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We’re now in week seven of Fortnite‘s seventh season. There’s a new collection of challenges now available, so if you’re planning on unlocking everything the Battle Pass has to offer you’ll need to grind them out. Complete the challenges, earn the Battle Stars, level up the Battle Pass, and unlock the cosmetics–you know how it goes.

As always, challenges are separated into two categories. The first is a free set available to anyone that has the game. The second set, however, is exclusive to those that have spent V-Bucks to unlock the premium version.

In the free category, players will need to visit seven Expedition Outposts that are scattered across the island, use a Rift or Rift-To-Go in three different matches, and then score three pistol kills. If you’ve got the paid Battle Pass, you can get yourself a few more Battle Stars. To do so, you’ll need to complete a multi-stage challenge that begins with you landing at Salty Springs. Once you’ve done that, the next stage will reveal itself–there are a total of five stages. You’ll also need to search seven treasure chests at either Loot Lake or Frosty Flights and destroy one X-4 Stormwing while it’s in flight. The final challenge is another multi-parter which begins by asking you to do 200 points of damage in a single match.

Take a look below for a full breakdown of all the Fortnite Season 7, Week 7 challenges.

Week 7 Challenges

Free

• Visit all Expedition Outposts (7) — 5 Battle Stars
• Use a Rift or Rift-To-Go in different matches (3) — 5 Battle Star
• Pistol Eliminations (3) — 10 Battle Stars

Battle Pass

• Stage 1: Land at Salty Springs (1) — 1 Battle Star
• Search Chests at Loot Lake or Frosty Flights (7) — 5 Battle Star
• Destroy flying X-4 Stormwing (1) — 10 Battle Stars
• Stage 1: Damage opponents in a single match (200) — 3 Battle Stars

Things are getting weird in Fortnite once again. Kevin the Cube might be a distant memory at this point, but for those that miss having a giant, mysterious entity floating in the air, there’s something new to get excited about.

On January 16, as part of the 7.20 update, an icy orb appeared above Polar Peak. If it ends up being anything like dearly departed Kevin, it will lead to a world event. Interestingly, group of eggs also showed up beneath the castle, and a bunker has been found near Happy Hamlet–it was previously blocked by an iceberg.

The orb’s frosty nature fits with the winter theme for the season. At the start of Season 7 an icy chill swept through the island, giving certain areas a snowy makeover. It could be that the orb either expands the impact of this cold spell, or completely undoes it, changing the state of the island as setup for Season 8. The eggs and bunker are likely to play a part in what happens on the island next, but as of yet what that is remains unclear.

Fortnite’s 7.20 update also brought back glider redeploy and introduced a new gun: the Scoped Revolver. You’ve still got a few more weeks to complete remaining challenges from Season 7, and you can use the tips in our complete Season 7 challenges guide to get it all done before the new season kicks off.

When Metro Exodus was first revealed at E3 2017, it overwhelmingly appeared to be an open-world game. Publisher Deep Silver later clarified Exodus would be a “sandbox survival experience,” with players exploring large, non-linear levels throughout the game. So not quite open-world, but something approaching it, then. If a four-hour preview build is anything to go by, Developer 4A Games has fulfilled that promise, but it remains to be seen if the move turns out to be a positive one for the hitherto underappreciated series.

In theory, marrying Metro’s survival gameplay with an open(ish) world is a great idea. Exploring a wide environment, scavenging for resources, and, well, struggling to survive sounds exactly like Far Cry 2, aka The Best Shooter Ever Made (don’t @ me). However, in practice, it has so far turned Metro from a flawed but focused survival experience into a flabby and frustrating sub-standard shooter.

The two levels I played were set during different parts in the story; one sees the returning playable character Artyom stranded from his teammates in a jungle environment and the other has him investigating a town of bandits in the desert. 4A Games wouldn’t say when during the campaign these levels are set, but certainly being dropped in isn’t ideal preparation for a relatively involved survival game. In these areas, the increased scope and playing field felt like it undermined the core of the Metro series’ gameplay experience. Identikit enemies filled both levels–enemies who are both plentiful and powerful, two attributes that are acceptable by themselves but aggravating when combined with a severe lack of ammunition and dissatisfying, fiddly combat that makes a giant crossbow feel like a spud gun. Difficulty is not something I dislike, but at least make it fun to overcome that difficulty; being trapped in a die-respawn-die loop because there are no spare bullets in the vicinity makes it feel unfair.

Making your map a physical item Artyom carries is a nice touch that helps keep you grounded in Metro’s desolate Russian world. However, this immersion is broken by very ‘videogamey’ problems, such as needing to press a button every time you want to climb a ladder, or being unable to hop in and drive an intact, running Jeep to my destination. The immersion feels a little half-baked, and it’s at its weakest during character interactions. Even ignoring Artyom’s insistence on never uttering a word except in loading screen diaries, any conversation between two NPCs feels forced. Problems include uneven dialogue, stilted delivery (“The general situation here is completely awesome, sir!”), and sentences simply pausing in their tracks if you move out of range and resuming from the same spot minutes later when you come back into range. Finally, in the missions I played the open-ish environments don’t seem to have added to Metro in any meaningful way: objectives still needed to be completed in a particular order, there’s still a very linear critical path and few interesting landmarks, and during the demo at least, the player has seemingly no agency over the story.

Instead, Exodus is at its best when you’re indoors. Freedom for freedom’s sake is replaced by a sense of paranoia and claustrophobia, emphasized by your watch’s blinking blue detection indicator, your atmospheric gas mask display, and the sound of your own heavy breathing–it’s just you and your senses in here. Stealth is a more realistic approach given the smaller environments and cramped spaces, meaning it’s easier to defeat enemies by hand-to-hand takedowns, thereby conserving ammunition. and preventing reinforcements from being called. Things still aren’t perfect, but at least some of the frustrations from outdoors combat are avoided and having that cache of ammo does make gun-on-gun combat feel more engaging than the more desperate times outdoors.

Here, Exodus shows promise, but given the focus on the game’s openness in its marketing material and my reservations about that change in structure, I’m a little worried about this latest entry in the Metro franchise. I loved Last Light, so I hope developer 4A Games can clear the leaves from Metro Exodus’ track in the month to go until launch.

Mortal Kombat 11 made a surprise debut at the 2018 Game Awards with a shockingly right-around-the-corner release date of April 23. While that was enough to kickstart the fighting game community buzz, the initial cinematic trailer was short on gameplay details, leaving ravenous fans hungry for more details. However, at the time, NetherRealm promised a longer in-depth look on January 17, and the date is finally here.

Today, the developer, along with publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, is set to host a grand unveiling event, which will have fans and community members in attendance. For those that aren’t able to go, the event is also being streamed. We’ll have a live feed of the event here and provide you with regular updates on all the news from the show. Pre-show interviews will begin at 1:30 PM ET / 10:30 AM PT, and then the keynote will start at 2 PM ET / 11 AM PT.

So far we know a few key details. The Steam page teased custom character variations, possibly borrowing from the latest in NetherRealm’s other fighting series. It also boasted the return of “Klassic” fighters, and a story mode that continues the saga. The trailer showed Raiden, along with two Scorpions. That could signal some sort of multi-verse or time travel implications. A beta is planned for March on PS4 and Xbox One, so we’re likely to hear more details about that as well. NetherRealm has already revealed the cover art.

Pre-ordering MK11 will net you Shao Khan as a playable character, but the roster has plenty of room. We’ve heard rumors of a Spawn cameo, and athlete and actress Ronda Rousey teased an appearance at the show, so she may be involved in some capacity.

We’re likely to hear much more very soon, but in the meantime you check out our pre-order guide for more details.

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THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS ABOUT ASSASSIN’S CREED ODYSSEY DLC

Ubisoft recently generated controversy when it was revealed that the newest Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey expansion, Shadow Heritage, would force players into a straight relationship for a period of time. Now, creative director Jonathan Dumont has apologised, and he also explained why it happened.

At the end of the content, Kassandra or Alexios, depending on who you’re playing as, has a child in a heterosexual relationship. Dumont said in a forum post that it was important for the game to establish how “your character’s bloodline has a lasting impact on the Assassins.” However, Dumont acknowledged that Ubisoft “missed the mark.”

“We want to extend an apology to players disappointed by a relationship your character partakes in,” he explained. “Alexios/Kassandra realizing their own mortality and the sacrifice Leonidas and Myrrine made before them to keep their legacy alive, felt the desire and duty to preserve their important lineage. Our goal was to let players choose between a utilitarian view of ensuring your bloodline lived on or forming a romantic relationship. We attempted to distinguish between the two but could have done this more carefully as we were walking a narrow line between role-play choices and story, and the clarity and motivation for this decision was poorly executed.”

Players do not to need to continue this relationship in the next chapter of the DLC, Dumont added. He also said that this has been “a learning experience” for Ubisoft; he promised that Ubisoft will “do better” to make sure that player choice–which Ubisoft had hyped as one of the core tenets of the game–stays intact going forward.

The move to force players into a heterosexual relationship was especially grating for some because, as mentioned, it ran counter to what Ubisoft had promised up until this point: that you could make your own choices in regards to romantic partners.

At E3 2018, Odyssey’s narrative director Melissa McCoubrey stressed how the game would allow players to choose their romantic partners. “If you want to be a woman and romance a woman, you can do that. If you want to be a man and romance a woman, you can do that. If you want to be a man and romance a man and a woman, you can do that,” she told Stevivor at the time.

The title of the achievement/trophy for Shadow Heritage that unlocks after the childbirth is “Growing Up,” and that name is stirring controversy as well. [Update: the name of the achievement will be changed in a forthcoming patch, according to Kotaku]

Shadow Heritage is part of the Legacy of the First Blade paid DLC for Odyssey. In addition to new story content, it added a new Hunter ability, Rapid Fire, which allows players to fire arrows rapidly without reloading. You can watch the opening minutes of Shadow Heritage in the video embedded above.

From Software has revealed that boss battles will play out slightly differently in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice in comparison to both the Dark Souls series and Bloodborne. Although Sekiro will contain encounters just as challenging as its Soulsborne predecessors, its new mechanics offer different ways for From Software to create unique fights.

In an interview with Game Informer, From Software director Hidetaka Miyazaki said that the new traversal mechanics–with the exception of swimming–have been used to create boss battles that have never been seen in a Soulsborne game before. “The traversal options allow much more dynamic movement within the boss arena, both for yourself and the boss character themselves,” Miyazaki said. “Previously, you would have just had to run around a huge boss’ feet and hack away at his ankles, but now you have all these movement options; you can both fully use the extent of that arena.”

Not every traversal mechanic will be available to you during bosses though. Some bosses will be huge, hulking monsters that are reminiscent of what’s seen in Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and you’ll defeat them similarly to how you would in From Software’s older games. There are also bosses who simply won’t give you the room to zip about the arena with your grappling hook, allow you to stealth behind them for an instant kill, or rely on any of Sekiro’s other traversal mechanics. But each boss does have a weakness you can exploit to make the fight easier.

You won’t be alone when it comes to figuring out how to defeat a boss. In place of messages from other players, you can find clues in the world that hint at certain bosses’ weaknesses. Whether you search out these hints is entirely up to you, but Miyazaki said that they do help, especially for enemy bosses that “use really dirty tricks” and “underhanded techniques.”

New types of boss battles aren’t the only change From Software is putting into Sekiro. The game won’t have multiplayer of any kind, and as a result, you’ll be able to actually pause whenever you want. Unlike Dark Souls III and Bloodborne, Sekiro will also have an interconnected world that directly links back to its hub area. 

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice launches on March 22 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. The standard version of the game releases alongside a Collector’s Edition, both of which are available for pre-order.

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