Earlier leaks made it all but official, but Epic Games has officially confirmed the big news: God of War’s Kratos is the latest character making their way to Fortnite. You can purchase his outfit now in the game’s item shop, and it’s based on his iconic look from the 2018 game.
Kratos’ outfit can be purchased on its own, and you can also get the Oathbreaker set from the item shop. This set contains a Guardian Shield glider along with a Leviathan Axe pickaxe–complete with the first-ever pickaxe emote–and Mimir back bling, If you’ve played the game, you know Mimir’s severed head is still very capable of talking.
Because of the series’ PlayStation exclusivity, PS5 Fortnite players get a special bonus with Kratos. After you purchase the base outfit and play one match on the system, you will also receive an Armored Kratos skin. This armor was only available to Kratos in God of War after he completed some of its toughest optional challenges. A sequel to that game, God of War: Ragnarok, is currently in development.
The conceit for including Kratos–as if the game needed one–is that he has traveled through the Zero Point introduced with the start of Season 5. Epic Games said he’s “among the first” to travel through this, and this means there will be more on the way. One of those characters could be Master Chief, based on apparent leaks we’ve seen. The eternal question of who would win in a fight between the two heroes may finally be answered.
The trailer summarizes the story of the game and shows off some slick footage of the combat, featuring fan favourites like Morgana and Ryuji quipping their way through proceedings. We also get a glimpse at some of the bosses from Strikers before a title card reveals the release date and platforms for the Persona 5 spin-off, which launched in Japan on February 20 earlier this year under the title of Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers.
We won’t have to wait too long to play it in the west, as Persona 5 Strikers is launching on PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC on February 23, 2021. The trailer notes that you’ll be able to pre-order the game via the official website, but the Persona 5 Strikers page isn’t live yet. Perhaps ATLUS had planned to reveal the game during The Game Awards – regardless, it seems like the cat is out of the bag…
In other Persona news, back in August of this year, SEGA noted its intention to “aggressively” port games to Steam and other new platforms following the success of Persona 4 Golden’s PC port.
Find out what “The Tragedy” is (and more) in our breakdown of The Mandalorian Season 2, Episode 6.
Things sure are happening on The Mandalorian. In Season 2, Episode 6–Chapter 14, AKA “The Tragedy”–Mando and Grogu (yes, we have to call him that now) arrived at the ancient Jedi temple on Tython, got ambushed by Boba Fett, and fought a bunch of extremely dumb stormtroopers.
And that’s pretty much it! This was an episode jam-packed with action, with very little plot. Besides Boba Fett’s admittedly exciting arrival, there isn’t much else to discuss. Let’s get into it, then check out our breakdowns for the previous Season 2 episodes:
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1. “The Tragedy”
The episode is called “The Tragedy.” Since nobody actually dies in the episode, we can only assume this is a reference to the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise–not a story the Jedi would tell you.
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2. Slave 1
Boba Fett arrives in his iconic ship, Slave 1. The ship’s first appearance was in Empire Strikes Back, and it’s had many appearances over the years, including most recently (we believe) on The Clone Wars.
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3. Grogu Meditates
As Grogu sits on the seeing stone, we see him meditating like many Jedi before him throughout the franchise. Force-sensitive beings used meditation to make it easier to connect to the Force with a clear mind.
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4. Boba Fett
Boba Fett is the mysterious character played by Temuera Morrison at the end of Chapter 9. He’s been tracking Mando to get his armor. It turns out he survived the Sarlacc pit, after all.
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5. He Said The Line
The line “I’m a simple man making his way through the galaxy, like my father before me” is a callback to a scene between Jango Fett and Obi-Wan on the planet Kamino in Attack of the Clones.
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6. Fennec Shand
Ming-Na Wen’s character returns from Season 1. The last time we saw her was in the Season 1 episode Chapter 5, when an unseen person saved her. It turns out it was Boba Fett.
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7. RIP Razor Crest
Didn’t this thing just get repaired?
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8. Dark Troopers
It’s confirmed that the army of suits shown at the end of Chapter 12 were Dark Troopers, which we see in action here. While there are currently multiple phases of Dark Troopers in canon, these appear to be Phase 1. The name was first introduced in the video game Star Wars: Dark Forces, which is now considered non-canon in Star Wars. They’ve since appeared in over half a dozen video games, including the Battlefront series.
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9. Gideon’s Light Cruiser
Moff Gideon’s Imperial Light Cruiser appears again after we last saw it in Chapter 11 and Chapter 12. Before The Mandalorian, this Arquitens-class light cruiser was never seen in live action before, but was frequently shown in The Clone Wars and Rebels.
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10. Jango Fett’s History
We learn Jango Fett was a foundling like Din Djarin, who was adopted into the Way of the Mandalore. Boba Fett also tells Din that his father fought in the Mandalorian Civil Wars. In Clone Wars, Almec haid said Jango wasn’t a Mandalorian, but perhaps this was just a slight against foundlings.
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11. Searching For Migs
Mando asks Cara for help finding Migs Mayfeld. Mayfeld is Bill Burr’s character from Season 1. The last time we saw him was Chapter 6, in a jail cell.
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12. The Darksaber
After appearing in the finale of Season 1, the Darksaber returns for Moff Gideon to use it to taunt Grogu for some reason.
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Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company
Developer King has confirmed that the endless runner Crash Bandicoot: On The Run will get a brand-new Time Trials game mode when it officially launches on Android and iOS next year.
Time Trials lets players select any level to complete in the fastest time possible. There are three different times to compete against, with special relics unlocked after each clearing.
King is also added Team Runs to Crash Bandicoot: On The Run’s asynchronous online multiplayer. After securing five power gems, which are rewarded after defeating bosses, players can go online with a team of up to 30 members to challenge other global teams. Once a Team Run has been selected, three members from three different teams will race together to see who gets the furthest. The longer players run, the more Crash Points their teams earn.
With the announcement, King shared a brief teaser trailer showing off the feel and pace of Time Trials in Crash Bandicoot: On The Run, which you can check out above.
Crash Bandicoot: On The Run is slated to launch in Spring 2021. Pre-registration is available now on Android and iOS, and doing so unlocks a Blue Hyena skin when it comes out. For more on Crash Bandicoot: On The Run, check out our interview with creative lead Stephen Jarrett.
The wacky marsupial mascot has returned to consoles with Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, which launched on October 2 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. In our Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time review, we scored it an 8/10, saying, “It’s an injection of new ideas into now-classic gameplay that surprises and delights, even as it feels like a homecoming.”
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Whenever I find out that a game I like has been picked up for a film adaptation, I cringe a bit. We’re more likely to get something like Street Fighter: The Movie than we are Detective Pikachu. The people who make these movies so often seem to completely misunderstand what makes these games special. While we won’t know if Monster Hunter is another dud until it actually comes out later this month, we at least know that if it fails, it’s not because director Paul W.S. Anderson doesn’t understand the source material. Talking on a recent Twitch stream with Capcom USA, Anderson revealed that he took some inspiration from the most obscure of obscure places: a side quest in a Metal Gear Solid handheld game.
Anderson is in deep. He’s already said that he first played Monster Hunter 12 years ago, well before it hit American shores in any significant way, and has been trying to adapt it for nearly as long. One of the things that worried fans of the games in initial trailers is that our main character, portrayed by Milla Jovovich, isn’t a native inhabitant of the Monster Hunter world. Rather, she’s from our world; she and her team get pulled into Monster Hunter through a storm, and she has to adapt, working with Tony Jaa’s character, “The Hunter,” to survive and thrive.
There are two reasons why Anderson made Jovovich’s character, Lieutenant Artemis, military.
“I was very influenced by a crossover Monster Hunter had done with Metal Gear Solid,” Anderson explained. “This is great imagery to juxtapose a man with a machine gun against the creatures.”
A promotional image from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
Anderson is referring to the Hunting Quests in the originally PSP-exclusive game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, which had Solid Snake fighting a Rathalos and Tigrex from Monster Hunter Portable 3rd.
Further, Anderson explained that he wanted to highlight our overreliance on our technology, shown when it utterly fails Lt. Artemis and her soldiers.
Anderson also reiterated his reasoning for making the protagonist a new character rather than an existing Monster Hunter character for the film. “Milla is the avatar for the audience,” Anderson explained in October. “She’s the newbie going into this world.” He wants to both give non-players a way to experience the world of Monster Hunter without knowing a thing about it, and to recreate for himself and other players the feeling of entering the world as a new character for the first time.
The 50-minute interview covers a ton of topics. Anderson described the slavish detail that his team went into, starting with the actual monster models from the games, tweaking things as subtle as the Diablos’ claws at the request of the game’s creators. He also talked about the commitment of the actors, from star (and Anderson’s wife of 11 years) Milla Jovovich’s personal preference for the game’s dual blades based on her playstyle and physicality to martial artist Tony Jaa’s ability to help bring the weapons to life. Jaa, Anderson explained, made the oversized weapons of the game possible.
Monster Hunter is set to release to theaters on December 25, 2020. There’s no news yet about where the movie might be able to stream following release. We’re hoping the film is a bit more Castlevania and a bit less Super Mario Bros., and that it doesn’t end up on our list of awful video game adapations.
It’s a big news day over at the house of Warner; the studio announced that all of its movies, including tentpole features like The Suicide Squad, The Matrix 4, and Dune, will appear on HBO Max day-and-date with their movie theater debuts. WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar took to Medium to talk about the news, and let a little detail slip that should get Game of Thrones fans excited.
After talking about the decision to shift those big movies to HBO Max, Kilar talked about other Max-exclusive content like Zack Snyder’s Justice League and the upcoming Friends reunion. Kilar signed off, and then dropped a post-script at the end.
“Principal photography starts on the next Game of Thrones series, House of the Dragon, in a few months. Look out for dragons overhead!” Kilar wrote.
It’s not a release date, but it fits the previous 2022 timeline stated by HBO programming boss Casey Bloys. Along with that information, Kilar added in a couple pieces of concept art and a logo for the show, which you can see in Kilar’s original post.
Here’s what we already know about House of the Dragon. Greenlit last fall, the 10-episode season is set 300 years before the events of the Game of Thrones series, meaning that most fan-favorite characters won’t be appearing simply because they don’t exist yet. The series is inspired by author George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, a sort of historical account of the world of Westeros, focusing on the rise of House Targaryen. House of the Dragon began casting earlier this year, and cast actor Paddy Considine as King Viserys Targaryen. HBO has not yet greenlit future seasons, so this may be a limited-run event.
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The latest big update for Rainbow Six Siege includes the long-awaited upgrades for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, but just how much better does the game look?
In a new video, we put the game to the test. You can see in this video how Rainbow Six Siege on PS5 looks compared to a high-end PC. Be sure to watch the full video and then decide for yourself.
Along with cross-generation multiplayer and progression, Rainbow Six Siege on next-gen hardware sees improved graphics and performance. The game is playable on the new machines in two modes: Performance and Resolution.
Additionally, the PS5 edition of Rainbow Six Siege uses the DualSense controller for “deeper immersion” with its adaptive triggers and haptic feedback. The Xbox Series X|S edition, meanwhile, supports the Quick Resume feature.
Keep checking back with GameSpot for lots more on Rainbow Six Siege, as well as the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, in the days and weeks ahead.
Much like her on-again-off-again romantic interest, Vision, Wanda Maximoff AKA Scarlet Witch has been rocketed into the pop culture mainstream by her prominent role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe–and that spotlight is only going to get brighter now that she’s making her way to her very own show. WandaVision is headed for Disney+ in January 2021 and, with any luck, it will both help clear up some of the loose ends in Wanda’s MCU story and establish her moving forward as she goes on to feature in more films, like Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. Let’s dive into Scarlet Witch’s comic book origins.
On the big screen, Wanda’s story has been relatively streamlined. She, like Vision, was introduced in Avengers: Age of Ultron as a Sarkovian refugee along with her brother, Pietro AKA Quicksilver, who had been subjected to human experimentation by HYDRA with the Mind Stone. It’s not entirely clear how the experiments actually worked or why they gave the twins the powers they wound up with, but Wanda came out of the HYDRA facility with the ability to telekinetically move objects and manipulate people’s minds.
Over in the comics, Wanda’s history is considerably more complicated and strange, but full of themes and motifs you’ll likely find very familiar as an MCU fan. Introduced in X-Men #4 back in 1964, Wanda and Pietro were first cast as members of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, though neither of them were completely bought-into Magneto’s ideologies. But they didn’t stay exclusive to X-Men titles, or villains, for very long.
The latest Call of Duty game, Black Ops Cold War, released a couple of weeks ago on November 13, but if you’ve yet to pick up the first-person shooter, you can now buy a physical copy for 10 bucks less than its list price at Walmart. The retailer announced a new promo on the game that offers the PS5/Xbox Series X versions for $59.94 (was $70) and PS4/Xbox One versions for $49.94 (was $60). This is a “new everyday low price” with no specific end date, so it’s effectively a price drop on the brand-new game.
The new Walmart pricing affects the four platform-specific versions of Black Ops Cold War. The Xbox One and PS4 versions are available for $49.94–these physical copies are playable on next-gen consoles due to backwards compatibility. PS4 owners can later pay to upgrade to the PS5 version by inserting their disc into the console. The Xbox One version cannot be upgraded down the road.
The PS5 and Xbox Series X standard editions are down to $59.94, and these include the next-gen versions on disc. The PS5 standard edition can only be played on PS5. The Xbox Series X standard edition can be played on both Series X and Xbox One.
Though not a huge discount, this Walmart price drop is still notable for the new COD game, as it’s full-priced for all versions at many other stores, like Best Buy and GameStop. It appears that Amazon is now price-matching the Xbox prices at Walmart–the Xbox Series X standard edition is on sale for $59.94, while the Xbox One version is down to $49.94, though note that the latter does not ship until January 8, 2021. The PlayStation versions are sold out at Amazon.
As the name implies, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is set in the early 1980s during the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The game features new multiplayer modes, a new Zombies storyline, extensive customization options, new map dynamics, and more. It received a 7/10 in GameSpot’s Black Ops Cold War review for its fun campaign, player choice, use of the PS5 DualSense controller, and more.
“It’s reasonable to expect updates to Cold War at a steady clip,” wrote reviews editor Kallie Plagge. “Weapons will be tweaked, issues will be patched, and gameplay will be balanced. Zombies has a strong foundation and may very well be improved further by potential updates, but the gap between multiplayer and the Warzone ecosystem is too wide to be bridged by small tweaks. Zombies is a good co-op time overall, but multiplayer falls flat, leaving the strong campaign to do most of the heavy lifting.”
With everyone spending more time at home lately, it’s not a bad idea to invest in a quality desk chair. And if you also happen to game rather extensively, a dedicated gaming chair is the ideal choice. Secretlab is arguably the most well-known gaming chair manufacturer, but its chairs can also be quite pricey. Right now, you can save a decent chunk of change on Secretlab’s 2020 lineup of chairs during its Christmas sale.
The vast majority of Secretlab’s Prime 2.0 PU leather and SoftWeave fabric models are on sale for $40 off. If you opt for the more expensive NAPA leather, you’ll save $100 on your order. You’ll want to double-check the shipping date if you are in fact buying the chair as a Christmas gift. Most of the chairs, including standard Omega and Titan models, won’t ship until after the holidays–Secretlab is experiencing understandable delays due to the pandemic.
We’ve rounded up some of our favorite Secretlab gaming chairs featured in the sale. It’s worth noting that Secretlab has two different sizes when it comes to chairs: Omega and Titan. Omega chairs are designed for people 5’11” tall and under 240 pounds, while Titan chairs are designed for taller people thanks to a larger backrest. Secretlab’s Christmas sale runs all the way up to December 25, so you have some time to take advantage of these discounts.
For more budget-friendly gaming chair options, make sure to check out our list of the best cheap gaming chairs.
