Fortnite Season 8 is now in its eighth week, which means there are new challenges to be completed. You can see a full list of the Season 8, Week 8 challenges here, and you’ll no doubt notice that there are a few tricky ones among them. One of those asks players to “search the treasure map signpost found in Paradise Palms.”
This is a multi-stage challenge and has two parts. Naturally, treasure hunts can lead to a lot of head-scratching and aimless wandering, but we’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen. To save you time and effort, we’ve completed the challenge and put together a guide that shows you exactly where you need to go and what you need to do.
To complete this challenge, you’ll need to first head to Paradise Palms–obviously. More specifically, you’ll need to head to the center of the area and find the little alley there. Stick to the rooftops and you’ll spot the map signpost on a wall below you. For part two of the challenge, you’ll need to follow the map to find the Battle Star. It actually leads you to Frosty Flights, specifically at the end of the runway. Once you’ve made it there, the challenge should complete.
Take a look at the map below for more details on where you can find the Battle Star.
Fortnite Signpost Treasure Map Locations
Signpost Treasure Map: This is located at the center of Paradise Palms in an alley behind the building there.
Treasure Map Battle Star Location: Frosty Flights at the end of the runway.
If you still need a hand completing challenges, make sure to check out our complete Fortnite Season 8 challenge guide. We’ve been keeping that up to date with guides on the difficult challenges on a week-by-week basis. Season 8 is going to start to wind down soon, so if you want to unlock all the cosmetics, that companion piece will be very useful.
In other Fortnite news, a new LTM oriented around dogfighting has been added to the game. Patch 8.40 introduced Air Royale, which lets players “pilot the X-4 Stormwing in this Limited-Time Mode as you fight to become the last plane flying! Complete free Challenges to unlock brand-new Wraps as you rule the skies.”
Epic has also thrown the Food Fight LTM back into the mix, but this time it’s in the form of a variant called Deep Fried. There are a number of other tweaks and changes to the game, and you can see it all in the Fortnite update 8.40 patch notes.
A shipwreck on a mountain top, a flying tentacle beast, and psychotic hallucinations of skin melting off people’s faces. With an opening as eerie as this, it wasn’t difficult to get swept up in the bizarre intrigue of The Sinking City, the latest from Frogwares–a studio that’s known for its work on the cult favorite Sherlock Holmes adventure games. But any lover of H.P Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos should find these motifs familiar. It’s the sort of stuff that makes these tales of eldritch abominations and the unfortunate souls who discover them so captivating. Attempting to unravel these mysteries kept me thoroughly invested in my demo of The Sinking City, but it was the unsettling world and its potent realities that gripped me the most.
Set in the fictional half-submerged city of Oakmont, Massachusetts during the 1920s, you play as Charles Reed, a troubled WW1 veteran and private investigator traveling in search of a cure for his persistent hallucinations. But the moment The Sinking City begins, this task becomes far more complicated. Mysterious creatures known as wylebeasts infest Oakmont’s streets, and worse yet, the city is embroiled in a tense race war between two grotesque human-animal hybrids. Even the normal humans who occupy Oakmont have their own personal prejudices against outsiders and the hybrid races.
The first hybrid I met was a wealthy man named Robert Throgmorton, whose ape-faced appearance threw me off-guard. Aside from Charles’ initial hallucinations, everything I’d seen up to that point felt grounded in a semblance of reality. But talking to Throgmorton changed all that–at least until he was revealed to be a pompous and repulsive being whose xenophobic and eugenics-fueled rhetoric disgusted me. Suddenly, my disbelief came barreling down to an ugly reality that was all too true to life.
My first case had me trying to find Robert Throgmorton’s missing son in exchange for information about Reed’s mysterious visions. The search took me all around the Oakmont Pier where I mostly interviewed suspects, searched crime scenes, and gathered evidence. Exploration and investigation in The Sinking City are incredibly open-ended, challenging you to chase up your own leads across the game’s large world as opposed to being told where to go. At times, my investigation was disturbed by otherworldly forces, as portals into a spectral realm opened up in and around crime scenes. I even began to hear voices speaking in tongues to me. All the while, more hallucinations spawned on screen–a phenomenon determined by your exposure to disturbing imagery found in the world.
This is what The Sinking City seems most effective at, shocking you and forcing you to suspend your disbelief only to reveal a darker, more grim reality underlying its haunting surrealist visuals.
Oddities like this occurred often, but the stories I discovered in their midst remained the same: violence and murder as the result of an ugly cycle of intolerance and greed, whether intentional or not. This is what The Sinking City seems most effective at, shocking you and forcing you to suspend your disbelief only to reveal a darker, more grim reality underlying its haunting surrealist visuals.
As I explored Oakmont’s flooded streets and pieced together clues, I couldn’t stop thinking about the unnerving racial conflict discussed in my conversation with Robert Throgmorton. His family despises another hybrid race known as the Innsmouthers, who are migrants that are fish-like in appearance. However, that hatred is shared on both sides, as the Innsmouthers aren’t above equally hateful beliefs and behaviors. And each one I met wasn’t shy to let that fact be known.
The end of my first case inevitably forced me to make a choice: incriminate an Innsmouther in the murder of Robert Throgmorton’s son or let them walk free. Without spoiling it, the facts set before me made that choice incredibly complicated. I ended up choosing the latter, but I still find myself second guessing that decision, even now. But with one mystery solved, there opened up numerous others that all seemed to dive deeper into all of society’s worst tendencies and the grander, mysterious phenomenon that potentially play a part in fueling them. This is still a Lovecraftian mystery, after all.
The Sinking City’s bleak world and characters suck you into its bizarre, yet grimy tales of otherworldly urban crime. The surprisingly convincing racial conflict the game sets up colors the storytelling in a way that’s both haunting and engrossing. While this isn’t the first time we’ve had a backdrop like this in games, The Sinking City’s surreal depiction of 1920’s-era racial prejudice and violence was undoubtedly its most standout quality for me; clumsy shooting mechanics and somewhat glitchy animations notwithstanding. Whether or not the game makes good on the social commentary it introduces, The Sinking City has at least piqued my interest–even if playing it may mean enduring an ugly cycle of violence that calls to mind the worst of what can still be seen today.
The Sinking City is set to release on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on June 27.
Following its surprise announcement earlier this week, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate‘s big 3.0 update is now live. The patch adds a wealth of new content and features to the acclaimed Switch fighting game, including a new playable character and Stage Builder mode, plus a long list of balance tweaks for various fighters.
Headlining the update is Persona 5’s Joker, who is now available as a DLC character. Joker comes alongside a brand-new stage, Mementos, as well as nearly a dozen music tracks lifted from the Persona series and a handful of Persona Spirits. Additionally, an assortment of Persona- and Sonic-inspired Mii Fighter costumes are available for purchase. The costumes run for $0.75 each, while the Joker Fighter Pack costs $6. Joker is also included as part of Smash Ultimate’s $25 Fighters Pass.
The aforementioned Stage Builder, meanwhile, is available free for everyone, and it allows player to create and share their own Smash Ultimate levels. Nintendo has also added a video editor. This feature gives players the ability to combine their saved video clips and adds subtitles, sound effects, and more. The videos can likewise be shared with other players through the new Smash World hub in the Nintendo Switch Online smartphone app.
Rounding out the update is a litany of gameplay adjustments. Among other things, several of Diddy Kong’s attacks have been buffed, and now all characters will be penalized more for continuous dodging. You can see the full list of character tweaks on Nintendo’s support website, while the general patch notes for the 3.0 update can be found here.
Nintendo still has four more unannounced DLC characters on the way for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as well as a few more Amiibo figures. Three of them–Pichu, Pokemon Trainer, and Isabelle–will hit retailers starting July 26. Figures of Squirtle, Ivysaur, Snake, and Simon Belmont are also on the way this year, although no release date has been announced yet.
It’s been an exciting week so far, with PS5 details and an Avengers: Endgame leak. If you’re a Fortnite fan, the week is about to get even better with a new wave of challenges to complete. Naturally, spending the time and effort to finish these mini-quests will score you Battle Stars that level up your Battle Pass and unlock cosmetics.
As always, there are two sets of challenges. The first is a free set that’s available to anyone playing the game, while the second is exclusively for those that have spent V-Bucks on a premium Battle Pass. In the former’s category, players will need to find a treasure map, use vending machines, and dish out damage to enemies while also using a balloon.
Meanwhile, if you’ve got a premium Battle Pass, you’ll need to search Jigsaw Puzzle Pieces, dial the Durrr Burger number on a specific phone, take out enemies in Dusty Divot or Lucky Landing, and then kill two enemies from at least 50m away.
Fortnite Season 8, Week 8 Challenges
Free
Stage 1: Search the treasure map signpost in Paradise Palms (1) — 2 Battle Star
Use Vending Machines in different matches (3) — 5 Battle Stars
Deal damage to opponents while using at least one balloon (100) — 10 Battle Stars
Battle Pass
Search Jigsaw Puzzle Pieces under bridges and in caves (7) — 5 Battle Stars
Stage 1: Dial the Durrr Burger number on the big telephone west of Fatal Fields (1) — 2 Battle Stars
Eliminate opponents at Dusty Divot or Lucky Landing (7) — 10 Battle Stars
Eliminate opponents from at least 50m away (2) — 10 Battle Stars
The latest Fortnite update added a new LTM oriented around dogfighting. Patch 8.40 introduced Air Royale, which lets players “pilot the X-4 Stormwing in this Limited-Time Mode as you fight to become the last plane flying! Complete free Challenges to unlock brand-new Wraps as you rule the skies.”
Alongside it, Epic also brought back the Food Fight LTM, but as a variant called Deep Fried. It features higher restaurant bases, which means teams must build up to them to protect their mascots. There are a number of other tweaks and changes to the game, and you can see it all in the Fortnite update 8.40 patch notes.
Ever since its reveal last year, developer id Software has been very clear about Rage 2 being the game that the original should have been. Co-developed with Avalanche Studios, the sequel has been toted as a true open-world game compared to its predecessor’s attempt at one, leaning heavily on hectic gameplay within a vast and dynamic environment. Though Rage 2 is all about blending together the fast, punchy corridor-shooter action that id software is known for with Avalanche’s sense of scale and breadth of content from their world-exploring games, our last few impressions didn’t give us the opportunity to see those aspects really come together.
However, we recently got to play two hours of the final game ahead of its May 14 release. While exploring the setting at our leisure, we got more of a clearer picture of how Rage 2 injects id Software’s old-school design within the framework of a modern open-world game. We also spoke with id studio director with id Software studio director Tim Willits about the making of the sequel to the 2011 post-apocalyptic open-world shooter, and how it’s introduced them to some new rethink their familiar design philosophies.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and readability.
When you think back to the original game after playing this one, they’re pretty night and day by comparison. Rage 2 feels like it’s entirely its own thing.
Yes, it is. Firstly, I like to say that Rage 2 delivers on all that Rage 1 promised. I’ve joked that the biggest lesson I’ve learned from Rage is don’t make an open world game without an open world technology, which is what we did with our id Tech 5 engine for the original. But you’re right, it’s kinda like we’re launching a new franchise. It’s very exciting. We often get people asking, “Well, do I need to have played the first one?” And I’m like, “No. Don’t worry about it. We got you covered.” You can just jump in and play. Don’t be nervous by the 2.
After playing about two hours of this game, I do have to say that it felt more comfortable with being an id-shooter in an open world. Whereas the original felt like it was trying brute force its way into that mold.
I’m glad you noticed that. It was the number one thing we set out to do with this game. When we were started pitching the game internally, I made this presentation and one slide had said “Rage 2.” People were like, “okay, Rage 2, that’s cool,” and then the next slide was the Id logo and the Avalanche logo, and when people saw that they were like, yeah, that’s cool! And then everything from there just made sense.
It seems like Avalanche coming on was very instrumental in helping id Software transition its particular gameplay into the open world.
Well, the great thing about working with the Avalanche team is they not only bring the Apex Engine technology, which is awesome, but they also bring that experience. They’ve been making open-world action games for a long time, so they just think about things differently. How we tell the story, how we write the dialogue, and how we approach the missions, those things really leveraged on a lot of their expertise. We have some amazing technology, but just for this style of game, we found that it was better to work with a company that had the experience with their own [open-world] tech and gameplay. Working with Avalanche on this game was kind of a match made in heaven.
Truth be told, I played Rage 2 previously at other conventions, and it was difficult getting a sense of the world and scale of the game. The previous demos tended to focus more on enclosed encounters–which seemed more in-line with traditional id shooters, rather than an open world game.
Yeah, it’s not the same experience getting to dive into this game at your own pace versus playing a 20-minute chunk at a show. At E3 last year, we had the Eden’s Gate complex, which is very classic id Software style-level. It was fun, it was cool, but you are right–We stuck you in a box, and obviously, this game is not a box. We wanted people to believe that we had that id-style combat in this world, so we really focused on proving that first, which is one of our biggest milestones in the project. We really had to figure out how it felt to play, what the endgame content was like, and what the weapons were like. Are they loud enough, powerful enough, fast enough? So it was definitely a hurdle we needed to jump over early.
But I’m glad you were able to play a big part in the game just now. You know, it’s funny, now, when you play the game, you’ll get that Eden’s Gate mission, and you’ll be like, “this is so small compared to everything else I saw”. When you play through it normally, you’ll just blast through it. It’s such a different feeling when you actually get to see it the world.
This game will also see some interesting updates after launch which will affect the state of the world. In a recent trailer, there were some references to in-world event that has you fight mutants for a TV program.
Yes! So, we’ll have events and we can churn in activities on the occasion. But you do not need to always be online for this game. So was a little bit of confusion recently, but if you are connected to the internet, you can participate in these live events. If you’re not, then just play the base game and have fun. We can make these cool events happen that will kinda keep people engaged as we can deliver them more content in the future.
So Rage 2 six to seven month from now will potentially be a different game than the one we’ve got at launch?
Yes, that’s the plan! Hopefully, people will stay with it. I do think we have a good plan. We have some cool beats that we’ll talk about after the game launches, and what the framework looks like moving forward. When you play the full game, you can see that there’s room for things to expand, and we will continually layer things in to keep people engaged.
It seems like the idea of the evolving game or a games-as-a-service title is becoming more commonplace now. Is Rage 2 in that similar school of thought?
No, it will just be a supported game. I don’t know, it’s so hard to–like someone needs to come up with a perfect definition of what a “games-as-a-service” game actually is. Many people have different ideas of that, and I may have confused people originally when I started talking about this. What we’re planning on doing is creating some updates and content for this game after we launch. So, we monitor the game, we monitor the players, we act in the community, we’re gonna support it, we’re gonna update it. It’s not like a subscription or a free-to-play game. But it will be supported.
Though previous id Software shooters have seen updates after launch, this game seems more about expanding the world itself and the content therein. This seems to be new territory for you all.
That’s true, but it’s honestly the direction that the industry is moving toward. Fans spend so much time with our games, and people want to know that the thing that they enjoy is being supported and that the developers stand behind it, and that they will continue to improve the experience. If you’re gonna dedicate so much of your time, when there are so many other things to do, you want that commitment from the other side. So that’s what we are gonna try to do, which is something that’s new for us, so hopefully, it’ll work.
Though the game itself is very modern in its focus, it still feels very old-school in its design. And we see that in its focus on offering cheat codes, which seems to be a rarity in today’s age.
We don’t take ourselves too seriously all the time, and those cheat codes should be pretty fun. The game shines when players just sit down and do what they want to do. I really believe, the more time you spend with the game, the more enjoyable it is. If you rush through it, you’re not gonna have as much fun as the person that spends twice as long. So, I would encourage people to take their time, experiment with the powers and upgrades, because there’s a lot. It’s definitely rewarding for people who spend the time.
There’s one cheat in particular called “Git Gud”, which kills all enemies in one hit once activated. It seems to be a reference to online game challenge culture. Do you have a particular stance on how you want your games to be designed in terms of difficulty and the barrier for entry?
So I’m a bit more old-school, I like to get thrown into a new mission and told to find the red key somewhere in the level. But in a game that’s this big and open, we do need to help players when they feel like they need some help and we do need to kinda direct them [with the GPS]. As for difficulty, we have several different difficulty settings, of course. If you want that extra challenge then you can play the Nightmare difficulty. You really have to strategize and play smart, it’s so tough. But yeah, if you’re a pretty hardcore player, I’d encourage you to play it on hard, not normal.
The openness that we have is the nature of this game, nothing is really off-limits. We may point you in the right direction, but we don’t really scale the difficulty of the enemies. So if you find an area that’s too tough, you can just come back to it when you have more upgrades and more abilities, and you can just tear through it. We give you that opportunity. With the open world nature of the game, I do believe that it allows for more accessibility than some of our other games. We tend to make intense games at id, and sometimes people accuse us of being a little too hardcore. But even though this game’s fast and can be tough, because it can change based on what you do and how you play it, I actually think it’s more accessible than any of our others games.
I think what’s especially noticeable about this game compared to the original is that it has a lot more personality.
Yeah, the first one sold well and people enjoyed it, but I definitely feel that we are firing on all the cylinders with the sequel. We have the right personality, we have the right developers, we have the right tech, we have the right style. It’s a good time, also, for this type of game. Because it is a little bit more unique than a lot of the other, kind of, post-apocalyptic games. And yes, you are absolutely correct. We really tried to make the game fun. So, if people play it, and their friend says, “Well, what do you think of Rage 2?” If they say, “That was fun!”, then I’m happy.
The neon-soaked hallways and dirty streets of Katana Zero do a great job of sucking you into its broken world. Gangsters operate unhindered as society is still reeling from a devastating war, one whose loss has littered the streets with homeless war veterans and bars with resentful and drunken citizens looking for a fight. You are that fight–a ruthless sword-wielding assassin with the ability to slow down time–and Katana Zero gives you delicately designed scenarios to slice and dice your way through. Its abrupt ending is an unwelcome surprise, but the riveting action is complemented by an intelligently presented narrative with a variety of captivating themes that is difficult to pull away from.
Katana Zero puts you in the shoes of a nameless assassin haunted by the fractured misdeeds from the past war. This war forms the backbone of Katana Zero’s central mystery, which does take time to unravel. What starts out as straightforward assassination missions ordered by a shadowy organization slowly unfurls to encapsulate themes of post-traumatic stress, war crimes, and government killings. This plays out across multiple acts, comprised of small side-scrolling stages containing violent and thoughtful combat throughout.
Genetic experimentation and drug use are central to both Katana Zero’s story and gameplay. Thanks to a steady supply of a blue serum, you’re able to augment your simple sword slashes with the ability to slow down time. This lets you pull off some incredibly stylish maneuvers and experiment with a malleable dynamic to the otherwise straight-forward combat. Slow-motion rolls can be combined with precise movement to quickly close distances, and your sword is not just for close-quarter slashing–it can be used to perfectly time a bullet deflection back to its sender. When combined with stage-specific items that can be used as long-range projectiles and security systems that can be transformed from a deterrent into an environmental weapon, Katana Zero doesn’t struggle to keep its combat exciting.
It helps that each stage is thoughtfully compact given how dangerously fragile you are. A single hit will send you back to the beginning of a stage, with fast respawns making the transition almost instant. This not only avoids the sting of detrimental progress loss, but also gets you back into the engrossing action quickly. There are a few stages that feel excessively long and end up being frustrating, but they’re thankfully few and far between.
The variety of enemies keeps each encounter from feeling repetitive, gently introducing more dangerous foes that will force you to change up your comforting strategies. Enemies with shields will push you away before swiftly firing at you on the ground, while knife-wielding gangsters can stagger you and delay your attacks for a brief (but deadly) moment. The ways levels combine these different enemies turns each of them into clever combat puzzles, where your twitchy instincts need to be supplemented by thoughtful planning and careful consideration of who to target first.
Katana Zero doesn’t shy away from telling its story through scenes of unsettling torture and vivid violence, yet it successfully contrasts this with delicately quiet character moments and some heartfelt relationships that help ground a protagonist that would otherwise be impossible to empathize with. It works incredibly well thanks to a creative approach to character conversations, which are often just as important as your violent exploits outside of them. Instead of just being given choices for responses, conversations allow you to interrupt characters to alter both the tone and direction of the scene. Characters react intelligently to your manners during an exchange, expressing disgust at your audacity to cut them off or surprise at your unexpected courtesy.
Depending on how you respond, certain small narrative changes can take place too. In one instance I found myself pretending to love anime to convince a hotel receptionist to let me pass, which later helped me avoid the police as she corroborated my alibi. The same conversation played out differently the second time, as my short temper with the same receptionist led her to turn on me when getting questioned about my blood-soaked clothing. Small diversions like this don’t have an impact on the trajectory of the main story, and there are a handful of scenarios where you’ll be forced into a specific response in order to progress. But Katana Zero mostly handles your branching conversational decisions with grace, eloquently incorporating them into small but inconsequential changes to its excellently written dialogue.
Each character moment lands thanks to the sublime pixel artwork. There’s an immense amount of detail packed into each sprite, bringing the colorful yet distressing world around you to life with its sheer variety. Character sprites are the most impressive, featuring delicate animation that lends a lot of emotion to each conversation and story beat. These extend to the thoughtful effects applied to simple dialogue bubbles, which use a combination of flashing colors, moving parts, and aggressive screen shake to allow important interactions to hit hard. Katana Zero doesn’t just use its retro-inspired style to pull on nostalgic strings. It elevates the style entirely with a sense of depth and detail that is difficult not to appreciate.
Katana Zero doesn’t shy away from telling its story through scenes of unsettling torture and vivid violence, yet it successfully contrasts this with delicately quiet character moments and some heartfelt relationships.
The real pity is that despite its slick presentation and enthralling dialogue, Katana Zero’s story just doesn’t wrap up in a satisfying way. It starts introducing its central themes about halfway through and only increases in momentum from there, seemingly building to an enticing climax. But it swerves unexpectedly at the end to reveal that this entry is only the first chapter in a larger tale. After four or so hours you’re left with a number of unhandled narrative threads and an unsatisfying conclusion, which dampens the exciting momentum that was building up. It’s a deflating and abrupt end to the proceedings, with no promise of more to come in the future.
The uncertain future of the story that Katana Zero so brilliantly sets up is concerning, but that shouldn’t deter you from diving into this compelling introductory chapter. Its combat provides an exciting challenge that tests both strategy and reflex, while also giving you clever abilities to make it as stylish as possible. The narrative contextualization of both your abilities and role within Katana Zero’s world is expertly written, with a clever dialogue system letting you inject personality into character interactions. Katana Zero is bloody and brutal, but it’s also a heartfelt tale that you shouldn’t overlook lightly.
Mortal Kombat 11 is releasing on the Nintendo Switch, marking the first MK game on a Nintendo system since the series reboot. The Switch version is a little less beautiful than its contemporaries, but what it lacks in visual fidelity it makes up for with portability. So it’s no surprise that the official Switch trailer emphasizes the on-the-go aspect.
The trailer (above) shows a piece of a cutscene before pulling back and showing gameplay on a smaller Switch window playing footage of the fights. It’s difficult to see due to the smaller screen size but the fights are a little low-fi compared to what you may have gotten accustomed to seeing in other gameplay trailers and Kombat Kasts.
We knew that the Switch version would lose some graphical bells and whistles, though. A recent hands-on preview showed that despite the downgrade, the game ran smoothly to keep the fighting consistent. That means that if you want a portable version, you probably won’t compromise the integrity of the systems for the benefit.
Sega has revealed 10 more games coming to its Mega Drive Mini (known as the Genesis Mini in the US). The lineup of classic titles includes Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Earthworm Jim, and more beloved games.
A further 20 games are to be revealed over the coming months. We already knew Ecco the Dolphin, Sonic the Hedgehog, Castlevania: Bloodlines and more were to be pre-installed on the console, which will come with 40 games in total. You can read all 20 games revealed so far at the bottom of this article.
The Mega Drive Mini / Genesis Mini launches worldwide on September 19, costing $80 / £70 / AU $140. It’s based on the Model 1 version of the original console, except approximately 55% smaller. The box contains the console, a power adapter, two replica three-button USB controllers, one USB to micro-USB power cable, and one HDMI lead.
The game ports that are on the Genesis Mini were handled by M2, a team that is well known for its work on emulation and re-releases. M2 previously worked on Sega Ages and Sega 3D Classics Collection.
Releasing Mini versions of classic consoles has become something of a trend recently. Nintendo led the way with the NES Classic and the SNES Classic, both of which were received well by critics and went on to be hot commercial items. Sony followed suite with the PlayStation Classic, which wasn’t received as warmly.
Sega Mega Drive Mini / Genesis Mini Games Lineup (So Far)
