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The Fortnite Rift Tour starring Ariana Grande has made its debut, and while it’ll be replaying at select times all weekend, you can catch the whole show right here. Grande’s performance was the headliner, but the complete in-game event took players on a spacetime-hopping journey through Fortnite’s illustrious history.

As players danced and emoted atop the party-themed Abductor hovering over The Aftermath, the countdown timer ticked away to zero and revealed a large Rift door at the center of the Abductor. Jumping into it took players on an expedition that showcased past Fortnite performances, like Marshmello, while also revisiting past story-heavy scenes like Kevin The Cube and The Devourer. There was even an aerial combat mini-game that kept score.

After the whole lobby defeated the last Big Bad and landed in a black void, they helped each other to their feet in a cinematic sequence that was meant to tug at the heartstrings and lay down the red carpet for the show’s main act. Down came a shooting star with some of the best high notes in both worlds–ours and the looping Fortnite realm alike. Ariana Grande hit the virtual stage and opened with Seven Rings as players floated around her massive avatar.

She went on to play segments of her other hits, including Positions, Be Alright, and The Way featuring her ex-partner, the late Mac Miller. With each song transition, Grande smashed her diamond-encrusted pickaxe and blasted the audience into different realms. One scene featured pink, fluffy trees like something out of a Seuss story. Another had players racing up Escher-like staircases as they moved and twisted unpredictably. It seems Epic Games set out to up the ante after 2020’s Travis Scott show, and though it’s a matter of taste, we’d say they nailed it.

You can catch the full Rift Tour video above or check the in-game tab for this weekend’s remaining showtimes. Make sure to set off into the Rift Tour playlist using your favorite character skin, as they’ll be integrated directly into the show in some fun ways we won’t spoil here. After the show, Epic Games chief creative officer Donald Mustard was elated and promised things like the Rift Tour are only the beginning.

While the Rift Tour has premiered, more Rift Tour Quests are on their way following the weekend of shows. Get in now to clean up the quests already available, then come back and finish off the list for more Ariana Grande- and Rift Tour-themed cosmetics.

Activision has denied that a remaster of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is in the works. The publisher said unequivocally in a statement that reports about a remaster of the 2011 game are false.

“A remaster of Modern Warfare 3, campaign or multiplayer, does not exist. Any reports otherwise are incorrect,” a spokesperson for Activision told GameSpot.

CharlieIntel was first to report on Activision’s statement in response to the rumors, which have been ongoing for months.

Activision released a remaster of Modern Warfare 2‘s campaign in 2020–one of two CoD remasters it’s ever made–and rumors suggested Activision might look to do the same with Modern Warfare 3. The other remaster was for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare–this was initially offered only through the premium editions of Infinite Warfare in 2016 before being sold on its own. Unlike Modern Warfare 2 Remastered, Modern Warfare Remastered included campaign and multiplayer.

Modern Warfare 3 was developed by Infinity Ward and released on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, with Treyarch handling the Wii edition. A Nintendo DS version from n-Space was also released.

Call of Duty is now bigger than it ever has been. Activision supports the series on three main pillars: Call of Duty: Warzone, Call of Duty: Mobile, and the annual premium releases. The franchise is expanding even more, as Activision just announced the formation of a new studio to make a second Call of Duty mobile game. As for the mainline series, this year’s game is coming from Sledgehammer Games and is believed to be set in World War II.

As all of this is happening, Activision Blizzard is being sued by the state of California for its “frat boy” culture and discrimination and harassment of women. For more on the case, you can see a timeline of all the key events.

A new Max Raid event is underway in Pokemon Sword and Shield. Until August 8, a handful of summer-themed Pokemon will be appearing more frequently in Max Raid dens across both games, including Shiny Vanilluxe.

Throughout the event, you’ll be more likely to encounter Fan Rotom, Seaking, Heracross, Pinsir, and Ninjask in Max Raids across the Wild Area, Isle of Armor, and Crown Tundra. Vanilluxe will also be appearing more frequently, and you’ll have a chance to encounter a Shiny version in five-star Max Raids.

The Max Raid event runs until 4:59 PM PT / 7:59 PM ET / 11:59 PM UTC on Sunday, August 8, giving you only a few days to participate.

Before the event Pokemon can begin appearing in the game, you first need to refresh your Max Raid dens. You can do this either by connecting online via the Y-Comm, or by opening Mystery Gift from the menu screen and selecting Get the Wild Area News.

In other Pokemon news, New Pokemon Snap received its first free update earlier this week. The update introduced three new areas to the game and 20 additional Pokemon to photograph. Pokemon Unite also received a few updates recently, adding a new playable Pokemon, Gardevoir, and making assorted balance changes.

More Pokemon games are on the way to Nintendo Switch over the next few months. Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl release for the system on November 19, while Pokemon Legends: Arceus launches on January 28. You can learn more in our Pokemon Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl preorder guide and Pokemon Legends: Arceus preorder guide.

Hearthstone‘s latest expansion, United in Stormwind, launched this week and introduced the usual suite of new cards and mechanics. That has also renewed conversation among the community, who are commonly complaining that the new expansion stifles interactivity and turns the game into “solitaire.”

The critique extends from two new class-defining Quest cards. Hearthstone has used Quests before, 1-Mana spells that give a set of conditions to complete to get a big reward. It’s not uncommon for decks to be built around these Quests as win conditions, and Stormwind introduces a twist with Questlines–multi-stage quests with even bigger rewards. These quest conditions are supposed to be harder to fulfill, but judging by the community’s reaction, the Mage and Warlock quests are just too easy.

Mage and the Sorcerer’s Gambit

The Mage questline, Sorcerer’s Gambit, revolves around playing different types of spells. At each stage of the quest you must play one Arcane, one Fire, and one Frost spell to advance the questline. You get to draw cards as a reward for completing each step of the questline, and the ultimate reward is Arcanist Dawngrasp–a minion that gives you +3 Spell Damage for the remainder of the game.

In theory, requiring playing different types of spells should make the quest difficult. It reduces synergy between cards, and Frost spells can be especially hard to come by. But players have already refined the deck with a massive amount of card draw and cheap spells that become high-damage powerhouses once the spell damage aura takes effect. What’s more, the deck often plays no or almost no minions, just spells, which means there’s often not much an opponent can do to disrupt the strategy. It’s just a matter of trying to finish the Mage off before they complete their Quest and burn you out, often in the same turn.

Warlock and The Demon Seed

Similarly criticized is the Warlock quest, The Demon Seed. Warlocks’ class identity is built around sacrifice–their hero power trades health for card draw, and several of their cards either discard cards in hand or sacrifice their own minions. The Demon Seed makes this work to their advantage by ultimately granting Blightborn Tamsin, a minion that makes all self-damage hurt your opponent instead from that point forward.

Again, the quest itself would appear difficult to complete since it requires you to continuously damage yourself. But by synergizing that requirement with strong healing spells and cards that give good benefits for self-pain, the current Warlock build has a high survivability. That lets Warlocks reliably survive into the late-game when it can both control the board and hurt the opponent with self-damage. And like Mage, there isn’t much interactivity for opposing players. The Warlock simply spends their turn progressing their quest by hurting themselves, and then wins by doing a ton of damage to themselves.

Nerfs Inbound?

The community has been vocal about these decks being problematic. The Hearthstone subreddit is full of posts making solitaire jokes, complaining that the meta is un-fun, and sharing glory stories of overcoming their Mage or Warlock opponents.

Blizzard has been more aggressively pushing balance changes after recent expansions, often correcting any major issues within the first couple of weeks after a new expansion launches. Given the volume of pushback from the fans, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Blizzard announce changes as early as next week. GameSpot has reached out to Blizzard regarding balance change plans.

That said, this is far from a guarantee. The meta is always shifting, and popular decks are bound to inspire people to craft decks to counter them. Already fans are rallying around Hunter as the most consistent counter for Warlock–its high damage potential means it can semi-frequently finish the Warlock off before they finish the quest–and certain Paladin or Druid decks to counter the burn-down aspect of quest Mage. Blizzard may be looking at the player data and finding that the reality among the larger player base isn’t represented by the vocal community. Or it could simply decide to let the meta settle a little more before stepping in.

Either way we’re well past the record for fastest balance changes in Hearthstone history. When Blizzard introduced the Demon Hunter class last year, the company nerfed it the very next day.

This expansion launch occurred amid the backdrop of ongoing allegations of misconduct at Activision Blizzard, resulting in the departures of Blizzard president J. Allen Brack and head of human resources Jesse Meschuk. The legal action had an impact on the Hearthstone team directly, which canceled its planned card reveal stream out of respect for its coworkers.

Nintendo is notoriously slow to change, especially when it comes to connected experiences like multiplayer and online services. And while the company still certainly has a long way to go, we’re starting to see small signs of a more modern Nintendo in how it’s handling game updates for some of its first-party franchise titles like Mario Golf: Super Rush and New Pokemon Snap.

Both games received substantial updates this week. New Pokemon Snap’s update, announced last week, adds three new areas and tons of new Pokemon and behaviors to document with your trusty camera. Mario Golf: Super Rush’s update was even more sudden, dropping as soon as it was announced and adding a new golfer, Toadette, a new golf course, and more. Nintendo also promised more updates to come for Super Rush.

What was most striking was how quickly these updates followed post-release. Pokemon Snap just came out in April, and Mario Golf in June. There was a time that Nintendo offering a free content update within four months would have been unheard of, much less a single month after release. But that has become the norm rather than the exception in the Nintendo Switch era, especially for more traditionally connected experiences like Mario sports titles.

When Nintendo released Mario Tennis Aces in 2018, it was criticized mostly for being bare-bones at launch. The tennis mechanics and fundamentals were there–there just wasn’t all that much to do. But Nintendo apparently planned for just that critique, beginning a steady stream of content updates that began a month after launch and then continued every month for a full year post-launch.

Judging by this first Mario Golf update coming so soon, we may see a similar release cadence for new Super Rush content as well. Mario Golf: Super Rush wasn’t criticized quite as much for anemic content as Mario Tennis was, but that could be a sign that Nintendo is learning how to plan regular content drops meant to keep players coming back. Kirby Star Allies, another multiplayer-focused game, received regular free updates as well.

Nintendo has also made a habit of updating its more single-player-focused games within the first six months. Super Mario Odyssey and Luigi’s Mansion 3 both got significant updates roughly 4-5 months after release–the former adding Luigi content and the latter adding new multiplayer content. And the new approach seems to have extended out to The Pokemon Company. Pokemon Sword and Shield were the first in the series to get large-scale expansion content in lieu of an “Ultra” re-release like Sun and Moon, signaling a different approach to paid DLC as well.

Nintendo’s commitment to online support has been halting and inconsistent at times. Splatoon 2, primed to be an ongoing live service game, received its anticipated paid Octo expansion almost a year after launch.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons relied on free updates for its seasonal content, whereas many past Animal Crossing games packed everything into the core game file and then unlocked them based on the real-time clock. This let Nintendo preserve some surprises from time-travelers and data miners. However, some fans found the company to be frustratingly slow to adapt to the game’s wildfire popularity. Amid the backdrop of the pandemic it almost immediately became one of the Switch’s most popular games, and Nintendo arguably squandered the opportunity to scale up its plans to match the moment. If anything, the game now in its second year should be getting even more ambitious with its updates to keep players engaged, not scaling down and repeating events. (In fairness, the pandemic itself may have disrupted Nintendo’s development in this regard.)

At the same time, this is a marked change from the Wii U era when updates were even more sporadic. Games like Pikmin 3 and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze may have benefited from this approach, but they were left as static experiences. The handful of games that did receive significant post-launch support like Mario Kart 8 were the exception, rather than the rule.

This is also a notable development in light of Nintendo’s first-party pricing. Nintendo games rarely go on sale, and when they do, it’s typically not the deep discounts we see on other platforms. This is frustrating for gamers looking to score discounts, but it does have the side-effect of reassuring day-one purchasers that they won’t regret paying the launch price only weeks later. Nintendo committing to a regular cadence of updates that players know they can count on may help further cement that relationship with the player, while also helping to convince holdouts who may not have felt the value proposition was quite worth it at launch.

The progress Nintendo has made supporting its games with free updates hasn’t been linear. But this week’s releases–for two of its most recent first-party games–are a hopeful sign that the Switch generation will ultimately develop a consistent and relatively modernized strategy of post-launch content. If this holds, we can expect to see more coming for Nintendo’s upcoming slate like Metroid Dread, Splatoon 3, and Pokemon Legends: Arceus.

We’re looking for dedicated NHL fans to take part and provide feedback in our #NHL22 Closed Technical Test. It’s available on all 4 platforms (PS4, PS5, Xbox One & Xbox Series X) and launches in late August!

Space is limited so make sure you sign up ASAP: https://t.co/PIO7EkSWse pic.twitter.com/jkrgft8hci

— Clappy (@TheClapperton) August 6, 2021