Category: Games

In the age of social media, we get movie leaks from social media and forums. Matt Reeves’ The Batman is going for a decidedly old-school look, so it feels appropriate that we get our first official look at one of its main characters in an old-school way: on a soda label.

Spotted by BestProducts, The Riddler is getting his own flavor of Mountain Dew. This flavor actually surfaced a few months back, but quickly disappeared, as noted on the Mountain Dew wiki, which is a thing that exists. Back then, keen-eyed Redditors spotted the Riddler’s Brew along with a Catwoman-themed Mountain Dew Zero Sugar and a standard Mountain Dew with Batman on the label.

The drink is called Riddler’s Brew, and the label features a look at the villain, who looks much as he did in the first moments of the Batman teaser we got during DC Fandome earlier this year. The extra space around him is adorned with his favorite punctuation mark. We did get a clear look at him in the trailer, but this is the first official marrying of the goggled character and the Riddler name that we’re aware of.

Interestingly, this is not the first time that Batman and Mountain Dew have joined marketing forces, and it’s not the first time Batman has had a dark blue soda. Back in 2021, a Dark Berry flavor was released in partnership with The Dark Knight Rises, and was described as “Dew with a blast of mixed berry and other natural flavors.” The product shot obtained by BestProducts only describes Riddler’s Brew as having “natural and artificial flavors,” which is a description you can apply to every object that exists. If we were pressed, though, we’d bet that Mountain Dew is resurrecting its Dark Berry flavor for this product.

It is interesting, though, that Mountain Dew and Warner Bros. are matching the dark blue brew with the Riddler. The character’s association with the color green is beaten only by the Green Arrow and Green Lantern in DC comics. Dark blue is more Batman’s color, generally speaking.

There’s no word on when this will hit shelves, but we’re betting it’s going to be close to the March 4, 2022 debut of The Batman.

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With the release of the Beyond Light expansion, Bungie removed several of Destiny 2‘s destinations. One of the major issues the game has faced since then, however, is that some of its remaining destinations aren’t really worth visiting thanks to changes to its weapons system. Luckily, the next season of Destiny 2 will see that changed, with Bungie reworking its loot system to make the Dreaming City and the Moon into places you’re going to want to go to shoot aliens.

Bungie ran down a bunch of changes to its loot system in its This Week at Bungie blog, detailing the changes it’ll make to two of its destinations, and the high-level activities you can complete there. As it stands right now, weapons and armor earned from the Dreaming City and the Moon have caps placed on their Power levels, the numbers that determine how strong those pieces of gear can be (and, when averaged with the rest of your gear, how strong your character is overall). Not too long ago, Bungie instituted a time-based system to cap the Power levels of weapons and armor, so that it can slowly phase out old gear in favor of new stuff. Since the loot from the Dreaming City is from the Forsaken expansion and the Moon loot is from the Shadowkeep expansion, it’s all old enough that it has reached its cap, thus making it effectively obsolete.

In its next content season, Bungie is tweaking rewards from those locations to make them viable again. Armor sets from the Dreaming City and the Moon are getting reissued, along with four guns from both locations. One of those guns at each location will only be accessible through dungeons, the Pit of Heresy and the Shattered Throne. Here’s the rundown of loot changes:

Season 13 Dreaming City and Moon Loot Changes

• Reissued Dreaming City Reverie Dawn and Moon Dreambane armor.
  • These will also drop with high stats when earned in Shattered Throne or Pit of Heresy.
  • The final chest in Pit of Heresy will no longer drop a fully Masterworked Dreambane armor piece.
  • Instead, the Dreambane armor piece that drops will have 7 armor energy and is guaranteed to drop with at least a +16 in two different stats and higher stats overall.
  • Dreambane class items will not drop from this chest.
• Reissued 4 weapons for Dreaming City with new Perk Pools.
  • Waking Vigil, Sleepless, Vouchsafe, and Retold Tale.
  • Dreaming City weapons that drop in the Shattered Throne dungeon can roll with perks that are unavailable from drops from other reward sources.
• Reissued 4 weapons for the Moon with new Perk Pools.
  • Premonition (Pit of Heresy only), Heretic, Blasphemer, and Apostate.
  • Weapons that drop in the Pit of Heresy dungeon can roll with perks that are unavailable from drops from other reward sources.
• Expanding Lost Sector Legend and Master rotation to 4 Moon Sectors.
  • K1 Logistics, K1 Communication, K1 Crew Quarters, and K1 Revelation.

We’re also going to see rewards change for the Strike, Gambit, and Crucible playlists (what Bungie calls “ritual” activities) in Season 13. Bungie is changing how the reputation system works with those vendors, so that as you turn in the “tokens” you earn for completing activities, you’ll increase your reputation with each specific vendor. You’ll still get the Ritual Engram you would earn for increasing your rank as you do right now, but ranking up will lead to additional specific rewards as well:

Ritual Activity Reputation Rewards

• Rank 4: 3x Upgrade Modules
• Rank 7: 3x Enhancement Cores
• Rank 10: Seasonal Ritual Shader (changes to 3x Enhancement Cores after resetting your rank)
• Rank 13: 2x Enhancement Prisms
• Rank 16: Seasonal Ritual Emblem (changes to 2x Enhancement Prisms after resetting your rank)
• Reset Reward: Ascendant Shard (changes to Exotic Engram after resetting your rank)

We’ll also see more ritual-specific guns in Season 13. Right now, there’s one gun in each activity that can’t be earned anywhere else, but Bungie is doubling that number, so you’ll have two unique guns to find from doing Strikes, two from completing Crucible matches, and two from Gambit matches.

The TWAB also runs down a few of the items that’ll be in next week’s hotfix patch, Update 3.0.2. The patch is going to fix a number of ongoing problems, while also nerfing Hunters’ Shatterdive ability, which was added in the Beyond Light expansion. Here’s a preview of the patch’s changes:

Issues Expected To Be Resolved In Update 3.0.2

• Hive bosses, In Ananh, Brood Queen and Xillox, were not counting as Hive boss kills in bounties.
• Some players couldn’t respawn if they died during the boss fight of the Inverted Spire strike.
• Players could get out of environment in several Crucible maps.
• Some quest items were not dropping in the Moon Freeroam activity. This prevented completion of several “Essence” quests, such as Essence of Rage, Essence of Insanity, and Essence of Servitude.
• The Unrelenting perk was not triggering health regeneration.
• MIDA Multi-Tool’s catalyst wasn’t dropping from Competitive Crucible wins.
• Taken Psions were replicating too rapidly in some Prophecy dungeon encounters.
• Garden of Salvation flawless completions were not awarding the “Inherent Perfection” Triumph.
• The High Celebrant sometimes wouldn’t take damage nor go to the Ascendant Plane.
• Fixed an exploit where players could have “Shelter From the Storm” permanently applied in the Deep Stone Crypt raid.
• Fixed an issue where Cloudstrike hits on the Divinity cage counted as two precision hits.
• Fixed an issue where the Grandmaster Nightfall timer was set to 30 minutes.
• Fixed an issue on PlayStation 5 preventing clan rosters from loading.

Crossovers have become a staple of the CW’s growing collection of DC superhero shows, uniting the actors and characters across a multi-part story, with last year culminating in the huge Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. Thanks to COVID-19, though, that annual event is off–at least for this year.

After the Crisis event last year, the CW had been looking to go with a smaller crossover according network president Mark Pedowitz, who said in May that the crossover would be a two-hour event, most likely including Batwoman and the upcoming Superman & Lois show.

In a new interview with EW, though, Batwoman showrunner Caroline Dries confirmed what we’d already assumed.

“When we were getting crossed with Superman & Lois, I was really looking forward to seeing Batwoman on the Kent farm,” Dries said to EW.

“We’re not really able to cross over because physically, we can’t cross crews due to the fear of exposure to COVID,” Dries told TVLine, who said that the anticipated meeting between Batwoman and Supergirl is off, too. “If Supergirl weren’t ending this year, I would say there would be more of a possibility. But I’m afraid that at least this year, we’re not going to be able to tap into that dynamic.”

The lack of a crossover is understandable due to the severity of the ongoing pandemic, but it’s heartbreaking for everyone–the fans, cast, and crew of these shows alike. Even without the pandemic, the upcoming season of CW’s superhero shows was set to be complicated. Batwoman’s sophomore season had to contend with the departure of series star Ruby Rose and her character Kate Kane, and the arrival of the new Batwoman, Javicia Leslie’s Ryan Wilder. Meanwhile, both Black Lightning and Supergirl will air their final seasons this year.

“I’m so heartbroken about the COVID situation because I know that it’s Black Lightning’s last season, and I would have loved to do a crossover with them. Nafessa [Williams] and Jordan [Calloway] are really good friends of mine, and it would have been great to play with them and be superheroes all on the same show. That would have been epic,” Leslie said to TVLine. “Whatever show that has Black people on it, I’m going to do these crossovers because I just want it to be a super Black crossover.”

The Batwoman Season 2 premiere airs on Sunday, January 17 at 8PM, followed a few weeks later by Black Lightning Season 4 on February 8 at 9PM. Flash Season 7 premieres on Tuesday, February 23 at 8PM, with Superman & Lois’s series premiere right after at 9PM the same night. Supergirl and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow do not yet have air dates. Supergirl’s filming is dependent on star Melissa Benoist’s pregnancy, while Legends of Tomorrow has typically aired later in the season anyway.

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Who’s making it?

Dungeons & Dragons is filled with larger-than-life characters, mystical elements, and out-of-the-ordinary items. And while WizKids has been producing collectibles based on content from D&D books for years–like these two dragon miniatures–it’s now moving into items that won’t help your campaign but will look great on your shelf. And arriving this February is the Hand and Eye of Vecna, which is–simply put–a severed hand holding an eyeball.

For a little background from D&D lore, Vecna was a powerful wizard who used dark magic to create a horrific empire. Fearful of his eventual death–as he was a mortal–Vecna learned from the demon prince of undeath, Orcus, how to live on after death as a lich. Vecna became the greatest of all liches, but his lieutenant, Kas, found a way to defeat him. And all that remains of Vecna is his left hand and eye–both coveted items with magical abilities. WizKids sent us the collectible a bit early to check out, and you can see the photos of it below.

The WizKids collectible comes with the hand, the eye, a glass jar and wooden stand, a metal wire mount, and a piece of cloth to cover the mount. The eye fits between the fingers of the hand, with a little help from a magnet. How much does something like this cost? $130, and while it is available for preorder on Amazon, there isn’t an official WizKids Store listing at the time of this writing.

While it looks cool, there were a couple of minor drawbacks we found while checking this piece out. The eye is held between a few fingers on the Hand of Vecna because of the magic of magnetism, but any little bump–like when placing it on the shelf–made the eye fall out of the hand. This was rectified by pushing the eye between the fingers a little. There were also some minor issues getting the wire support stand into the wooden base, but bending the wire helped a lot with keeping it in place.

However, the Hand and Eye of Vecna is strangely beautiful and the most bizarre and macabre piece WizKids has produced to date. It’s a severed hand and eye from a wizard that wanted eternal life at full scale. But that doesn’t mean D&D fans should pass this one by. It’s extremely detailed and a great discussion piece for fans of the tabletop RPG. While Venca’s body parts may not be advertised as part of your daily gameplay, it could be used by a DM if these items are part of a quest. A physical representation of these magical items could add a little bit of spice to your adventure–and who hasn’t pretended that your dice bad is a Bag of Holding at one point?

The Hand and Eye of Vecna from WizKids is coming to stores in February.

The PS5 hasn’t stayed on store shelves long, with stock depleting almost as quickly as it goes up. However, if you’re a Sony Rewards member, you have another opportunity to snag the new console soon. Starting tomorrow, a limited number of PS5 units will be made available through the Sony Rewards website. The Sony Rewards Twitter account says it’ll tweet out the direct link tomorrow, and we’ll be sure to update this story when that happens.

It’s free to sign up for Sony Rewards, though if you’re a new user, you won’t be able to get one of the consoles tomorrow. Every product on the Sony Rewards site is exchanged with points, meaning you’ll need to have built up enough to claim one. To earn points, there are a number of things you can do. The first is make purchases with your Sony or PlayStation Visa credit card. You can also earn points by registering specific DVD and Blu-ray discs and uploading select movie tickets through the Sony Rewards app.

The last way to earn points is to link your PlayStation and Sony Rewards accounts and make purchases in the PlayStation Store. Each purchase you make there earns you 1 point, though if you also use your Sony or PlayStation VISA card, you’ll get an additional 5, which will be reflected in your account after every credit card statement.

A new PS5 game in the Sony Rewards store costs 5,999 to 6,999 points–with money, these games cost $59.99 to $69.99. It’s not confirmed how much the PS5 will cost through Sony Rewards, but if it follows this math, you can expect it to be around 49,999 points for a disc-based console. You can check the number of points you may have by logging into the Sony Rewards website or app. For more details, see the Sony Rewards FAQ page.

We’ve reached out to Sony Rewards about tomorrow’s PS5 availability and will report back if we learn more.

Blizzard is launching a major update for Battle.net, representing the biggest front-facing upgrade to the PC platform in years, according to the developer.

The upgrades, which have been available to beta testers for some time already, include things like an improved layout and navigation tools. Specifically, you can now “favorite” games and select how you want them to appear in your library.

The Battle.net 2.0 update also includes a “much more expansive layout” to help you catch up with news about your games more easily. The social plane has also been updated for greater visibility, while there are a number of accessibility improvements so you can quickly access many things on Battle.net with just the keyboard. The color contrast has been improved as well, as screen support has been updated, Blizzard said.

Finally, Battle.net 2.0 features a consolidated notifications page that shows your messages and download status at a glance.

The 2.0 patch will be released in waves, beginning in North America. It will release in other regions in the weeks ahead.

Finally, Blizzard said this 2.0 update is “just the beginning” for Battle.net. “We’ll keep iterating, improving, and adding to the app over time. We’d love to hear your feedback once you’ve spent some time with the new app, and you can share your thoughts on the forums.”

Battle.net has expanded its offerings in recent years to include titles from Activision, including the Call of Duty series.