Fortnite Season 8 and the Fortnite Season 8 battle pass have arrived after 14 weeks of an alien invasion. There’s no rest for the weary as, following their battle with The Last Reality, Fortnite loopers will now have to defend the island from the cubes which have forcibly taken dominion over the island. If you’re wondering what’s in the Fortnite Season 8 battle pass, we’ll be breaking down character by character.

Starting from the left of the battle pass lineup image below, the characters are:

• Kor
• Toona Fish
• Marvel’s Carnage
• Torin
• Fabio Sparklemane
• J.B. Chimpanski
• Charlotte

Out of the gate, the most story-relevant character may prove to be J.B. Chimpanski. As Doctor Slone left loopers for dead during Operation: Sky Fire, Chimpanski has assumed the role of leader of the new war effort. The cubes are everywhere, leaving vast portions of the island looking like a battlefield, but Chimpanski plans to rally the troops and save the island. Hopefully loopers can trust him more than they could Slone in the end.

Toona Fish is sure to be a hit too. Modeled in a similar image to Toon Meowscles, this cartoonish hero will be fully customizable like last season’s Kymera character, only this time it’s Color Bottles you’ll be seeking across the island. We’re hard at work on uncovering all the Week 1 Color Bottles and will have a guide up soon.

While we’re still fleshing out the backstories of Kor, we know that Torin–front and center in the image above–is a monster hunter, likely well-equipped to take down the Cube Monsters we’ll be seeing thanks to the Fortnite Season 8 map changes. Meanwhile, Charlotte on the right is leading an investigation into the Imagined Order–long overdue, if you ask me.

We should all take a moment to appreciate the unbridled majesty that is Fabio Sparklemane. Looking a bit like if Bojack Horseman was dunked into a rainbow-colored pond, the part-time cereal mascot/full-time unicorn has a good chance to emerge as the fan-favorite skin this season, following in the path blazed by previous absurdities like Peely and Tomatohead.

As always, each character will be further decked out with additional items like back bling, gliders, loading screens, pickaxes, and more across the full 100 tiers of the battle pass. Players who keep climbing the tiers will start to earn bonus enlightened skins after tier 100, though Epic has not yet revealed what these will look like this season.

If you’re looking for Marvel’s Carnage, you’ll need to wait a bit longer, as he’s this season’s “secret” skin. There was a time when these characters really were kept hidden, but these days they appear in the lineup key art with the rest of the seasonal crew. Still, Carnage can’t be obtained until later in Season 8. When he does become unlockable, he’ll include his own challenges, at which point we’ll guide you through completing all of those. Catch up on everthing else we have in our already expansive Fortnite Season 8 hub.

Fortnite Season 8 has arrived, following the stunning conclusion of Operation: Sky Fire and some extended downtime. As always, a new Fortnite season means a ton of new things to learn, such as what’s in the Fortnite Season 8 battle pass, what weapons have been vaulted and unvaulted, and what the new map looks like. Each season also adds its own unique mechanics. We’ll be breaking down all of those things here for you so you can jump into Fortnite Season 8: Cubed with an advantage over other loopers.

What’s New In Fortnite Season 8?

With the Mothership crashing down onto the island following Operation: Sky Fire, the island has once more undergone serious changes. Kevin-like cubes can be seen all over the island and, in some locations, players will find Sideways Anomalies. These are portals to a monster-infested alternate dimension called The Sideways that offers special loot such as unique weapons if you can survive it.

On the flipside, Sideways Zones are places of interest that are experiencing a bleed-through effect where The Sideways is coming through to the island’s world. These Sideways Zones will move from match to match, much like we saw with invaded locations in Season 7.

Players will be enlisted into the war effort against these enigmatic cubes, and they can contribute gold bars to build new defenses, unvault weapons, and reshape the island all season long. They can also take on new Party Quests which offer greater rewards for playing in bigger teams. While Season 7 split the community’s allegiance between the aliens and the IO, Season 8 is all about loopers coming together in the face of an existential threat: the cubes.

What’s In The Fortnite Season 8 Battle Pass?

A new Fortnite season means new battle pass characters. As has become customary, Fortnite Season 8 includes another eight characters to unlock and stylize with their own cosmetics as you move through 100 tiers in the battle pass–not to mention the expected bonus enlightened skins we should hear about in a few weeks. You can find a full introduction to all the new heroes in our Fortnite Season 8 battle pass overview. In addition, you’ll find Marvel’s Carnage, the Season 8 “secret” character, will have his own page shortly because he won’t be available for a while, but will eventually become unlockable with his own exclusive questline later this season.

Fortnite Season 8 Map Changes

In the new season, the island of Apollo has been taken over by the sentient cubes which once powered the alien Mothership. Now that the Mothership has crashed onto the island, these cubes have scattered everywhere and opened rifts into The Sideways, a parallel dimension filled with monsters. In our Fortnite Season 8 map changes overview, we’ve explained everything you need to know about Sideways Zones, Sideways Anomalies, Turret Stations, and more.

Fortnite Season 8 NPC Locations

First introduced in Season 5, NPCs are back again for a fourth consecutive season–and may be a permanent fixture at this point. The island is already home to several NPCs, and as always, we can expect more to appear as the season goes on. New this season are Party Quests, challenges that can picked up from NPCs that will reward your entire squad. We’re actively locating all the current Fortnite Season 8 NPCs and will have a complete guide to share shortly.

Fortnite Season 8 Color Bottles

If you were diligently chasing Alien Artifacts every week last season, you’re going to enjoy Color Bottles. This season’s battle pass includes another customizable character by the name of Toona Fish, and to unlock his customization options, you’ll need to collect Color Bottles which will reliably spawn in specific places every week. We’ll have the first Color Bottles guide up very soon to help you get going. Each week, we’ll be bringing you more Color Bottle locations so you can stay up-to-date on all of Toona’s stylish offerings.

Fortnite Season 8 Weapons – Vaulted, Unvaulted, And New

In Fortnite Season 8, players will be pulling never-before-seen weapons out of The Sideways and bringing them back to the island. You can upgrade them using Cube Monster Parts or you can swap them out for vaulted guns using Nuts And Bolts. Check out Fortnite Season 8 Weapons guide to catch up with everything new, vaulted, or unvaulted.

It’s going to be another action-packed season of Fortnite, as the war-torn map indicates. We’ll be bringing you daily coverage of the new season, so keep it here as we join forces with the entire Fortnite community to protect Apollo from the cubes.

Images from Redfall, the upcoming Xbox Series X/S console exclusive from Dishonored and Deathloop developer Arkane Studios, have seemingly leaked from a playtest.

The leaked images were first seen in a now-deleted Reddit post from TheRedFall and show off some of the game’s weapons and heroes alongside the Redditor describing a game that appears to be very much like Borderlands with Dishonored-style abilities. Other Redditors, like kidaXV, have reposted the images and re-wrote what was originally said.

Two of the weapons that appear in the images are titled the UV Beam M01 and Stake Launcher M02. Besides these weapons sounding like the perfect foil for vampires, they also show their descriptions and modifiers.

For example, the UV Beam has a “Rating” of 5,384, a high “Rate of Fire”, a bit lower “Reload Rate,” and a “Magazine Size” of 65. It also boasts “Additional charge capacity,” “Increased accuracy while moving,” and “Increased petrification speed.” There is also a “Scrap Value,” which may be Redfall’s currency.

The weapons come in one of five rarity levels, and the Loadout screen shows that each character will have access to three weapons, and one slot for Armor, Medkit, Remnants, and Memento. There were six heroes in the playtest, and each hero has three abilities assigned to them as well.

It’s also important to note that these images are from a very early stage of the game and are likely not indicative of the final quality for its graphics or even aspects of its gameplay. Games constantly change throughout their development, and while it is exciting to see more of a much-anticipated game, expectations need to be set properly.

Redfall was announced at E3 2021 and showed a glimpse of the open-world co-op FPS that will feature vampires created from an experiment gone wrong.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Deathloop is nearly upon PC and PS5 players, and I’ve found the sweetest deals for that swingin’ ’60s FPS. Not into Arkane’s incredible fusion of Dishonored, Prey, Hitman and a dash of Dark Souls? Maybe you have a need for many Need For Speeds, or perhaps a handsome collection of Borderlands titles instead. I’ve skewed today towards “many games in one” deals, so be sure to take advantage of these bargain priced packs!

Notable Sales for Nintendo Switch

Purchase Cheaply for PC

Exciting Offers for XO/XS

Product Savings for PS4/PS5

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Adam’s an Aussie deals wrangler who spends too much of his income on the bargains he finds. He speaks in “Simpsonsese” @Grizwords.

WandaVision has earned Marvel Studios its first three Emmy Awards for narrative (half-hour) production design, fantasy/sci-fi costumes, and original music and lyrics category for ‘Agatha All Along.’

As reported by Variety, Marvel Studios’ first TV show has been a huge success and was nominated for 23 Emmys overall in 2021, which makes it the most for a limited series and the second-most for any series.

These three victories were awarded at this weekend’s Creative Arts Emmy Awards, and WandaVision still has a chance to win at the Primetime ceremony on Sunday, September 19, in the Outstanding Lead Actress In a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie (Elizabeth Olsen), Outstanding Supporting Actress In a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie (Kathryn Hahn), and Outstanding Lead Actor In a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie (Paul Bettany) categories.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier also scored five Emmy nominations, including for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series (Don Cheadle), Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Season or a Movie, and Outstanding Sound Editing Series (One Hour). It has yet to win.

While these are the first Emmy wins for Marvel Studios, Marvel Television did win an Emmy for Netflix’s Jessica Jones in 2016’s Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music category.

Loki did not quite make the deadline for this year’s Emmy Awards, but it will most likely earn some nominations, and possibly victories, next year. Speaking of next year, Marvel Studios has a stacked line-up of shows coming to Disney+ that include Hawkeye, She-Hulk, Secret Invasion, and much more.

Disney+ also saw more Emmy wins with The Mandalorian, which brought home seven awards that include a second consecutive victory for the show’s composer Ludwig Goransson.

For more on WandaVision, check out our review of the series, why Kevin Fiege said Agatha Harkness’ return “can’t come soon enough,” why Doctor Strange was written out of WandaVision, and how the show changed the MCU forever.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

As suspected, Fortnite developer Epic Games filed an appeal over the court’s recent judgment in the high-profile Epic-Apple lawsuit in which Epic lost on nine out of ten counts.

As part of the case, Epic was ordered to pay millions of dollars due to Epic’s violation of store agreements. Over the case of the lengthy legal proceedings, Epic maintained that Apple represented a monopoly because it only allows its own store and payment system for in-game purchases. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers concluded in the ruling that Epic could not prove that Apple was engaging in monopolistic behavior under federal or state anti-trust laws, but that “the trial did show that Apple is engaging in anti-competitive conduct under California’s competition laws.”

The official appeal document (via The Verge) does not include specifics about the appeal, so we’ll have to wait to learn more. Attorney Richard Hoeg told GameSpot that appeals from both sides were expected.

Although Epic lost 9 out of 10 counts in the case, the judge did hand down a permanent injunction in Epic’s favor in some respects, mandating that Apple must allow app developers to source income from outside of the App Store ecosystem.

Hoeg told GameSpot that the decision “appears to be a near total victory for Apple.”

People hoping that Fortnite might return to the App Store in the wake of this decision are out of luck, as Epic’s Tim Sweeney has said that’s unlikely. Sweeney doubled down on that over the weekend, tweeting that although he feels bad for iOS players who can’t play Fortnite, he stands by his commitment to continue the fight against Apple. He said he “wouldn’t trade that away to get Fortnite back on iOS.”

Keep checking back with GameSpot for more on the Apple-Epic case.

Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has held off James Wan’s Malignant for its second weekend box office win with a domestic haul of $35.8 million.

As reported by Variety, Shang-Chi saw a 53% decline from its Labor Day opening weekend earnings of $71.4 million domestically. That decrease was much better than Black Widow’s roughly 70% fall in its second weekend.

Globally, Shang-Chi has officially crossed the $250 million mark and has a worldwide total of $257.6 million. Domestically, it has earned $145.6 million, making it the fourth-highest grossing film of 2021, and inches it ever closer to Black Widow’s $182 million.

Malignant was the only new, big-name contender for Shang-Chi, but it only managed to earn $5.57 million domestically, which is a far cry from its $40 million budget. However, it is important to note that Shang-Chi is not available on Disney+, while Malignant is also available to stream on HBO Max at no extra cost.

Malignant failed to even beat Free Guy’s $5.8 million, placing it at third place for the weekend. Rounding out the top five were Candyman’s $4.8 million and Jungle Cruise’s $2.4 million.

Shang-Chi’s success has reportedly caused Disney to make a decision to release Marvel’s Eternals exclusively in theaters when it arrives on November 5, 2021.

For more on Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, check out our review of the film, the full story of MCU’s Mandarin, and how the film’s star Simu Liu has used his own stock phots to shut down doubters.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

The storage savings are upon us today. If you’ve got a PC or a PS5, this Sunday has brought with it a ton of savings on Western Digital NVMe drives. This is the cutting edge in terms of storage tech, and will make your games load so fast you’ll barely have time to finish your drink before it appears. Just be sure you get the right kind for your needs, as PCI Gen 4 is the only type that works on a PS5. Of course we’ve got some other deals as well, including a few great game discounts, clothing sales at Amazon and more!

Daily Deals for September 12th, 2021

Buy a $50 Apple Gift Card, Get $5 Amazon Credit

Promotional credit will be listed at last step of checkout

Amazon is offering a free $5 credit when you purchase a $50 Apple gift card. The credit will be applied to your account once you receive the Apple gift card. The Apple gift card can be used to redeem pretty much anything on Apple’s site, including products, accessories, apps, games, music, movies, TV shows, and more. Spend it on in-app content, books, subscriptions and even iCloud storage to secure files from all your Apple devices.

Buy a $100 Uber Eats Gift Card, Get $10 Credit

Promotional credit will be listed at last step of checkout

COVID rates are significantly decreasing and people are starting to be able to eat out at restaurants, but being overcautious isn’t a bad thing. If you’re still confining yourself to your home and ordering in, you might want to take advantage of this deal. Simply buy an Uber Eats Gift Card valued at $100 or more and get a $10 Amazon credit.

Preorder the Middle Earth 6-Film Ultimate Collector’s Edition (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital)

This impressive Middle Earth Collector’s Edition includes both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit Trilogies over a whopping 31 discs. That’s because there are separate 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray discs for both the Theatrical Editions and the Extended Editions. You also get digital HD copies for free, and they are compatible with MoviesAnywhere so you can merge it into your digital library. As far as extras go, you get a Special Features Blu-ray disc, a 64-page booklet, and 7 travel poster art cards. All the discs are stored in collectible foil sleeves.

Video Game Deals

More Daily Deals for September 12th