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Fortnite’s Season 9 has begun, bringing new skins, a new battle pass, a new v9.0 update, and more. All the new content means there’s plenty for dataminers to delve into–and they’ve been at it already. It seems there’s a John Wick event coming to Epic’s battle royale game.

According to Twitter user and Fortnite dataminer FortTory, a set of John Wick challenges are on the way to Fortnite very soon. It appears they’ll task players with collecting coins, dealing damage with the new combat shotgun, and winning a match of a seemingly new mode named Wick’s Bounty. The challenges also make reference to a new gun named the tactical assault rifle.

Another Fortnite leaker, Lucas7yoshi, has uncovered a new John Wick cosmetic set that seems to have the codename “assassin suit.” Fortnite received a series of John Wick-style cosmetics named the hired gun set all the way back in Season 3, over a year ago. With John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum coming to theaters on May 17, now would be a perfect time for an official crossover event to occur.

Avengers: Endgame–and Infinity War before it–received similar treatment just recently, with a new Fortnite event based on the Avengers franchise and an entire set of Avengers challenges. John Wick fans have plenty more to look forward to, meanwhile: Thomas Was Alone and Volume developer Mike Bithell is working on John Wick Hex, a new action-strategy game based on the films.

Nintendo has announced its plans for E3, once again including a pair of tournaments and a special Nintendo Direct presentation in lieu of a formal press conference. The Nintendo Direct will detail its plans for Nintendo Switch throughout 2019.

The Direct presentation will kick off on June 11 at 9 AM PT–the morning the E3 show floor opens, as usual. After that, Nintendo will follow up with its three days of Treehouse streams, which often include developer chats revolving around the games revealed during the presentation.

Before any of that happens, though, Nintendo is planning two game tournaments for the weekend prior to E3. First on June 8 at 11 AM PT, the company will host the Splatoon 2 World Championships. Then, once that wraps up around 2 PM PT, the company will host a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate World Championship tournament, composed of 3v3 teams.

The announcement didn’t detail what is on Nintendo’s slate for this year’s presentation, but given that it focuses on 2019 it’s likely that both Pokemon Sword and Shield and Animal Crossing Switch will be on tap. Super Mario Maker 2 and Fire Emblem: Three Houses could also be shown, but those are both summer releases that will be just weeks from release during E3.

One game that’s unlikely to make an appearance is Metroid Prime 4, which reportedly restarted development under Retro Studios earlier this year.

Nintendo hasn’t removed itself from E3 entirely like Sony, but it was among the first major platform holders to eschew a press conference in favor of a streaming presentation. Sony appears to be announcing its lineup of titles through a series of State of Play streams, one of which is scheduled for today, May 9. Microsoft, meanwhile, promises to “go big” at E3 and says we’ll start to see some projects from its newly acquired studios.

All Fortnite Season 9’s Battle Pass Rewards

A new season of Fortnite is exciting for many reasons, but perhaps the biggest among them for many fans is the opportunity to get new skins and styles. Making your character look cool as you take out enemies in the hopes of achieving that Victory Royale, or completing challenges to earn Battle Stars, is a big part of the Fortnite experience, and now that we’re in Season 9, there’s a lot of new looks to get excited about.

Yes, Season 9 has plenty of skins and styles that you’re going to have to work hard to get. If you’re not familiar with the process, here’s a quick overview: Every player is given a Battle Pass when they start playing Fortnite and, as part of that, there are tiers and cosmetic unlocks tied to those tiers. By completing challenges you unlock Battle Stars, which level up the pass and push it through the tiers, unlocking the skins and other goodies as you go along.

However, there’s also a premium Battle Pass that can only be acquired by spending 950 V-Bucks on it. This premium pass not only has exclusive cosmetic unlocks, but also exclusive weekly challenges, which means those that have one can unlock more and unlock it faster. You can learn more about the Fortnite Season 9 Battle Pass here. If you decide to purchase one, you’ll get the Sentinel and Rox skins immediately, and they’re pretty cool. Rox, in particular, is a really nice outfit as it evolves over time. However, for the remaining skins, you’ll have to put in the work and earn them. You can take a look at all the new skins, and also the styles that alter them slightly, in the gallery below.

Fortnite Season 9 takes players to the future, specifically in Tilted Towers and Retail Row, which were destroyed during the climax of Season 8 and then remade for Season 9 as Neo Tilted and Mega Mall. You can get a closer look at Fortnite’s new locations here.

But that’s not all that’s new in the season, as developer Epic Games has also introduced an interesting new transportation system: Slipstreams. You can read about that, as well as all the other various changes, tweaks, and new additions included in the update by reading the Fortnite Season 9 patch notes.

Sony Pictures has released a new clip from the upcoming superhero horror movie Brightburn, and it is very disturbing. Seriously.

If you’re just catching up, Brightburn tells the story of a young man, Brandon, who has superpowers–but he does not use them to help people. Quite the opposite. In this new Red-Band trailer, a woman is closing up a diner when Brandon terrorizes her. Be warned, there is good reason that this is a Red-Band trailer. Watch at your own risk.

Elizabeth Banks and David Denman play a couple who adopt a child who crash-lands on earth. The boy, who is played by Jackson A. Dunn, is not a good boy. “Maybe adopting an alien baby you find in the woods isn’t the best idea,” advises director David Yarovesky.

Brightburn opens May 23 in Australia and then a day later on May 24 in the United States over the Memorial Day weekend. The movie is produced by Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn; his brothers Brian and Mark Gunn wrote the script.

Here is the full plot description for Brightburn: “After a difficult struggle with fertility, Tori’s dreams of motherhood come true with the arrival of a mysterious baby boy. Brandon appears to be everything Tori and her husband Kyle ever wanted-bright, talented, curious about the world. But as Brandon nears puberty, a powerful darkness seems to manifest within him, and Tori becomes consumed by terrible doubts about her son. Once Brandon begins to act on his twisted urges, those closest to him find themselves in grave danger, as the miracle child transforms into a vicious predator unleashed on an unsuspecting Kansas town.”

Electronic Arts has shared sales projections for a number of its upcoming projects such as Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, as well as the new Need for Speed and Plants vs. Zombies titles.

In an earnings call, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said it expects Jedi Fallen Order to sell between 6 million and 8 million units; the new Need for Speed title to sell around 4 million copies; and the new Plants vs. Zombies title to shift in the low single-digit millions. These figures are presumably covering the current fiscal year and not necessarily over their respective lifetimes.

Little is known about the new Need for Speed and Plants vs. Zombies titles, but they are expected to be released in 2019 between October and December. Both titles are presumed to launch on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. The Plants vs. Zombies title is confirmed to be a shooter, so it could be the rumored Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 3. EA’s Need for Speed studio is Ghost Games, but the studio hasn’t announced its next title yet.

Jedi Fallen Order is in development at Apex Legends and Titanfall studio Respawn Entertainment. The first story trailer was released during this year’s Star Wars Celebration. One of the six writers for Jedi: Fallen Order, Chris Avellone, said that story is “very important” to developer Respawn. “I think they do a good job of introducing various narrative layers into their games already, but they think the story is an important part of what they perceive to be a Star Wars game,” Avellone explained. “That’s one of the reasons I like Respawn, because when they tackle something like that, they understand what the important points are.”

Scheduled to release November 15 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order takes place in the aftermath of Revenge of the Sith.

Mark it on your calendar, Fortnite Season 9 began on May 9, and brought with it a whole bunch of new things for players to obsess about–10 weeks from now, you’ll be getting all nostalgic about this moment, probably. Fortnite developer Epic Games has detailed the major patch that is ushering in all the exciting changes to game and, as with previous seasons, there are significant changes to the map, fresh gameplay opportunities, and much more. Obviously, there’s a new Battle Pass too, and below you’ll find a breakdown of all the key details, including pricing information, what you’ll get as part of it, and how to make the most of the Battle Pass.

What Is The Fortnite Battle Pass?

The Battle Pass is effectively what allows players unlock new items that can be used to customize their character. These include skins, emotes, wraps, gliders, and back bling–basically, it’s all the rad stuff you see players wearing and think, “Dang, that’s cool, I want that.” These items are earned by playing Fortnite–taking out enemy players, scoring Victory Royales, completing the weekly challenges, and generally having a good time in Fortnite. While doing this, you’ll accrue Battle Stars, which in turn level up the Battle Pass and unlock cosmetic items attached to the levels.

As with previous Battle Passes, there are over 100 levels to upgrade through. For Season 9, when you buy the Battle Pass, you’ll automatically get two skins: Sentinel and Rox, which you can see images of below. Rox is a progressive skins, which means it can be leveled up to evolve into new styles styles.

How Do Battle Pass Challenges Work?

Thankfully, you’re not required to have a Battle Pass to enjoy playing Fortnite. This is because, by default, everyone is able to unlock a limited number of cosmetics. This is because everyone starts off with what is a free, baseline level of the Battle Pass. With this version, however, it takes considerably longer to level up the Battle Pass and unlock cosmetics, and many of the coolest items are exclusive to paid Battle Pass owners. Weekly challenges are the quickest way to level up a Battle Pass, and while free players will have some challenges to do, there’s a portion of the weekly challenges that are exclusive to those that have spent V-Bucks on a Battle Pass. More challenges to do means more Battle Stars can be earned, which in turn results in the Battle Pass leveling up quicker.

How Much Does A Battle Pass Cost?

The Battle Pass costs 950 V-Bucks from the in-game store. V-Bucks is a Fortnite-specific currency that you can purchase with real money. 1,000 V-Bucks go for about $10 in the US. Alternatively, you can purchase the Battle Bundle, which is 40% off and gives you the Battle Pass with 25 tiers unlocked, as well as the Bunker Jonesy skin. This bundle is priced at 2,800 V-Bucks.

Season 9 Battle Bundle Contents

Battle Bundle is available now through August 1 and instantly grants players with items “valued at over 10,000 V-Bucks. These include:

• Rox Progressive Outfit
• Sentinel Outfit
• Bunker Jonesy Outfit
• Sentinel Wrap
• Ripe Rippers Harvesting Tool
• Turbo Spin Glider
• Ripe Wrap
• 300 B-Bucks
• 1 Music Track
• 70% Bonus Season Match XP
• 20% Bonus Season Friend Match XP

What Are The Rewards?

When you purchase a Battle Pass, you’ll immediately receive a few skins including the Sentinel and Rox. However, beyond that there are futuristic wraps, which chance the visual style of whatever they’re applied to, mechanized pets, emotes, back bling, sprays, and more. The ultimate goal, however, is a progressive outfit that unlocks at tier 100. This skin is called “Vendetta” and you can see an image of it above.

What’s New In Season 9?

The Battle Pass might seem like a lot of work, and it certainly is–requiring hours of dedicated play, but it also worthwhile if you’re an avid Fortnite fan. But how does Season 9 mix things up from a gameplay standpoint, you may be asking? Well, the biggest change that we’ve seen in Week 1 of Season 9 is the new Slipstreams. These are new ways to get around the map quickly and, since you can either hop in yourself to be carried around the island, lob projectiles in, or drive small vehicles through, there’s sure to be plenty of opportunity to make mischief. There is gameplay depth to using Splistreams too, as you can build speed and influences trajectory, so you’ll need to spend a bit of time getting familiar with how they work. You can read more about what’s new in the Season 9 patch notes.

Fortnite Season 9 begins today. Epic Games is rolling out the update and has also released a new trailer to give players a nice, cinematic, overview of what to get excited about. The trailer shows two characters–one the male Fortnite model and the other the Banana, which it turns out is actually an anthropomorphic banana and not a person in a costume–running into a vault.

They spend an unspecified, but lengthy, amount of time in the vault doing things like playing arcade games and working out. At one point food shortage becomes an issue and poor old banana gets the short end of the stick. Before long, they’re freed, and emerge to see a new futuristic world with glistening skyscrapers, neon colors, and strobe lighting. This futuristic vibe is the theme of Season 9 and, in line with this, new areas such as Neo Tilted and the Mega Mall have appeared on the island.

As revealed in the patch notes, Fortnite Season 9 also offers players interesting new ways to play the game. Perhaps the most immediately noticeable addition are Slipstreams, which can are new transportation system. By hopping into the various Slipstream portals peppered around the map, players can quickly move around the island and, should they wish, can even do so in small vehicles. There’s some gameplay nuances to the way they work, as players can alter velocity, bob up and down to build speed, and influence the angles they are launched out of a slipstream at.

You can read about everything that’s new and changed for Fortnite Season 9 in the patch notes. There’s more information on how weapons are being tweaked, everything that’s being vaulted, and more, so make sure to give it a read before you drop onto the island again.

We’ll be keeping our comprehensive overview of Fortnite Season 9 updated, so if you want a quick and easy way too see everything that’s happening with Fortnite Season 9, that’ll be extra handy.

Fortnite Season 9 officially begins today and developer Epic Games has released lengthy patch notes detailing everything that is being added, tweaked, and changed to the wildly popular battle royale title. Naturally, there’s a new Battle Pass complete with a whole load of fresh rewards to unlock, but there’s also some big difference too the way you play Fortnite in Season 9.

One of the changes comes in the form of Slipstreams, which are wind tunnels that will carry players around the map much quicker. Numerous tubes have appeared around the Fortnite island, and players can hop in to quickly travel around. Interestingly, projectiles and vehicles can also enter the Slipstream, which is sure to cause some mayhem.

There are also new Air Vents around the map, and these fire gusts of air that players can use to launch themselves short distances. Despite how high you’re sent into the air, players will not receive fall damage. Finally, there’s Fortbytes, a new collectible that is exclusive to Battle Pass owners. There are 100 in Season 9 and, once all of them are found by a player, they will decrypt the secrets of Season 9.

Check out the full patch notes for Fortnite Season 9’s Battle Royale mode below. You can head over to the official Fortnite website to see what’s new with the Creative and Save The World modes.

Weapons + Items

• Added Combat Shotgun
  • Semi-Automatic
    • Holds 10 Shells.
    • Fires 9 pellets per shot for 73 / 77 / 81 base damage.
    • Tight spread and fast fire rate.
    • Headshot multiplier of 1.70x.
    • Reloads 2 shells at a time.
  • Available in Rare, Epic, and Legendary variants.
  • Available from Floor, Chests, Supply Drops, and Vending Machines
• Adjusted Tactical Shotgun damage
  • Base damage increased from 66/70/74 to 71/75/79
• Reduced Drum Gun availability from 16.732% to 7.155%
• Reduced Boom Bow availability from 1.292% to .755%
• Unvaulted Grenades
• Vaulted Clingers
• Vaulted Buried Treasure
• Vaulted Pump Shotgun
• Vaulted Poison Dart Trap
• Vaulted Scoped Revolver
• Vaulted Suppressed Assault Rifle
• Vaulted Thermal Assault Rifle
• Vaulted Balloons

Bug Fixes & Improvements

• Turbo building after gliding now works correctly.
• The stink bomb damage audio and effects were not playing if you damaged yourself.
• Fixed the Shadow bomb occasionally not making the player invisible on the Xbox One the first time it’s used.
• Misplacement of Launch Pads in mid-air has been resolved.
• Pirate Cannon camera issues due to network latency have been resolved.
• The Reboot Card deposit sound effects no longer play in replay mode while the Van is on Cooldown.
• The Reboot Van card sound effects will no longer be heard when a squadmate disconnects.

Gameplay

• Slipstreams
  • These tunnels of wind passively carry players down the stream.
    • Players can move faster and change direction when actively trying to move down the Stream.
    • Use directional input to gain extra velocity. Experiment with bobbing up and down for higher speeds.
  • Players are launched when exiting the tube based on their movement speed and exit angle.
  • Projectiles and Vehicles can also enter the Slipstream.
• Air Vents
  • The powerful gusts of air from these environmental items can launch players short distances and grant immunity to fall damage.
• Fortbytes
  • Fortbytes are a series of 100 collectible computer chips available to Battle Pass owners. As you collect Fortbytes, you’ll decrypt a mysterious image. Collect them all to unlock rewards and uncover the secrets of Season 9.
  • On the first day of Season 9, there are 18 Fortbytes available to find. At least 1 new Fortbyte will be unlocked each day. Check the Challenges Tab for detailed information on which Fortbytes are currently available and when the others unlock.
  • Fortbytes cannot be collected after Season 9 ends.
• Disconnected players will stay in the world for 60 seconds. They still take damage and count for elimination points.

Bug Fixes & Improvements

• Resolved an issue with the UI showing health gains incorrectly if the player canceled the consumable close to completion time.
• PS4 controller lighting not always matching your pin color when in Squads.
• Players not able to use Hold to Swap if they previously picked an item up normally
• Adjusted turbo building to be more forgiving under poor network conditions
• Fixed cases of jittery movement under certain conditions.

Limited Time Mode Rotation:

• Trios: Classic Battle Royale with Three-Person Squads.
• Solid Gold: Fight to the finish using Legendary weapons!
• One Shot: Low Gravity. Every player has 50 health. Sniper weapons are the only weapon, Bandages are the only healing item. Jump high and aim well!

Events

• Players who have already qualified to be in the World Cup will be marked with a World Cup badge on the event leaderboards
• Leaderboards now have a button to sort games by the number of top leaderboard players in them. This will help identify the most critical active games from a leaderboard standing view.
• The in-game HUD now has different icons for points for Arena matches and weekend tournament matches.

Performance

• Improved frame rate on Nintendo Switch, particularly when large numbers of characters are onscreen.
• Addressed some cases of invisible characters after skydiving.

Audio

• Better tactical audio when inside player-built structures:
  • Enemy Pickaxe impact within ~one building tile radius has new, louder sound.
  • Wallbreak by enemy close/behind player much clearer/louder.
• Explosion audio improvements- shorter, higher dynamic range sounds that will make explosion audio clearer and punchier.

UI

Bug Fixes & Improvements

• “Swap” text appearing in the pickup UI will no longer appear when picking up more resources than the player can carry.
• The initial storm warning timer was incorrectly showing as 0.
• Spectators and replay watchers can now report users.
• Fixed party invites not showing up in the UI if the user logged out and back in again.

Spectating

• Spectating a player’s match will now automatically follow that player.

Mobile

• Auto fire will now trigger on vehicles.
• Added option for increasing elimination feed line count in the HUD Layout Tool.
• Dragging/Dropping from the quickbar is now allowed while jumping.
• The location of the boost button on Android for the X-Stormwing has been moved to avoid triggering the Home button.
• Squad formation is now accessible.

Bug Fixes & Improvements

• The delay with interacting when using the quickbar slots has been resolved.
• Weapon icons now correctly display icons on the quickbar.
• Fixed sliders that were broken in the Dead Zone tab of the Controller Options.
• Auto fire adjustments:
  • Semi-automatic weapons now fire correctly.
  • Increased acquisition delay for shotguns.
• Dynamite trajectory indicator is now correctly displayed during use.
• Ziplines can no longer be ridden past their endpoints.
• Autorun no longer takes more than two taps to initiate after jumping from Battle Bus.
• Cooldown Timer visual for boost buttons on vehicles is now displayed correctly.
• The camera no longer shakes when entering the X-Stormwing.
• Left virtual thumbstick no longer becomes invisible when holding left or right and pressing the fire button.
• The Harvest Tool UI button in HUD layout is no longer invisible.
• The stair railing in Pleasant Park no longer clips through the door.
• Variant numbers partially hidden in the preview screen by the “X” button.
• The Dream cosmetic is now correctly displaying:
  • The butterfly
  • Eye glow effect
• Widow’s Bite pickaxe visual effect issue has been resolved.
• The Cooldown ring timer showing briefly when switching seats in Cannon.
• Interact Icon is no longer missing with certain consumables.
• Input Blocked text will no longer appear when opening the inventory.
• The Item Shop arrows now display correctly on iPhone XS Max.