Category: Games

Watching Charlie Brown and his pals celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas has become a holiday tradition for many over the years. With Apple acquiring the rights to these classic movies, you might be wondering how you can continue to participate in this time-honored tradition. Here’s how you can watch A Charlie Brown Christmas and all other Peanuts Holiday Specials.

Where to Watch A Charlie Brown Christmas Special

Just in time for the holiday season, the beloved classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas special, will stream exclusively on Apple TV+ beginning on December 4, and on PBS and PBS Kids on December 13 at 7:30/6:30 pm CT.

How to Stream A Charlie Brown Christmas Special For Free

A Charlie Brown Christmas will be available to stream for free (without a subscription) on Apple TV+ from December 11 through December 13. Apple TV+ is currently available in over 100 countries and costs $4.99 per month for a subscription.

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You can use the streaming platform on a variety of services, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, iPod touch, Mac, select Samsung, LG, Sony, and VIZIO smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV and Roku devices, PlayStation and Xbox consoles, and at tv.apple.com.

Where to Watch All Other Peanuts Holiday Specials

Back in October, Apple TV+ teamed up with WildBrain, Peanuts Worldwide, and Lee Mendelson Film Productions to become the home for “all things Peanuts,” including A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Both of the aforementioned titles are currently available to stream on Apple TV+.

In other Apple TV+ news, be sure to check out the delightful first season of Ted Lasso, which we called “immensely likable” in our full review.

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David Griffin still watches DuckTales in his pajamas with a cereal bowl in hand. He’s also the TV Editor for IGN. Say hi on Twitter.

No one predicted that Fortnite’s Galactus event would have players flying battle buses in a mission that felt like it was straight out of Star Fox. The event, which played like a souped-up Disneyland ride, was a lot of fun, but it only added to the random jumble of themes that makes up the Fortnite universe.

The event saw the entire lobby, along with Iron Man, Galactus, and other heroes, get sucked into what’s called the “Zero Point” after Galactus tried to absorb it. The Zero Point has been a part of Fortnite’s storyline since Chapter 1’s Season 4 and is said to be a singularity that doesn’t abide by the laws of space and time. That’s the reason why different realities from the Marvel and Fortnite universes collided this season.

The event ended with Jonesy, one of the mainstays of Fortnite’s narrative, lying face down in his office. He wakes up right before the screen cut to black. We saw Jonesy two seasons ago during The Device event in the same office, although he wasn’t knocked out that time. Players believe that Jonesy works for a company that runs Fortnite as some sort of simulation and Season 5 may explore more of his background.

The relationship between Jonesy’s storyline and the Zero Point are where things start to get messy. If it’s all just a simulation run by a WestWorld-like faceless corporation, how does this massive singularity factor in? It’s quite possible that the Zero Point will connect Jonesy’s world and the wider world of Fortnite in some wacky way in Season 5. All bets are off at this point. Nothing feels connected–despite Epic Games’ Donald Mustard saying that they are.

Epic Games has started to release a number of short audio clips on Twitter–including one that mentions a jungle. Players believe that the jungle is related to pictures of Jonesy in a jungle we saw briefly during The Device event. We could be getting a semi-new map with new locations, including the jungle, like this after the Zero Point sucked up the Season 4 map. The map has been absorbed like this before the introduction of Fortnite: Chapter 2, so we could be in a similar situation here.

The Galactus event ended with a countdown set in front of an outer-space backdrop. The entire battle bus segment felt like Luke’s last-ditch effort to blow up the Death Star in A New Hope. The combination of that and a leaked Mandalorian skin and Baby Yoda Back Bling made it seem like a space-themed season is on its way. But these audio clues seem to point in a different direction.

Every season and season-ending event adds another layer of confusion to Fortnite’s ever-evolving lore. It’s clear that there was little long-term vision about what the battle royale’s story would include, especially since the game didn’t even start out as a battle royale. But that also leaves open a wide world of possibilities for the game. Barring new, more extensive leaks, it’s truly anyone’s guess as to what could be next–and that might very well be a positive for Fortnite.

December is officially here, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons players can snag a couple of new seasonal items in the Switch life sim this month. Two new wintry items are now available to purchase from the Nook Shopping catalog: the Aurora wall and the Midwinter sweater. Like other seasonal items, however, these will only be available for a limited time.

The Aurora wall costs 7,000 Bells and lets you gaze at a beautiful aurora borealis localized entirely in your own kitchen or other room at any time of year. The Midwinter sweater, meanwhile, costs 1,200 Bells and features a cute reindeer design. Both items can be found under the Seasonal tab in the Nook Shopping catalog and will be on sale until December 31.

In addition to the new seasonal items, Nook’s Cranny has begun selling festive toys ahead of Toy Day, the game’s Christmas event. You’ll find a different toy on display in the seasonal corner of the store each day until December 25. Toy Day itself falls on December 24, and as part of the event, you’ll need to dress up like Santa and help Jingle the black-nosed reindeer deliver presents to your villagers.

Now that December is underway, a variety of new fish, insects, and sea creatures have begun appearing in the game. Players with Northern Hemisphere islands can now find the oarfish, pond smelt, dung beetle, and other critters, while those with Southern Hemisphere islands can catch various sharks, beetles, and other summer creatures. You can read more in our Animal Crossing fish and bug guides.

Nintendo recently rolled out Animal Crossing’s big winter update, with another major update on the way in late January. Nintendo hasn’t shared many details on that patch just yet, but it appears it’ll add the Festivale event to the game. A line of Mario-themed furniture is also on the way in March in honor of the Super Mario series’ 35th anniversary.

The thriller game Martha is Dead is coming to PS5, along with the already-announced PC and Xbox versions. It’s scheduled for Q1 2021, and the announcement suggests that all three versions will hit simultaneously.

The game takes place against the backdrop of World War 2 amid the Italian countryside. A young woman, Martha, is found drowned on the shores of a lake. Her twin sister sets out to solve the murder as the war approaches closer to their home. LKA says that the story ties in history, superstition, folklore, and psychological trauma.

That all sounds pretty spooky by itself, but it’s matched by an equally shudder-inducing trailer depicting the basic plotline with marrionettes. There’s nothing creepier than marionettes. That’s just a science fact.

The developer, LKA, is previously known for another psychological horror game, 2016’s The Town of Light.

“Martha is Dead represents a step forward for LKA,” said LKA founder Luca Dalco, in the announcement. “This is a game that merges the raw power of PC and next-generation consoles, and all we’ve learned from developing The Town of Light. Martha is Dead is an evolution in psychological storytelling, and we’re driven to build a compelling, gripping world Full of twists and turns for players to explore in 2021.”

Fortnite’s Marvel-filled season is over. Season 5 officially starts on December 2, and although little has been confirmed about the season as Epic Games wants to surprise everyone, but we do have a few clues about what’s in store for the future of Fortnite. Here’s what we know about when Fortnite Season 5 starts and what to expect from the upcoming update.

When Does Fortnite Season 5 Start?

Fortnite’s Galactus event has taken place, and it concludes with a countdown revealing the start time for Season 5: 9 PM PT on December 1 / 12 AM ET on December 2. Server maintenance is scheduled to take place then, though, meaning you won’t be able to jump right into the game. That maintenance should take four hours, so here’s the schedule for when you can start playing Season 5:

• US West Coast: 1 AM PT
• US East Coast: 4 AM ET
• UK: 9 AM GMT
• Australia: 7 PM AET

Until then, Fortnite is currently down and unplayable.

New Update

Epic confirmed that the server maintenance will coincide with the release of the v15.00 update. That will include all of the new content to kick off Chapter 2, Season 5. However, we don’t know what will actually be in it.

Season 5 Teaser: Wildheart, Maeve, Harpy, And More

As part of the live event, Galactus attempted to devour the Zero Point. Players were able to defeat him and send him to wherever he came from, but the Zero Point has apparently been affected in some way. Epic has begun teasing the new season with the tweet below, which suggests the Zero Point is now unstable. There’s also a reference to “Project Hunter.”

Replying to that tweet unlocks a “reality log” audio log video that talks about jungles, snakes, shapeshifters, and harpies, among other things. There are six videos total to be unlocked by replying to these tweets with the correct hashtag, but so far it appears only the first of these is available so far.

What’s new in Fortnite: Chapter 2: Season 5?

Leakers have been rather tight-lipped about the new content coming in Season 5. They’ve given us sneak peeks at map changes and themes for previous seasons, but haven’t given us much this time. A few leaks have slipped through–including one that showcases a special Mandalorian skin.

Leakers don’t believe that next season will have as much licensed content as Season 4. It’s expected that the Mandalorian skin will be similar to Deadpool–a one-off that players can earn or purchase individually. Some players do hope for a full Star Wars-themed battle pass, though.

The Season 4 Fortnite map is covered in Marvel locations that were “transported” here by some sort of dimensional rift. Stark Industries, Upstate New York, the Black Panther statue, and many other locations should disappear and revert back into standard Fortnite locations or transform into something new once the new season begins.

Thor and the rest of the Marvel heroes came to defend reality from something called the Black Winter. We don’t know what that is yet but it could turn the map into something snow-related since the new season will run through December and January. It would go well with whatever holiday event Epic has planned for the end of the month.

Season 5 will probably be a big change from all the madness that we had in Season 4. The special Marvel superhero abilities, the Gorgers and Gatherers, and the computer-controlled Wolverine and Iron Man characters will all most likely vanish, too.

Twitch streamers hoping to get in on the Fortnite excitement today faced an unexpected hurdle. Epic Games announced that it had no way of preventing clips from today’s Galactus event from getting flagged by Twitch’s copyright detection systems, and it turns out it was due to the use of an AC/DC song. This led to streamers such as DrLupo temporarily cutting the game’s audio in order to avoid encountering any issues.

“For Twitch Creators streaming the Galactus event: Due to a lack of solutions similar to Lickd, we cannot prevent your VOD/clip content from getting flagged by the platform’s copyright detection systems,” a tweet from Epic Games read ahead of the event. “The general recommendation is to either mute your VoDs or turn off VODs/clips entirely to protect yourselves against any kind of claims or strikes as best as possible.”

Hypex, a notable Fortnite leaker, said in advance that the copyright issues would only come from a small segment of the event, and that proved to be true. “Fun-Fact for streamers: Not the whole event is copyrighted music, just a 20-30 seconds part, and its gonna be so obvious to notice,” they tweeted. “So I suggest you to prepare some hotkey to mute the game audio in OBS!”

As part of players’ assault on Galactus, a song from AC/DC’s new album was played during a Star Wars: Rogue Squadron-esque flying sequence. The song, “Demon Fire,” premiered as part of the album that was released in mid-November. It was a brief portion of the overall event, which has now led to Fortnite being unplayable until Season 5 begins.

Copyright claims have become a major issue for Twitch streamers this year. Streamers have been receiving many DMCA notifications for playing recorded music in the background of their streams and have been forced to manually delete old clips that could possibly infringe on copyright. Twitch apologized for its poor response to the issue last month.