AMC Theaters has announced that the company has furloughed its corporate employees, including its CEO Adam Aron. The decision was made after the COVID-19 pandemic forced AMC to close 634 move theater locations across the U.S. and Canda.
“At this time, AMC is not terminating any of its corporate employees, however, we were forced under the circumstances to implement a furlough plan, which is absolutely necessary to preserve cash and to ensure that AMC can reopen our doors once this health crisis has dissipated,” the company said in a statement to Variety.
The theater closures impacted 27,000 U.S. employees. During this time, AMC announced that it would pay those employees “as much as we can possibly afford to pay them,” while also providing those who qualify to continue to have health-care benefits.
AMC maintains that it intends to bring back its employees once the movie theaters re-open. AMC previously tried to keep theaters open at 50% capacity, but ultimately ended up closing theaters.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a massive disruption in the U.S. workforce, resulting in a wave of layoffs for non-essential staff, or new work situations that discourages direct contact and mass gatherings. Retailers like GameStop announced stores would be closed in favor of online orders and curbside pick-ups.
Especially if you’re playing on a harder difficulty, Doom Eternal‘s enemies are quite intimidating. Anything more than the lowliest of demons can often prove too much to stand toe-to-toe with, ensuring you stay on the move at all times. Eventually, a unique challenge appears in the form of the Marauder, who won’t hesitate to kick your ass. It’s great.
Partway into the game, you’re confronted with a showdown against the Marauder. The encounter feels like a one-off boss fight, both because of the preceding cutscene and because the way in which you deal with a Marauder is quite unlike anything else in the game. You can’t blast away or otherwise use standard tactics, as you can read about in our guide to beating the Marauder.
The tutorial window that pops up before this fight unfortunately gives away both the basic strategies (seriously, turn these tutorials off) and the fact that this isn’t likely the only Marauder you’ll face, but it’s a memorable encounter nonetheless. Marauders carry a shield that effectively deflects any damage, and they’ll switch up which attacks they use depending on how close you are; they also periodically summon a wolf companion to flank you and generally keep you from devoting 100% of your attention to the Marauder.
Unlike most other enemies, your only chance to consistently deal damage is to enter what is essentially a boxing match: You have to square up and watch for an opening (in this case, a sound cue and flashing green eyes) where you can land a hit and open them up to additional attacks, rather than firing indiscriminately. Dodging attacks and managing your resources while you wait for an opening is essential, and it feels a bit like a Souls-style fight inside of a first-person shooter. The first time you fight a Marauder feels like an intense sprint as you try to anticipate what’s coming, hold your breath as you evade attacks, and get your jab in when the opportunity presents itself.
As the tutorial spoils, and the pattern of other enemy encounters would suggest, the boss-like enemy fight isn’t the only time you find yourself fighting a Marauder. But unlike that first go around, where your only concern besides the Marauder is his wolf companion and the occasional lowly demon who’s there as more of a health/ammo/armor source than a threat, you’ll later need to deal with Marauders in the context of larger fights.
There are certainly other big threats, including the Arch-Vile who summons reinforcements, but only Marauders force you out of the standard loop of staying mobile and attacking what’s in front of you. Marauders are aggressive, and because of their shields and distance-dictated attack patterns, they completely change the flow of combat. They become a sort of anchor point that you need to stay aware of and monitor your distance from at all times as you strategize ways to either cull the nearby hordes or to find those moments to land a hit. Just as you come to grasp the flow of Doom Eternal, Marauders are thrown into the mix and provide you with a new element that upends your expectations.
Marauders might operate much differently than other enemies, but what I like so much is that they don’t feel out of place. They’re different and tough, yet still feel like they belong in Eternal. Whereas you’re otherwise constantly moving, Marauder fights encourage you to slow down and try to establish a position, but this doesn’t grind the overall flow to a halt because they’re as intense as anything else–just in a different way. They bring a new element that forces you to adjust your strategy and ultimately result in a memorable fight every time. You might find yourself cursing them after a string of failures in a row, but the game wouldn’t be quite so thrilling without them.
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Michael Rooker is the butt — or perhaps more accurately the face — of his friend and Guardians of the Galaxy franchise director James Gunn’s recent cheeky social media post.
Gunn, who is staying at home like nearly everyone else during the coronavirus pandemic, revealed that he’s had to break into his stash of prank toilet paper rolls featuring the face of his frequent cast member and pal Rooker.
“I bought a bunch of these rolls of toilet paper as a joke when Rooker came over for Christmas a couple years ago – I put them in all the bathrooms of the house,” Gunn tweeted. “I never thought we were actually going to have to use them, but here we are.”
Gunn and Rooker have collaborated on a number of films Gunn either produced or directed, including Guardians of the Galaxy Volumes 1 and 2, Super, Slither, Brightburn, and The Belko Experiment.
Gunn and Rooker’s next collaboration is the 2021 DC movie The Suicide Squad. After that film, Gunn will segue to directing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 for Marvel Studios.
If you’re stuck at home and thinking of upgrading your PC hardware, now’s a pretty good time. Newegg is hosting a huge slate of deals, dubbed the Ultimate Gaming Sale. Among the featured products are new Nvidia and AMD graphics cards, SSDs, and pre-built gaming PCs. There are also a number of PC game codes on sale, including Borderlands 3 on Steam for $30.
The Ultimate Gaming Sale runs through the end of March, though some deals are only available for a couple of days. We’ve collected some of the best deals for you, in addition to noting the end times for each one. Be sure to check out Newegg for the full Ultimate Gaming Sale.
Best PC game deals at Newegg
Best PC hardware deals at Newegg
ABS Mage M gaming desktop PC
$1,200 ($1,800)
ABS Mage M gaming PC
This ABS Mage M gaming desktop PC has some great specs at a great price. $1,200 gets you a PC equipped with an RTX 2060 Super, Ryzen 7 3700X, 16GB DDR4 RAM, and 1TB SSD.
Ends March 26 at 12 AM PT / 3 AM ET
Gigabyte RTX 2070 Super graphics card
$480 with promo code EMCDEFH45
Gigabyte RTX 2070 Super
The RTX 2070 Super is the latest RTX 2070 card, and right now, you can grab it for $480 by using promo code EMCDEFH45 to get $20 off. It’s a fantastic graphics card that’ll make nearly all modern PC games look great and perform well at high settings.
Ends March 26 at 12 AM PT / 3 AM ET
MSI RTX 2060 Super graphics card
$378 with promo code EMCDEFH38
MSI RTX 2060 Super
If you’re looking for a great graphics card for a little cheaper, then the RTX 2060 Super is more than enough to make the majority of modern PC games shine at high settings. The 2060 Super is comparable to the original 2070, and right now, you can grab it for $378 with promo code EMCDEFH38.
Ends March 26 at 12 AM PT / 3 AM ET
ASRock Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card
$420 ($480)
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
AMD’s Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card is comparable to Nvidia’s RTX 2070 Super, and if you’re looking for a great GPU at a great price–with some awesome bonuses–then this RX 5700 XT deal is a good one. It comes with digital copies of Resident Evil 3, which releases April 3, and Monster Hunter World as well as three months of Game Pass for PC. That’s a lot of great games to take this particular AMD GPU for a proper spin.
Ends March 31
WD Blue 3D NAND 2TB internal SSD
$215 ($300)
WD Blue 3D NAND 2TB SSD
If you’re looking for fast storage (and a lot of it), then this deal on a 2TB WD Blue 3D SSD is worth checking out. SSDs help games shorten their loading times, in addition to eliminating stuttering in open-world games. 2TB is enough to store your OS and quite a few games, too.
Ends March 26 at 12 AM PT / 3 AM ET
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Letterkenny is the greatest television program about small-town life ever created. Set in the fictional town of Letterkenny, Ontario, Canada, its characters and settings are instantly recognizable to anyone who lived, or still lives, in a tiny town off the beaten path. Yet its themes and conflicts are familiar to anyone, regardless of where you live or where you grew up.
Unlike the patronizing depictions of rural life Hollywood writers seem to favor, Letterkenny is a love letter to small-town life. No one on the show is ashamed of where they’re from, nor is anyone written as condescending caricature (although all the characters do fit into various small-town tropes). For me, the realistic, respectful portrayal of what it’s like to live in a small town is an incredible breath of fresh air, but the fact that the show is unbelievably hilarious and smartly written is the icing on the cake.
Letterkenny primarily focuses on Wayne, his sister Katy, and their two friends Daryl (Darry) and Squirrely Dan. They spend a lot of their time in front of the produce stand in Wayne and Katy’s front yard, drinking beers, smoking darts (Canadian slang for cigarettes), and conversating. The dialogue is rapid-fire during these scenes, and the camera is always moving. It’s almost hypnotic, the way these four friends talk to one another, with jokes piling on top of one another until the rhythm is broken by one of Letterkenny’s secondary characters pulling into the “laneway” (slang for driveway) for one reason or another.
The cast of characters is incredible and I honestly can’t think of a single character I dislike. Better still, they seem like one-dimensional stereotypes when first introduced, but as the show carries on, even tertiary characters’ back-stories and motivations unfold. Even without the rural Canadian accents and idioms, Letterkenny could be about almost any small town in North America. Replace the Ag Hall (the Letterkenny Agricultural Hall) with a community center, or a Fisherman’s Co-Op, or just about any other central meeting place and the show would work anywhere. Since I started watching Letterkenny, I’ve found its many catchphrases making their way into my own vocabulary. I’m constantly telling people to “figure it out,” or expressing my understanding of something by saying it’s a Texas-sized 10-4.
As much as I love its Anytown, North America, feel, I particularly enjoy its unabashed Canadianess. In Maine, I grew up close enough to the US/Canadian border to get Canadian broadcast stations on my TV and to tune in French-Canadian radio stations. But even with my exposure to Canada growing up, there’s a mix of familiarity and surprise at the ins and outs of rural Canadian life portrayed in Letterkenny. It’s like watching my own small-town experiences through a maple-syrup tinted lens.
Ultimately, it’s the razor-sharp writing, the machine-gun dialogue delivery, and a cast of characters without a single “bad guy” in the bunch that makes Letterkenny a must-binge right now. Its idiosyncratic Canadianess adds a massive layer of charm to an already excellent show, and it’s the setting that makes this amazing show into something legendary. Seven seasons of Letterkenny are available to stream on Hulu, so clear your scheddy, grab a Puppers, and pitter-patter.
Binge It! is IGN’s recommendation series. Movies, TV shows, books, comics, music… if you can binge it, we’re here to talk about it. In each installment of Binge It!, we’ll discuss a piece of content we’re passionate about — and why you should check it out.
In celebration of Half-Life: Alyx‘s launch, developers Evil Empire and Motion Twin dropped a new Dead Cells PC update that includes some direct references to Valve’s first-person shooter. We’ve compiled the patch notes below.
The update, which is the 18th in Dead Cells’ life cycle, adds a ton of new content. Alongside Half-Life items such as Freeman’s crowbar and a series-inspired skin, the game gets extra goodies like a portable door to give you back protection, six brand-new enemies, more affixes on many of the game’s skills, and more.
Unfortunately, Dead Cells’ latest update is only available on Steam. The studios warn that, since the patch is in alpha for the moment, it may be broken, and it’s best to create save backups while preparing to install it. You can find instructions on how to download the new Dead Cells alpha update below:
Go to your Steam game library.
Right-click on Dead Cells and click “Properties.”
Select the tab “Betas.”
In the first dropdown box select “Alpha – Not for the faint-hearted.”
Click “Close” and wait for the upload to finish downloading.
Start playing.
In addition to the assortment of content, the new Dead Cells patch also makes some quality of life adjustments to stabilize the experience. These include changes to the health and damage of Cavern enemies, interconnecting rooms in The Bad Seed DLC to make traversal less cumbersome, bug fixes, and more.
Full Dead Cells 18th Alpha Update Patch Notes
Important Features
New affixes:
We added 11 new affixes on active skills, aimed primarily at growing the pool of affixes available for some items that didn’t have enough.
8 new normal affixes:
Ice, fire, bleed or poison on nearby floors or enemies when the effect of the used active ends.
A grenade, a volley of arrows, or fire spreads when a deployable trap is destroyed.
Get all your arrows back when using a skill.
3 new starred affixes:
Oil and fire spread around when a deployable trap is destroyed.
Push enemies around you when the effect of the used active ends.
Extended duration for powers like Wings of the Crow or Smokebomb.
6 New Mobs:
Six brand new enemies. 3 are biome specific, 3 are dispatched through various levels at differents Boss Cells. At the time being, and until the live release, we prefer letting you unveil their exact locations and types.
2 New items:
Crowbar (part of the 17.3 ‘Half-Life’ pack patch). Fast brutality weapons that crits after breaking a door or a breakable prop.
Portable Door: Allow you to bring a door with you, covering your back while you take care of the mobs in front of you and allowing for an elegant stun effect when you decide to turn around.
Half-life diet:
Completing the Freeman’ role play pack with medpacks for true immersion.
The Bad Seed New lore rooms and secrets for the Arboretum and the Morass.
The Bad Seed Balanced bestiary:
We took the opportunity of adding new mobs to re-balance the bestiary of the levels in questions. While there isn’t any new mobs in the ‘Bad Seed’ levels, we’ve tweaked the numbers to make these biomes fairer.
Balancing
The Bad Seed Blueprint drop chances of the new items lowered.
Cavern mobs’ health and damage lowered in all difficulties to make up for the hellish bestiary down there,
The Bad Seed Mushroom Boi now break your invisibility on attack.
The Bad Seed Improved Tick Scythes hitboxes to better hit downward.
The Bad Seed Ticks now bump slightly on attacks.
The Bad Seed Ticks now drop five cells and some gold upon death.
The Bad Seed Improved Jerkshroom throwing curve to prevent direct hits from below.
The Bad Seed Thrown Jerkshrooms no longer hurt you when colliding in the air.
Knives Thowers now always dodge or dash once before starting to attack you.
Added a protection to the player when jumping down from one-way platforms to avoid taking hits when a mob on the platform is attacking.
Frozen enemies are now interrupted in their attacks.
Community suggestion Removed Death Orb damage cap.
Community suggestion Marksman Bow can now have damage bonus affixes.
Community suggestion Ice Armor now gives damage reduction instead of bonus damages on higher levels.
Community suggestion: Ice Armor and Ice Shield can no longer have affixes [that] break the ice immediately.
Enemy grenades repelled by Ice Shield freeze enemies on explosion.
Shield Bearers can now damage deployables.
Level Design
The Bad Seed Slightly improved the Prison exit to Arboretum.
The Bad Seed The Nest is now a right to left level to stay coherent with the Morass.
The Bad Seed Neighbourgh rooms in Arboretum are now inter-connected.
Graphics & UI
The Bad Seed Added FX for Carnivorous Plant bite.
The Bad Seed Added a (very small) cinematic when entering Mama Tickarena.
Quality of Life
The Bad Seed Community suggestion Improved Carnivorous Plantinteractions. Notably with stomps and Telluric Shock.
The Bad Seed Added a warning before Carnivorous Plant bite.
The Bad Seed Added a better feedback for Rythm’n Bouzouki timing.
The Bad Seed Changed Rythm’n Bouzouki description to clarify that you can chain the last hit indefinitly given the correct timing.
Community suggestion Elite Shrines are now colored diferently on the map.
Community suggestion Added a clear explanation of what went wrong when the loading of a mod failed.
Community suggestion Clarified what went wrong in the error report when trying to create a mod which may impact the DLC security.
You can no longer grab ledges directly leading to spikes.
Enigma doors (Courtyard’s tower of roses, etc.) are now always open when the enigma has been solved once.
Secret blueprints are no longer replaced by gems when they have been found once. The gold amount for the whole level stays unchanged.
Bug Fixes
The Bad Seed Fixed Carnivorous Plants closing while a cinematic is ongoing.
The Bad Seed Fixed Yeeters hitbox.
The Bad Seed Fixed some bugs with Mushroom Boi running in place.
The Bad Seed Fixed Rythm’n Bouzouki timing detection for the third hit.
The Bad Seed Fix rare camera problems and minimap display in the Morass.
(Twitch) Fixed Dual-scrolls transforming into Triple Scrolls when nobody voted.
Fixed Magic Missiles and Pyrotechnics always shooting twice even when tapping the button.
Fixed a certain secret boss hitbox on thrust attack.
Fixed some projectiles not colliding correctly with doors.
As retailers respond to increased demand for online goods due to the coronavirus, many items are starting to sell out on Amazon, Walmart, and other retail websites. While certainly not as crucial as hand sanitizer, tissues, toilet paper, and other household goods running low on Amazon, the Nintendo Switch is also seeing a major shortage right now, with stock for the main console sold out nearly everywhere online. The $300 console is seeing increased demand as more people find themselves stuck indoors. Nintendo’s massively popular first-party game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, also just released on March 20.
While the main system is sold out basically everywhere, you’ll have an easier time finding the Nintendo Switch Lite, which is smaller, handheld-only, and more affordable. Amazon is nearly out of stock for both systems, but other stores like Best Buy and Target still have the Switch Lite selling for $200. If you’re primarily interested in using the Switch as a handheld device rather than playing it on the TV, the Switch Lite is an excellent option that’ll cost you less money, and it may be a great option for younger gamers who are stuck inside right now.
According to Nintendo, more Switch consoles will be restocked soon. “Nintendo Switch hardware is selling out at various retail locations in the US, but more systems are on the way. We apologize for any inconvenience,” Nintendo told GameSpot in an email statement.
Unfortunately, the increased demand and low availability means some sellers have jacked up Switch prices on Amazon and sites like Ebay, going for well over $400. To help you out, we’ve rounded up everywhere the Switch is still in stock for its regular sell price–right now, that’s just the Switch Lite.
Nintendo Switch | $300
The Nintendo Switch got an upgraded model last year that notably extended the console’s battery life, lasting 4.5 to 9 hours (the older model lasted 2.5 to 6.5 hours). To ensure you’re getting the newer model, look for the red box and confirm the model number is HAC-001(-01). The Switch can be played handheld, docked through the TV, or propped up on any surface using detached Joy-Cons.
It’s rare to find the Nintendo Switch in stock right now, but we’ve seen it come back into stock a few times over the past week. Best Buy lets you check availability at your local store, and if you can find it in stock, the store is doing curbside pickup so you don’t even have to go inside. When we spot the Nintendo Switch back in stock at any stores, we’ll include that info here.
Gray Joy-Cons:
Red / Blue Joy-Cons:
Nintendo Switch Lite | $200
The Nintendo Switch Lite is the smaller, handheld-only version of the Switch that’s also much cheaper, selling for $200 instead of $300. It’s now available in four different colors (shown above): Gray, Turquoise, Yellow, and the brand-new shade, Coral. The Coral Switch Lite releases April 3, and you can pre-order it now. The Switch Lite can’t be docked and played on a TV.
Coral
Turquoise
Gray
Yellow
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Ninja Theory’s new melee-focused action game, Bleeding Edge, is now out on Xbox One and PC. If you’re an Xbox Game Pass subscriber, the game comes included in the service on both platforms.
At first glance, Bleeding Edge looks like it may resemble plenty of the character-based multiplayer games that have released in recent years (like Rainbow Six Siege and Apex Legends). However, the game has a lot of similarities to multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games too, so there is a bit of a steep learning curve at the start.
Once you overcome that hump, though, Bleeding Edge can be a great game to play with your friends if y’all have nothing to do and are stuck inside all day. In the following article, we go over some tips to help improve your chances at succeeding in Bleeding Edge.
Use The Environment
There are quite a few environmental hazards that can damage or outright kill you. If you know what to be careful of, though, you can use the environment as a weapon to finish off your enemies.
What you want to look out for are pits (as well as the edges of the map), missile barrages, and trains. The missiles will only damage you, but falling off the map or getting hit by a train is a great way to die instantly. Every tank and most of the damage fighters can push enemies with one of their attacks, so feel free to shove someone to their doom if it feels like the actual brawl isn’t working in your favor.
If you want to be an absolute prick genius of a trapper, some fighters possess abilities that almost seem made for killing enemies through the environment. Kulev can use Bamboozle to take control of an enemy and walk them straight off a cliff, for example, while a combination of Buttercup’s Yank and Miko’s Stasis is a sadistic method of pulling someone into the path of an oncoming train and making sure they’ll be stuck there long enough to get run over.
Don’t Focus On One Class
Bleeding Edge currently has 11 characters, all of which are divided into one of three different classes: damage, support, and tank. Damage fighters have quick abilities that typically focus on one target, support fighters buff and heal allies, and tank fighters can take a beating and have more area-of-effect attacks. You aren’t expected to know how to play all 11, but you should know how to play at least one character from each class.
A standard team size is four players, and you ideally want at least one of each class to achieve a good balance. It seems like one damage, two support, and one tank is ideal, though I’ve seen teams succeed with two damage, one support, and one tank as well. Because a well-balanced team is key to success, you need to be prepared to play as any class. For example, if you see two of your teammates have picked support and one has picked a tank, then you should really go with a damage fighter–otherwise, your squad isn’t likely to be able to pull off strong enough combos to fight the other team.
So if your primary pick is a tank, make sure your secondary and tertiary options are a support and damage character. You never know when you’ll have to step up and be the one to balance your team.
Take The Time To Learn Abilities
Similar to games like Siege and Apex Legends, identifying your opponent is key to success. If you know who your enemy is, you know what they can do and thus how to counter them. This, of course, only works if you know what every character can do.
Before jumping into a match, complete Bleeding Edge’s three basic tutorials and one advanced tutorial. The tutorials actually put you in control of several different characters during combat scenarios, offering an excellent opportunity to see how a few of the fighters operate without the threat of other players. Unfortunately, the tutorials focus on damage and support fighters–so swing on by the Dojo to see how the tank characters work.
Know the range of every fighter’s abilities–it makes a difference to be just far enough out of range that you’re only tanking a portion of an enemy team’s combo attack.
Be sure to check how far a ranged character can hit a target, the area-of-effect radius of certain abilities, and the strength of certain character’s passive skills. These will all help you better understand a fighter’s strengths and weaknesses.
For example, though Daemon’s Stealth/Sleep ability allows him to get the drop on opponents, it ends the moment he attacks or gets attacked and has a nearly 20 second cooldown. If you’re a character with an ability that has a good range or shotgun-like spread and you see a low-health Daemon in front of you try to Stealth/Sleep escape, just fire off an attack. Chances are you’ll hit him and break his invisibility, giving you the chance to finish him off. Every character has a weakness to exploit–and playing around with them in the Dojo is an easy way to figure out what they are.
Stay Away From The Advanced Fighters (At First)
Not every character in Bleeding Edge is created equal. Some offer much more powerful strategies at the cost of possessing more intricate abilities that are more difficult to understand. You may want to avoid picking the advanced fighters at first if you’re just starting out. It will possibly be a detriment to learning the rest of Bleeding Edge’s mechanics if you’re also struggling to remember how your character is supposed to work.
Of the starting 11 characters, three are more difficult to learn than the others: Maeve (damage), Cass (damage), and Kulev (support). Maeve is tricky because you need to rely on her passive–all ability cooldowns reset when you kill an enemy–to take advantage of her skills that allow her to control the flow of a fight but have some pretty long cooldowns. Cass has powerful close-range attacks but the lowest health of any fighter, making her a risky hit-and-run tactician. Kulev has perhaps the most fun Super ability of any support character, Bamboozle, but unlike the other two, he does not possess many ways to defend himself if he ever gets into trouble and has to hold off enemies until help arrives.
Maeve is one of the best damage fighters in Bleeding Edge–but her abilities don’t make her the most approachable option for newcomers.
Coming to the game at a later date, Mekko is Bleeding Edge’s twelfth character and the first advanced tank. Their abilities rely on a complex pattern of systems that are difficult to pick up–though their mech is cool, the Japanese-speaking dolphin is definitely not a great option for those just starting out.
Wear Headphones (Yes, Really)
This may seem like a weird tip, but there is a benefit to wearing headphones while playing Bleeding Edge. The game uses sound to help you determine the importance of certain actions and identify threats within the chaos of a hectic brawl. An enemy that’s no longer attacking you will be more quiet than an enemy that is, for instance, and you’ll be able to rely on the volume of a healing ability to determine whether it’s affecting you or a teammate. It’s all much easier to discern with headphones.
Additionally, two fighters–Daemon and Miko–can stealth. Miko can actually make her entire team go invisible. You can still hear the footsteps of a stealthed target though. Throw on a pair of headphones to hear the little pitter-patter of enemy footsteps. Every fighter has a unique footstep sound as well, so you can identify who’s near you just by listening to the noise of your allies and enemies’ footsteps.
If your headphones happen to have a mic too–even better. Communication is pretty crucial in Bleeding Edge and the in-game ping system isn’t nuanced enough to convey the level of strategy you probably want in a fight. That said…
Ping When The Odds Aren’t In Your Favor
The ping system in Bleeding Edge isn’t all that good prior to or in the midst of a fight–it’s missing messages you’d probably want, like “defending this spot” or “enemy here, but wait to attack.” It does, however, have some excellent messages that will help when a fight isn’t going your way.
If you must, you can ping “help” at your team when you’re about to die. However, the far more helpful ping is “retreat.” If you realize your team’s resident healer or tank is about to die, you have to know it’s time to sound the alarm and pull back. Committing to and winning a fight is always the best option, but regrouping and then beating an enemy team is far better than getting annihilated.
Remember, though both of Bleeding Edge’s game modes are objective-based, teams can score points through kills too. If the match is almost over and your team needs five points to win, while the other team needs three and you see your healer go down, you should sound the retreat and regroup with your support fighter at your spawn. Teams are at an immense disadvantage once their healer falls (which is why having two is ideal), so keep track of them and let your squad know if it’s time to disengage.
Take The High Ground
Channel your inner Obi-Wan and seek the high ground whenever possible. This gives you more options for both attack and escape than being on the ground floor. In terms of fighting, you can shoot down with ranged attacks, leap off a ledge and ground slam, and fight any other enemies on the platform with you. When you need to get away, you can fall off platforms from pretty much anywhere and start running, but there are only certain points where jump pads give you the option of ascending. In a game where you can possibly lose yourself to the flurry of a brawl, taking the high ground can help you enter (or exit) the fray on your own terms.
Rely On Movement-Based Skills
Of course, certain characters can more easily take the high ground or escape fights than others thanks to their passive abilities. Take advantage of how your character can move to give you an edge in a fight, especially if it allows you to attack a foe from an angle where they can’t retaliate.
Cass has the lowest health pool of any fighter, but can naturally run and jump higher than anyone else.
Daemon can use his stamina to wall jump, for example, allowing him to easily escape spots where an enemy has him cornered and then attack from above. Cass will naturally start running faster while moving, so you don’t have to pause and summon a hoverboard to more quickly get around the map like the other fighters have to do. She can also charge her jump, allowing her to reach platforms without the use of a jump pad.
Certain characters can utilize their active abilities to move around too. El Bastardo can use Leap of Faith, for instance, to both leap forwards or upwards. He’ll naturally leap forwards, but if you jump before activating the ability, he’ll go up instead of out.
Pay Attention To Where Objectives Will Open
While playing Objective Control, pay attention to your minimap. In the seconds leading up to the objective points opening up again, the ones scheduled to open will start flashing. Remember, just because there are three possible objective points doesn’t mean all three will open up. Use the knowledge of where the next objective points will appear to plan out which to go to first and how you can set up ambushes for the other team. If you understand the lanes of the map, you’ll likely predict how another team will move on a certain point.
Of course, be wary as you move to the next objective point. The other team has this info, too, and will likely use it to figure out their own strategies. Be prepared for a fight if you see that only one of the three points is opening at the start of a round because that likely means everyone is converging on that one spot at the same time.
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If you haven’t yet heard, Animal Crossing and Doom fans are the best of friends these days. A slick fan video put together by TheDashingDoctorK shows the mild-mannered dog-friend from Animal Crossing and Super Smash Bros. teaming up with the Doom Slayer to kill imps in a bombed-out hellscape.
If you haven’t kept up with the memes, this all started because Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing: New Horizons happened to share a release date. This triggered a flood of imaginative fanart based around the unlikely pair.
Both New Horizons and Doom Eternal received rave reviews from our critics. “There’s only so much you can do every day in Animal Crossing,” our critic Kallie Plagge wrote of New Horizons. “Part of the fun of its real-time clock is going to bed wondering what you might wake up to in the morning–how your town might change, who might move in, what special visitor might be there tomorrow. So far, I’ve played Animal Crossing: New Horizons for 80 hours over 17 days, and that anticipation hasn’t yet gone away. While I’ve spent a lot of time developing my island so far, I still feel as if there’s plenty left for me to do and see–there’s a lot in New Horizons to occupy your time with.”
Doom Eternal got its share of praise, too. “Though it can take a bit to get the hang of it, the intricacies of Doom Eternal’s combat, combined with its enhanced mobility and option-heavy level design, create a ton of white-knuckle moments that elevate everything that made Doom 2016 work so well,” wrote our critic Phil Hornshaw. “Its combat is just as quick and chaotic, but requires you to constantly analyze everything that’s happening in order to come out victorious. Once you get the hang of the rhythm of Doom Eternal, it’ll make you feel like a demon-slaying savant.”
The new Takedown Shakedown limited-time event in Borderlands 3 has been extended on PC, PlayStation 4, Stadia, and Xbox One. The event will now end on Thursday, April 2 instead of the originally planned March 27.
CORRECTION: We’re extending this mini-event to Thursday, April 2 so that everyone who hits the new level cap increase can take advantage of this Takedown loot bounty! https://t.co/trfDdWmPKX
Takedown Shakedown sees the bosses in the Maliwan Blacksite, the location from 2019’s Takedown at the Maliwan Blacksite event, dropping more loot than usual. Gearbox said this special event is to provide some solace for those “stuck at home and looking for something fun to do in the here and now” while practicing social distancing. (We’ve compiled some of the best games to play while stuck at home during these times.) The studio also said it will be “rolling out a series of similar mini-events in the coming weeks.”
According to Gearbox, Takedown Shakedown is specifically targeted at endgame users as only those who have finished Borderlands 3’s main story campaign can access the endgame challenge. While Takedown’s difficulty will scale depending on the size of your party, Gearbox said the event is really intended for “max-level characters with powerful gear.”
In other Borderlands 3 news, Gearbox recently pushed a small hotfix update to all platforms that addressed “concerns reported by the community.” One particular change was an adjustment to Tyreen glitching in-game.
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