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Besides access to online multiplayer and exclusive game discounts, another perk Xbox Live Gold members enjoy is free monthly games for Xbox One and Xbox 360–and the latest freebies for May 2019 have just been announced. Gold members, here are the titles you can download and keep for free next month:

Available May 1: Kicking things off is Marooners, a hectic party game with local or online co-op where you and your friends play as quirky Marooners. You’ll be dropped into intense minigames, where you can pull some shenanigans and pester each other as you compete (and even haunt each other after you die). You can grab Marooners on Xbox One. Then there’s Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon, an EDF spin-off where you take down waves of deadly aliens and giant insects invading Earth. The third-person shooter includes over 300 weapons, jetpacks, and tactical armor, and thanks to backwards compatibility, you can play it on both Xbox One and Xbox 360.

Available May 16: Spring is officially here, but if you can’t make it out to the links, pick up The Gold Club 2019 midway through the month. Available on Xbox One, The Golf Club 2019 features the new PGA Tour Career Mode that lets you play on famous real-world courses and participate in PGA Tour events like the John Deere Classic. Finally, there’s Comic Jumper, our second Xbox 360/Xbox One game that follows the adventures of Captain Smiley, a failed comic book character who jumps into other comics to explore why they’re so popular. Gameplay involves defeating enemies and platforming as Captain Smiley makes his way through various genres, his design and weaponry changing throughout to match each comic’s aesthetic.

Xbox Live Games with Gold for May 2019

Xbox Live Games with Gold for April 2019

Last chance to grab The Technomancer and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 from last month’s batch of games! You’ll have another two weeks to download Outcast: Second Contact if you want it.

Not an Xbox Live Gold member? Get a one-month subscription for only $1 »

A new update for Mortal Kombat 11 has arrived, and it’s a big one. The new update, which is available now on PS4 (and is coming to Xbox One, Switch, and PC soon), fixes exploits and issues, makes changes to matchmaking, introduces some AI adjustments, and a lot more. You can see the full patch notes posted at the bottom of this story.

In addition to the update, today marks the release of developer NetherRealm’s response to the Mortal Kombat 11 microtransaction controversy. The studio maintains that it does not want to artificially push people toward spending money on microtransactions.

And in a “thank you” effort and a measure of good faith, the company is releasing a free in-game currency bundle for all Mortal Kombat 11 players. This bundle–which includes 500,000 Koins, 500 Hearts, 1,000 Souls, and 1,000 Time Crystals. The bundle is coming to PS4 with the new update today, and should arrive on other systems soon.

You can see the full patch notes below, as posted by NetherRealm on Reddit.

“There’s a diverse roster of interesting characters and playstyles, and the story mode is an entertaining romp,” Edmond Tran wrote in GameSpot’s Mortal Kombat 11 review-in-progress. “The unfulfilling approaches to the game’s dynamic single-player content and progression may feel like they’ve totally whiffed (at least at this early stage), but Mortal Kombat 11 hits where it matters.”

Mortal Kombat 11 Patch Notes:

• Fixed an exploit that allowed for more than one variation of a character to be set as default, which could then result in an online desync when trying to select that character

• Fixed a rare issue that occurred if the user lost internet connectivity while customizing their character, which would sometimes result in that variation being saved with some items being locked

• Fixed a rare issue that was affecting some user progression after using Kenshi’s blindfold in the Krypt to fully drain their Soul Fragments

• Move list and frame data corrections

• Integrated launch day gameplay server-side data

• Tweaks to online matchmaking

• AI adjustments

• Fixed a rare crash involving trying to use quick moves list in story mode

• Fixed a rare crash in the Totem Pole tower in The Gauntlet

• Fixed a crash related to pausing and unpausing the game

• Corrected some incorrect instruction text in tutorial mode

• Enabled Dev Slayer functionality

• Kitana’s Fans will no longer sometimes remain invisible if she is interrupted out of Edenian Fade with specific timing

• Hotfix server data will no longer sometimes become invalid when the game is booted up online

• Fixed a rare crash involving using a consumable near a chest in The Krypt

• Increased rewards for breakables in The Krypt

• Adjusted rewards from AI Battle mode

• Increased Koin rewards for winning Ranked Matches

Towers of Time Adjustments

• Adjusted AI difficulty curve

• Further opponent health reductions in higher level Towers

• Performing a Fatal Blow while standing in an active modifier will no longer sometimes cause unexpected behavior or a crash

• Ice based modifiers will no longer attempt to freeze players during invalid states

• Adjusted and removed modifiers from many Daily Towers

• Increased Koin Rewards for kompleting Towers and Tower Platforms

• Increased Dragon Challenge Koin rewards

• Increased post fight Koin rewards

• Increased amount of Hearts earned from Fatalities, Brutalities, and Mercies

• Lowered modifier damage for many modifiers

• Adjusted the lifespan of several modifiers

• Dramatically increased cooldowns on Tag Assist modifiers

• Fixed a missing Reduced Damage modifier in The Gauntlet

• Several Gift/Curse Modifiers are now considered projectiles allowing them to interact with moves that effect projectiles as intended

• Adjusted Gauntlet difficulty and progression requirements

• Disabler Konsumables now work with all intended modifiers

• Improved targeting for several Konsumables

• Sektor Hunter Killer Protocol Modifier is now disabled by the Rocket Disabler Konsumable

• Corrected some multipliers on Augments for some characters which were inconsistent with others

• Fixed incorrect Armor interactions with some Modifiers

• Decreased Konsumable cooldowns for players

At the heart of any European town founded before the 19th century lies a church. It’s the same with Anno 1800. At the center of your city sits a magnificent cathedral, its spectacular steeple reaching for the heavens and illuminating the lives of everyone who passes by. It’s a very beautiful church, but it’s hiding something.

At the heart of Anno 1800 lies an intimidating and complex financial simulation. It may seem like you’re overseeing the rise and occasional fall of a European-style city as it comes of industrial age. But really, you’re juggling numbers, thumb wedged in the accounts ledger, finessing production efficiencies and stabilizing trade fluctuations. Anno 1800 is perhaps the prettiest spreadsheet I’ve ever seen.

Each randomly generated map in the core sandbox mode unfurls as a mostly blank canvas, a glistening sea dotted with fertile islands waiting to be claimed by you and your (AI or human) opponents. As you grow and expand your reach across multiple islands and into the New World–and your empire undergoes its Industrial Revolution–you’ll employ more advanced technologies, extracting coal and oil to fuel great belching factories and formidable steam engines. But the basic principle remains constant: Satisfy your population by employing them to manufacture natural resources into commodities that encourage more people to move to your cities.

Everything becomes a production chain for you to configure, massage and optimize. Early on the choices you’re making here are relatively simple; the virgin terrain of your first settlement makes it easy to place the knitter near the farm so the wool is delivered swiftly and the warehouse within range so the finished goods can be collected for immediate sale. But soon the need for a navy means you’ve had to build a sailmaker’s yard which is now diverting wool previously used by the knitter. Building another sheep farm means finding the physical space for an additional farm as well as for all the extra housing for the new farmers. Extend this scenario a few hours into a game and it will encompass dozens of productions chains of increasing complexity and inter-connectivity.

Managing these productions chains–whether it’s work clothes and sails or beer and pocket watches–is an enjoyable exercise in a kind of “balancing the books” sense. You know you have to spend resources to grow, but your success depends on finding that ever-moving sweet spot between overreaching and not pushing far enough. It’s necessary to keep the requisite resources flowing and meet the housing and job demands of your population, but it’s not sufficient. To maintain a firm hand on your economy you have to appreciate the various financial levers available to you, allowing fine adjustments to tax rates and production ratios that can genuinely mean the difference between keeping it in the black and going bankrupt.

Of course, it’s also just as enjoyable to play the more visual puzzle game of city planning, slotting in that new building not only where its specific dimensions fit, but where it also retains proximity to its related structures in the chain. Nobly assisting matters here is the “move” tool that lets you–for no resource cost at all–pick up and move any building to another location. Need to pop a police station downtown but there’s no room? Just move the nearby houses further down the street to open up the space. It really does look utterly beautiful when it all comes together, too, like an exquisitely detailed diorama that you can poke, prod and tweak to your heart’s content. There’s even a first-person mode that lets you walk the streets and observe all your townsfolk going about their day to day business. I especially welcomed the moments I was able to spend admiring the view before some new urgent matter warranted investigation and I had to return to crunching those numbers.

Spinning all the plates becomes even trickier as you advance into the Industrial Age. Production chains that were once straightforward, one-to-one input/output ratios turn into logistical nightmares as multiple buildings start feeding into multiple other buildings. The demands of the job are only exacerbated by a lack of clarity in the feedback you’re given when things aren’t operating at full capacity. Simple things like knowing how many flour mills and grain farms support a bakery just aren’t communicated clearly enough in-game or in the non-existent manual. I spent hours engaged in trial and error in such situations before finding a comprehensive external wiki that I found myself alt-tabbing to constantly while I played.

There is a campaign mode that functions as a tutorial before it segues into the main sandbox. And there is an additional setting that enables a more guided experience, providing you with specific goals at the appropriate moments. I found both very welcome, even as someone who had played some of the previous Anno games. But at the same time, I felt that other important aspects weren’t explained thoroughly enough, if at all, and it was frustrating to guess at solutions to problems I wasn’t confident I’d even diagnosed correctly.

Much of Anno 1800 is spent watching numbers go up and down. Total gold is going down. Now it’s going back up again. There aren’t enough workers for the number of available jobs. Okay, now there are too many workers and not enough engineers. Sometimes it’s clear why these things are happening and sometimes it’s obvious what you can do to rectify the situation. However, other times it isn’t and it’s really quite panic-inducing. My stomach tightened whenever the numbers plummeted into the red, but as soon as they shot back into the black I would feel a surge of relief. Even so, outside of these sharp swings, when the numbers remained relatively stable and my economy seemed to be ticking over steadily, I couldn’t shake this nagging sense that everything was always on the verge of complete collapse.

I spent all of my time playing Anno 1800 in a mild yet pervasive state of anxiety. As a city-building sim that emphasizes economic management, it is as robust and powerful as the steel factories it allows you to pollute the skies with. But for all the natural beauty of its island paradise and the architectural splendor of its churches, theatres, and piers, it’s just a little too cold in its reliance on numbers and a little too impenetrable in its reluctance to show you its workings. I’m glad I visited, but I don’t think I’d want to live there.

George R.R. Martin has often cited J.R.R. Tolkien as an inspiration for his own A Song of Ice and Fire series. So it’s exciting news that Martin has been announced as the moderator for a discussion and Q&A about the new movie, Tolkien.

Martin will moderate and discussion and Q&A with the movie’s stars, including Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, and director Dome Karukoski. The event is taking place on May 8 at the Regency Westwood Village where the film is premiering in Los Angeles.

“Modern fantasy would not exist without J.R.R. Tolkien and Lord of the Rings… and that most definitely includes my own A Song of Ice and Fire,” Martin said in a blog post. “Tolkien’s work redefined fantasy, and all of us who have followed in his footsteps owe him a profound debt.

“But who was the man behind the Shire, the Hobbits, and the One Ring? Tolkien, the new motion picture about JRRT’s early life, aspires to answer that question.”

The discussion and Q&A will be broadcast live on the Tolkien movie’s Facebook page, beginning at 9 PM PST.

Last week, the Tolkien Estate disavowed the movie Tolkien. The Estate said it was not involved in and does not approve of the new film, which stars Hoult as Tolkien and Collins as Edith Bratt. In response, film company Fox Searchlight said it is proud of the movie, adding that it has the “utmost respect and admiration for Mr. Tolkien and his phenomenal contribution to literature.”

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The Nintendo Switch Online paid membership program is doing quite well, it seems. Nintendo has confirmed that 9.8 million people have signed up for the paid program since the service launched back in September. This excludes free trial memberships, but it does include family subscriptions.

Nearly 10 million subscribers paying a monthly fee is likely good news for Nintendo’s bottom line, as it gives the company yet another way to make money on a regular basis. Software and services are historically the money-makers, so Nintendo investors are likely happy with this strong start for Nintendo Switch Online.

Also in the report, Nintendo called out Tetris 99 as a success story for Switch Online. The game is free, but it requires a Switch Online membership, and so far the game has been played by 2.8 million accounts. The title helped improve overall “engagement” on Nintendo Switch, the company said.

“We plan to implement in-game events to encourage consumers to keep enjoying the game,” Nintendo said.

Another pillar of Nintendo Switch Online is the library of NES titles that subscribers get access to. The library grows every month, and Nintendo said this program is being enjoyed by subscribers. Looking ahead, Nintendo said it is looking at ways to make Nintendo Switch Online “more attractive” going forward, but it didn’t say how.

In other news, a cheaper Nintendo Switch model is reportedly on the way, while the core console will supposedly receive a “modest upgrade.” If these consoles are indeed in the works, they won’t be announced at E3, as Nintendo has already ruled that out.

Warning: major Endgame Spoilers to follow!

One of Avengers: Endgame‘s most unlikely heroes is a character who has been around since the beginning: Pepper Potts, who’s last proper run-in with the front lines of a superhero showdown came in Iron Man 3. Things are a lot different this time around, thankfully, and Pepper is no longer infected with a lethal virus burning her up from the inside out–now she’s just got her very own armor, and it’s straight from the comics.

Sort of.

So, just how and why is Pepper armored up now? Let’s really dig into it. And in the meantime, check out our Avengers: Endgame review, Easter Eggs and references list, and our look at Captain America’s major moment and Tony Stark’s story arc.

Where did the armor come from?

Somewhere in the five-year time skip, Tony built Pepper her very own armor as an “anniversary present”–something she apparently rarely uses, according to Tony, but she has it nonetheless. This all happens off screen so we’re left to fill in the gaps for ourselves about why a set of armor would be a great gift–did Pepper request it? Did Tony just build it because that’s what he does? Honestly, who knows. The point is, Pepper has a suit and somewhere in the last five years she apparently learned how to fly it really, really well.

The armor itself is never given a name in the movie, which is a little unusual given how much Tony likes to name things, but it’s a sleek purple get-up that seems to have all the capabilities and features of Tony’s more recent suits, including detachable wing-like guns, blasters, and more repulsor weapons than you could shake a stick at. It doesn’t appear to be nano-tech, however, but we don’t see it long enough or closely enough to really say for certain.

Where does the armor actually come from?

Pepper suiting up is a two-fold pay off. The first part is strictly for fans of the MCU who remember her brush with armoring up back in Iron Man 3 when she was infected with the deadly Extremis treatment which had been designed to help regenerate damaged tissue by the dubiously ethical Advanced Idea Mechanics, or AIM. She never actually–or willingly–suits up in that movie, but much like Steve’s tease with Mjolnir back in Age of Ultron, the wink to a possible future was laid out.

The idea is not unique to the MCU incarnation at all, however. Over in the comics, Pepper actually had a relatively long run as an armored hero named Rescue. Rescue’s story comes from an era in the comics where Tony Stark was declared a fugitive by Norman Osborn and HAMMER, when he refused to give Osborn the list of superhero identities and code names from the Superhero Registration Act. Osborn hunted Tony down by systematically attacking Stark Industries locations, leaving Pepper frantically trying to escape. Luckily, she found the “Mark 1616” armor Tony had made for her in secret and was able to escape Norman’s relentless attack unscathed.

To make sure the Registration Act data never fell into Norman’s hands, Tony began erasing his own mind, leaving Pepper to pick up Iron Man duties in his place–but with a twist. Norman had declared all of Tony’s various tech illegal weapons of mass destruction, making the traditional Iron Man approach completely untenable. To circumvent this problem, Tony built the Mark 1616 without any weapons–a purely defensive suit–that would effectively loophole all of Norman’s legal maneuvering and allow Pepper to operate in public. Hence the name “Rescue.”

Pepper eventually gave up the Rescue identity when Tony got back on his feet, but it remains one of her most defining eras in comics, not to mention one of her coolest.

So is that really Rescue in Endgame?

Not really. Endgame’s version of Pepper’s armor is definitely inspired by Rescue in the design silhouette, and the purple color palette was used in the Iron Man: Armored Adventures cartoon, but that’s about where the similarities end. It does carry with it plenty of implications about the future of Pepper’s character, though–and it’s always nice to see a vague idea realized completely, even if it took six years.

Whether we’ll see Pepper return for future movies is a mystery, but at the very least, we now know that anyone–even someone who isn’t an engineer or a military pilot–can eventually learn to pilot an armor in five years or less. The tech has definitely come a long way in terms of user-friendliness since Tony’s first days of testing in his garage.