Author: Trafficblast

Everyone with a gaming PC and an appreciation for 4X and real-time strategy games should head to Steam now. That’s because you can download Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion for free, with no strings attached, between now and December 19. It’s a great deal, considering the game normally sells for $40. Get your copy here.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is a standalone expansion that originally launched in 2012. In it, you control a growing number of galactic civilizations. Your job is to assemble battle fleets and sail through space, colonizing planets and asteroids, collecting resources, and either making nice or going to war with alien species.

In GameSpot’s 8.5/10 Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion review, Brett Todd wrote, “Rebellion puts a nice capper on the Sins of a Solar Empire franchise. While this is an excellent game, with loads of new options and an incredible amount of tactical depth, it does show the age of the series. It’s hard to imagine the Sins games progressing without a more serious overhaul to move the next release into full-blown sequel territory. Until that game launches, however, you can get your space-empire fix from this outstanding stand-alone expansion, which contains enough ways to conquer a galaxy to tide you over for a very long time.”

The reason for the giveaway is the release of the DLC expansion Minor Factions, which adds 15 (you guessed it) minor factions to the game, each of which has unique abilities and advantages. With these enabled, publisher Stardock Entertainment says, the “game will place a number of minor factions onto the map to expand your strategic and tactical options.”

If it sounds like something worth trying, make sure you grab the game before it goes back to full price on December 19.

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So, Peter is okay?

Obviously, it’s pretty much impossible for Tom Holland to film another Spider-Man movie after the events of Infinity War without becoming a sort of walking spoiler. Yes, something happens during Endgame to make sure Peter Parker is alive and kicking–we just don’t know what that something is yet, or what, if any, caveats are attached to the resurrection process. We know for certain, thanks to on set photos, that Tom Holland is suiting up, so feel free to put your “it’s not actually Peter behind the mask this time” theories to bed, but we don’t know anything else.

With a comic book history full of magic and clones and rebooted timelines, we’d have to say that really anything is possible for Spider-Man at this point, and it’s best not to take anything for granted.

Fortnite‘s 7.10 update is now live on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, and mobile. While it doesn’t include the previously teased Driftboard vehicle, it does make an assortment of weapon and balance tweaks. The highlight of this week’s update, however, is 14 Days of Fortnite, a new limited-time event that features new and returning LTMs, challenges, and more.

14 Days of Fortnite kicks off on December 19. As its name suggests, the event will run for two weeks, during which time players will be able to participate in new and returning limited-time modes. Epic says that “large team modes” will rotate every 48 hours, while “small team modes” will change every 24.

In addition to the LTMs, Epic will offer new challenges to complete during the 14 Days of Fortnite event, along with new rewards to unlock. The developer hasn’t announced what these rewards are just yet, but we’ll have guides on how to complete the challenges once they’re live.

On top of the 14 Days of Fortnite event, the 7.10 update made tweaks and adjustments to various weapons, most notably the Heavy Assault Rifle, which is now less accurate and generally more difficult to use when not aiming down sights. Additionally, Epic has tweaked balloon controls, as well as the glider redeploy mechanic in the modes in which it’s still available. You can find the full patch notes on Epic’s website.

Epic also intended to release the Driftboard–a new snowboard-like vehicle–as part of this week’s Fortnite update. However, just prior to the patch, the developer announced that it will be delaying the Driftboard in order to further fine-tune and polish the vehicle before setting it live in the game.

Die-hard Destiny 2 players who log in for today’s weekly reset will have something nice waiting for them: a batch of in-game items called the Veteran of the Hunt bundle. It’s Bungie’s way of saying thank you to early adopters of the Forsaken expansion, something the developer announced back in October.

The Veteran of the Hunt bundle is free to everyone who played Forsaken between its launch on September 4 and October 16. The bundle includes two Exotic emotes–one which mimics Petra Venj’s knife-throwing animation, and another in which you do the Drifter’s coin-flip move. It also has an unique Veteran of the Hunt emblem (which has changed since Bungie first announced it), and a handful of consumables, including Fireteam Medallions, Finest Matterweaves (which cause Enhancement Cores to drop from bosses), and Crucible and Vanguard Boons.

Bungie announced back in October that it was grouping Forsaken with Destiny 2’s two previous expansions, Curse of Osiris and Warmind. Some players struggled after returning to Destiny 2 for Forsaken, but having skipped the previous two smaller DLC offerings. That meant those players weren’t able to play the new content they’d paid for, since Forsaken requires the previous two installments as well.

As Bungie mentioned in its blog post, the Veteran of the Hunt bundle was a thank you to players who’d picked up Forsaken in that first month before Bungie made the change to how it sold its expansions. It took two months, but that thank you is finally here. If you’re eligible for the Veteran bundle, logging into Destiny 2 will give you a notification that Zavala has a gift for you.

The most recent weekly reset brings the third new Forge activity, which is part of Destiny 2’s latest expansion, The Black Armory. It also marks the second week of The Dawning, Destiny’s holiday event, which this year requires baking cookies and giving them as gifts to the game’s various characters. Check out our guide to cooking all the cookies and unlocking Dawning Cheer, a unique holiday-themed sparrow.

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Sony’s enormous holiday sale continues this week on the PlayStation Store. But apparently not content with the 1,200+ games, expansions, and in-game items that were already on sale, over 100 more have been added–and many of them are major titles available at big discounts. So check out the new additions below, then take a look at the best games for $5 or less and a selection of discounted games chosen by our editors and producers.

This week’s new discounts include new games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey for $30 and Battlefield V for $36. If you haven’t swung between the high-rises of New York yet, you can do it in Spider-Man for $40. And Game of the Year award winner God of War is already available for $26.

Beyond that, the retro collection Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood is on sale for $10, and the PSVR hit Moss is down to $22.50. Speaking of VR, you can get up close and personal with demons in Doom VFR for $15.

Anyone who’s curious about Fortnite’s “Save the World” campaign can grab Fortnite – Standard Founder’s Pack for half price at $20 or the Deluxe Founder’s Pack for $40; both come with the campaign and a variety of in-game goodies. Plenty of older titles are available for low prices as well, including Fallout 4 for $15, The Last of Us Remastered or Ratchet & Clank for $16 each, and The Sims 4 for $10. You’ll find more games on sale below.

For years, there has been a debate online as to whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie. It is, and everyone who disagrees is wrong. End of discussion. To celebrate its 30th anniversary, 20th Century Fox is releasing a holiday-themed edition of the movie for the holiday season, and the studio recut the trailer to prove, once and for all, Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

John McClaine was just a simple man who wanted to spend some time with his family at Christmas, but he gets stuck at his wife’s Christmas party after Hans Gruber and all his big bully friends hold everyone at the party captive. Now, John has to find a way home and stop Hans. You can check out the new trailer for the movie above.

Aside from the 30th anniversary edition of the film, which is available on Blu-ray and comes with four exclusive holiday cards, all five movies in the Die Hard franchise are available digitally on Google Play, Vudu, iTunes, and Movies Anywhere in Blu-ray.

As of this writing, the HD collection costs $25 on most of the services. iTunes is selling the 4K version of Die Hard for $10, but Google currently has it for $8. However, Google Play doesn’t seem to have the special features that are offered with all the other services, but if you use Movies Anywhere and connect all your accounts, you should be able to access them, regardless of where you originally bought it.

Valve has announced the finalists for its Steam Awards, with community voting set to begin on Thursday, December 20. You’ll be able to cast your ballots in eight categories, and just in case you need to catch up with some of the nominees, it will come alongside the Steam Winter Sale.

The Game of the Year nominees are PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Monster Hunter World, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Hitman 2, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. A separate VR GOTY category includes Skyrim VR, VRChat, Beat Saber, Fallout 4 VR, and Superhot VR.

The other categories capture more esoteric aspects of games, like Best Environment, Better With Friends, and Best Alternate History. A special “Labor of Love” category celebrates older games that have continued to get attention from their respective studios. Best Developer is the single largest category, and Valve ultimately decided to expand the nominee list to 10 (up from five) to include many of the top nominees. Plus, Valve recused itself from the vote. You can check out the full list of nominees below.

Nominations for the Steam Awards opened last month. Voting will continue through January 3, 2019, and then the winners will be announced in February. Be sure to keep up with GameSpot’s own Best of 2018 coverage as well.

Game of the Year:

• PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
• Monster Hunter: World
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance
• Hitman 2
• Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

VR Game of the Year:

• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR
• VRChat
• Beat Saber
• Fallout 4 VR
• SUPERHOT VR

Labor of Love:

• Dota 2
• Grand Theft Auto V
• No Man’s Sky
• Path of Exile
• Stardew Valley

Best Environment:

• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
• Subnautica
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Far Cry 5
• Dark Souls III

Better with Friends:

• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
• Payday 2
• Dead by Daylight
• Overcooked! 2

Best Alternate History:

• Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
• Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
• Hearts of Iron IV
• Sid Meier’s Civilization VI
• Fallout 4

Most Fun with a Machine:

• Euro Truck Simulator 2
• Rocket League
• NieR: Automata
• Factorio
• Space Engineers

Best Developer:

• CD PROJEKT RED
• Ubisoft
• Bethesda
• Rockstar Games
• Digital Extremes Ltd.
• Square Enix
• Capcom
• Paradox Interactive
• BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment
• Klei

The latest weekly reset in Destiny 2 brings a new activity with the opening of the third of the Black Armory’s Forges. If you’re still looking to grind your Power level up to take on the new content, you’ve got another week’s Ascendant Challenge. This rewards you with Powerful gear, but you’ll both need to know where to go and be well-equipped to complete it. You have until the next weekly reset on December 25 to complete this.

Ascendant Challenges require you to use a Tincture of Queensfoil while in the Dreaming City. This will allow you to see and travel through a portal to the Ascendant Plane (this one is located in a part of Rheasilvia, the Harbinger’s Seclude), where you’re faced with a tough challenge. This one involves a lot of platforming, a relic weapon, and a bunch of Taken enemies. You can see where to go and what to do in the video above.

Along with the new Forge, this also marks the second week of Destiny 2’s holiday event, The Dawning, so check out our guide on how to bake holiday cookies and unlock the Dawning Cheer sparrow.