available now, and involve using Iron Man’s repulsors to do damage, collecting three Infinity Stones, and playing seven Endgame LTM matches. More challenges will become available every two days, and you can take a look at the rewards on offer below.

Fortnite’s Avengers: Endgame Challenges

• Complete any 10 challenges to earn the reward item — Avenger’s Quinjet Glider
• Deal damage while hovering with Iron Man’s repulsors (100) — 500 XP
• Collect Infinity Stones (3) — Fortnite Endgame Loading Screen
• Play matches of Endgame (7) — Captain America’s shield Banner

In our Avengers: Endgame review, Michael Rougeau described the movie as “a love letter to the entire MCU–the whole thing.” He continued: “It’s messy and confusing, and there’s going to be a lot of discussion about whether the ending even makes sense … but holy hell is it an emotional, fulfilling ride. I have no doubt we’re going to spend the coming weeks picking and pulling it apart until we’ve over-analyzed every single aspect imaginable. But right now, in the aftermath, Avengers Endgame feels like a win.”

If you still have some time before you’re able to see the movie, we recommend checking out our guide for how to avoid Avengers: Endgame spoilers online. Staying unspoiled is trickier than you might think, but we’ve got some very handy tricks that will help.

Despite a tease and a livestream, James Bond’s 25th film adventure has not been revealed. Fans expected the title to be unveiled, possibly along with a trailer, but neither snippet was forthcoming at the reveal event.

Instead, we got some details regarding cast and crew. As expected, Daniel Craig, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, and Lea Seydoux will all reprise their roles in what is still only known as Bond 25. Jeffrey Wright and Ben Whishaw also return.

Actors new to the series include Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody), Billy Magnussen (Game Night), Ana De Armas (Blade Runner 2049), David Dencik (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), Lashana Lynch (Captain Marvel), and Dali Benssalah. Malek will seemingly play the film’s villain, as he stated his excitement to be a part of the film before promising to make sure “Bond does not have an easy ride.”

The only plot hints given away were that Bond is “not on active service” at the start of the film; he is instead “enjoying himself” in Jamaica. A plot synopsis continues: “His peace is short-lived when his old friend Felix Leiter from the CIA turns up asking for help. The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology.”

Producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson confirmed the film’s script has been written by longtime Bond duo Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, along with newcomers Scott Z Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum) and Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag, Killing Eve).

Lastly, director Cary Fukunaga revealed a segment of filming has already been completed in Norway, and the crew is about to begin shooting in Jamaica. Production will then move to London and, finally, Italy.

The movie was previously rumored to be titled Shatterhand, a reference to one of Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s aliases from the 1964 novel You Only Live Twice. However, Broccoli later indicated this was inaccurate.

The project has suffered a somewhat troubled production so far, with its first director, Danny Boyle, leaving in August due to “creative differences.” Fukunaga replaced Boyle before the film was delayed first from October 2019 to February 2020 and then again to April 3, 2020.

The Bond actor himself, Daniel Craig, appeared reluctant to return for Bond 25. After wrapping Spectre, the previous film in the series, he claimed he’d rather slash his wrists than play the character again. He also said if he were to play Bond again, it would “only be for the money.” A year later, a report claimed that Craig was offered $150 million to star in the next two 007 movies, before the actor confirmed his return in August 2017.

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Nintendo’s next mobile game, Mario Kart Tour, is getting a closed beta next month. The trial will be available in the US and Japan on Android devices only.

The beta, which is designed to help Nintendo fine-tune the game before its full release in summer 2019, will run from May 22 through June 4. You can apply until May 7 on the Mario Kart Tour website, though you must be using an Android phone to even see the option to apply. Also note that applying doesn’t guarantee you access: Nintendo says it will pick participants at random if there are more applicants than spaces.

In order to run the beta, your device must be running Android 4.4 or later and possess at least 1.5 GB of RAM. Android tablets are not supported in the beta, Nintendo says. One final stipulation is that your Nintendo account must be registered to a Gmail address, and not any other email provider. This is so your Nintendo account matches the Google account you’ll use to download the beta from the Google Play store.

Otherwise, Nintendo has not revealed much information about the beta, or indeed about the game itself. We don’t know what courses or characters will be playable, for example. The game was scheduled to be released before the end of March, but was then delayed until this summer.

For a long time, Nintendo refused to bring its franchises to mobile devices, in part because the company maintained that it would rather focus on its own dedicated gaming devices. However, this stance changed, and Nintendo has already released a few mobile games and apps, including Miitopia, Super Mario Run, Fire Emblem Heroes, and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. Looking ahead, Dr Mario World is due to launch this summer along with Mario Kart Tour.

The latest game in the racing series is Nintendo Switch’s Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which has now sold nearly 17 million copies worldwide. For more on that title, read our Mario Kart 8 Deluxe review.

It’s a big week in Fortnite, which is now in Season 8, Week 9. The crossover event with Avengers: Endgame has begun and gives players the opportunity to wield iconic weapons against Thanos and his Chitauri army. On top of that, there are the regular weekly challenges, which you’ll want to complete if you want to unlock all the cosmetics for this season.

As always, there are two sets of challenges. The free selection is available to all players, while the Battle Pass challenges are exclusively for those that have spent V-Bucks on a premium Battle Pass. You should know the drill by now: Complete challenges to unlock Battle Stars, which will in turn level up your pass and give you cosmetics to customize your character with.

This week, in the free section, players will need to complete a multi-stage challenge that involves landing in multiple locations, starting with Loot Lake. On top of that, they’ll need to search seven chests at either Polar Peak or Lonely Lodge, and ride three Volcano Vents without ever landing.

For those with a paid Battle Pass, challenges involve dancing between specific landmarks, doing damage to enemies from below them, reviving a teammate using a Reboot Van, and taking out five enemies in different matches. You can see the complete list of challenges below.

Fortnite Season 8, Week 9 Challenges

Free

• Stage 1 of 5: Land at Loot Lake — 1 Battle Star
  • Land at Lucky Landing
  • Land at Salty Springs
  • Land at Lonely Lodge
  • Land at Haunted Hills
• Search chests at Polar Peak or Lonely Lodge (7) — 5 Battle Stars
• Ride three different Volcano Vents without landing (1) — 10 Battle Stars

Battle Pass

• Stage 1 of 3: Dance between three Ice Sculptures (1) — 1 Battle Star
  • Dance between three dinosaurs
  • Dance between four hot springs
• Deal damage to opponents from below — 5 Battle Star
• Revive a teammate at a Reboot Van (1) — 10 Battle Stars
• Eliminate an opponent in different matches (5) — 10 Battle Stars

Season 8 is starting to wind down now, which means there’s not a lot of time left to complete challenges from previous weeks and get all the cosmetics in the Battle Pass. We’ve been keeping track of all the most difficult challenges and put together a comprehensive Fortnite Season 8 challenge guide. If you need to get Battle Stars fast, you can use that guide roundup to get the challenges done quickly.

The update that introduces the Avengers: Endgame crossover also makes some other tweaks and changes to the game, including how weapon swapping works. You can see everything that Epic Games has changed in its popular battle royale title in the full Fortnite update 8.50 patch notes.

Nintendo has shared its latest financial earnings results, giving us a much better look at Switch hardware and software sales during the fiscal year ended March 31. Despite being a comparatively slow year in terms of marquee game releases, causing Nintendo to fall short of its hardware sales estimates, the company’s most recent spate of exclusives have moved some impressive numbers.

As of March 31, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has sold more than 13.81 million units worldwide since launching back in December 2018, surpassing the lifetime sales of the series’ best-selling entry, Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Wii, in a little under four months. Switch’s first proper Pokemon games, Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee, have likewise been a huge sales success; since November, the pair have sold a combined 10.63 million copies, overtaking the series’ final 3DS installments, Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, which stand at 8.37 million copies.

This past fiscal year also saw a handful of new Mario games hit Switch, and these too are already off to a strong start for Nintendo. Super Mario Party has surpassed six million copies, while New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, which launched this past January, has sold 3.31 million. That puts it above the standalone Wii U version New Super Luigi U and roughly two million units shy of the original New Super Mario Bros. U’s lifetime sales. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe also continues to sell remarkably well; it moved an additional 7.47 million units in the previous fiscal year, bringing its lifetime Switch sales up to 16.69 million and moving it to the top of the company’s 10 best-selling Switch games.

Thanks to these strong software sales, Nintendo sold 16.95 million Switch consoles in the fiscal year, a 12.7% year-on-year increase, bringing the console up to 34.74 million units worldwide. Nintendo also says that 118.55 million software units were sold during the fiscal year (up 86.7% YoY). According to the company, “Combined with steadily-growing sales of titles released during previous fiscal years and titles released by other software publishers, the total number of million-seller titles during this fiscal year recorded 23.”

Nintendo has a number of big exclusives lined up for Switch this year, including Pokemon Sword and Shield and Super Mario Maker 2, which recently received a release date, so it’s likely the console will only continue its upward trajectory. Nintendo also reportedly has a cheaper Switch model on the way “by the end of June,” according to Bloomberg, although Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said the company has “no plans to announce” any new hardware at this year’s E3.

Nintendo has been rumored to be working on two separate hardware revisions for its Switch console–one cheaper model to release in June, and a second modest upgrade to come sometime later. Whatever the company has up its sleeve, it has put to rest any speculation that it will make these announcements at E3.

“As a general rule, we’re always working on new hardware and we will announce it when we are able to sell it,” Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said in an earnings call, per Bloomberg. “But we have no plans to announce that at this year’s E3 in June.”

The statement doesn’t necessarily rule out the cheaper Switch coming this summer, as Nintendo could still announce it at any point before or after E3. The company has made a habit of organizing its Nintendo Direct presentations, sometimes on short notice, to make new announcements–including occasional hardware announcements.

The pared down model is said to be a cheaper alternative that lacks some features, such as rumble, and it may also be more hearty than the launch model. Nintendo has often made its hardware revisions more kid-friendly and safe from drop damage, especially in its handheld models. The “enhanced” model is rumored to be an upgrade, but not on the level of the PS4 Pro or Xbox One X. Bloomberg recently threw some cold water on that particular part of the rumor, though, reporting that the enhanced model is “not in the works.”

Alongside its sales call, Nintendo released new earnings figures, including an updated list of its top software sellers. Two big newcomers displaced several of the older games, as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokemon Let’s Go made big debuts to land in the middle of the Switch lifetime sales list.

While many speculated that “P5S” would be a Nintendo Switch port of Persona 5 (even Best Buy seemingly leaked a Switch version), it’s in fact a Musou-style action game in the vein of the Dynasty Warriors franchise. The game is called Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers, and Atlus is partnering with Koei Tecmo and Omega Force (the Dynasty Warriors team) for development. It is coming to Switch and PlayStation 4 though there is no current release window.

You can watch the trailer above and see Joker posted up on a streetlight overlooking Shibuya Crossing as a wave of shadow-like enemies rush towards him. He slashes through waves of enemies in what seems like the Metaverse of Shibuya, and you can see familiar Shin Megami Tensei demons/personas like Pixie and Pyro Jack in the mix. If you look carefully, it seems like similar elemental strengths and weaknesses will be a part of the combat as well. Joker summons his base persona Arsene to cast a huge explosion and take down even more enemies at once. A new metal-style remix of the boss theme “Blooming Villain” also plays throughout the scene.

At the end of the trailer, there’s a quick glimpse of what appears to be a new character who’s likely to be central to the plot of Persona 5 Scramble. You can see them staring at Joker by the reflection in their eyes.

There’s been plenty of Persona-related news. If you’re not caught up on everything going on with the updated version of the RPG for PS4, check out our story on all that’s new in Persona 5 Royale–it features new characters (one of which is a new party member), additional areas to explore, new story events, and much more. Joker also made his way to the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster earlier this month, and you can get all the details here if you missed it.