Fortnite’s Invite-Only iOS Version Is Already No. 1 On The App Store

Fortnite‘s popularity continues to rise. The mobile edition of the super-popular battle royale game launched today on iOS through an invite-only beta, and it’s already topping the charts.

The mobile version is currently sitting at the top of the Free Apps chart for games on the App Store. It’s a remarkable achievement considering you need an invite to get in. It’s not immediately clear if this is the first time an invite-only game has reached No. 1.

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The first invitations to the Fortnite iOS beta started going out today, March 16, and more people will be added in the coming days. An Android version is also in the works, but it’s coming later, and Epic has not said if there will be a beta for this version or not.

We tried out the mobile version and found that it’s pretty much the same game as on console and PC. You can see gameplay from a full match on iOS right here. In addition, the mobile edition will support optional cross-play with other platforms.

Meanwhile, a new 3.3 update has launched for the console and PC game that adds a new item, remote explosives, and more. Additionally, an update is launching tomorrow on PC that fixes a crash scenario. The game’s popularity got another jolt this week when famous rapper Drake played the game during a record-breaking Twitch stream.

Far Cry 5 Has Microtransactions, Campaign Is Playable Offline

With Far Cry 5‘s much-anticipated release coming up soon, we’ve now learned a little bit more about the game and some of its features. Publisher Ubisoft confirmed to GameSpot today two key particulars about the game regarding microtransactions and whether or not you will need an internet connection to play the campaign.

As with many other games, including previous Ubisoft games, Far Cry 5 will offer microtransactions. Executive producer Dan Hay stressed that the game will be generous in what it offers, though if you want to speed up your progress by spending money, you’ll have that option. “We’ve set the game up to be generous,” Hay said. “We’ve set the game up so…nothing is locked [away]. You can go out and explore, and the game will reward you for your exploration.”

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Ubisoft PR followed up to offer a full statement on Far Cry 5’s microtransactions, saying they will allow players to speed up their progress. It remains to be seen exactly how this will work, but looking at another recent Ubisoft game, Assassin’s Creed Origins, may give us some clues. That game offers “Time Saver Packs” that include items or packs of in-game currency that you can then spend to speed up your progress. They are totally optional, and can be unlocked through normal gameplay. It is possible that Far Cry 5 will offer something similar.

Far Cry 5’s microtransactions will be available for single-player and co-op, and apparently head-to-head multiplayer as well. It’ll probably make gamers happy to learn that all of Far Cry 5’s microtransaction items are cosmetic only; they do not affect gameplay.

Also in our interview, Ubisoft confirmed that Far Cry 5’s full campaign will be playable offline. Of course, if you want to play in co-op or are interested in checking out the game’s online components, you will need an internet connection. You would expect to be able to play a campaign offline, but not all games allow you to. For example, Bungie’s Destiny 2 requires a constant internet connection, even when playing solo.

We will have lots more from our interview with Dan Hay in the days ahead, covering many other topics, but notably the conception and creepy charisma of the game’s main cult leader antagonist, Joseph Seed. We also asked Hay about Far Cry 5’s impressive- and deep-looking map-editing tools. Far Cry 5 launches on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on March 27.

In other news, Ubisoft recently announced Far Cry 5’s Season Pass, and it takes players to places like Mars and the Vietnam War.

Arrow Villain Richard Dragon Explained

Warning: This article contains spoilers for recent episodes of Arrow!

Not everyone needs superhuman powers to stay competitive in the DC Universe. For a select few, it’s enough simply to be very smart and very good at martial arts. And if there’s anyone who can give Batman a run for his money in that department, it’s Richard Dragon.

With Dragon playing a pivotal role in Arrow: Season 6 lately (in the form of Kirk Acevedo’s Ricardo “The Dragon” Diaz), we figured now would be a good time to break down the character’s comic book history and how a benevolent teacher became a bloodthirsty crime lord.

Even in a world full of martial artist superheroes like Batman and Nightwing, Richard Dragon is widely regarded as one of the greatest fighters alive. This elite warrior rose up from humble origins to become a master of both martial arts and philosophy.  But while he once used his skills to directly battle evil, he generally prefers to keep a low profile and serve as a teacher to other promising martial artists. He’s responsible for helping train everyone from The Question to Huntress to original Batgirl Barbara Gordon.

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Did the Riddler Get His Groove Back on This Week’s Gotham?

Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.

“Reunion” kicked things off by irking me a bit – after Ivy decided to go to Bullock’s place of work rather than his home to kill him (and didn’t just go right to his home after he wasn’t at the bar) and then Harvey stormed off to track down Ivy alone after he and Jim had both just discovered the exact apartment she was hiding in (so why did he need to ask his contacts?) – but things came around by the end. Mostly.

Ivy’s plot was rather rudimentary by Gotham standards. It wasn’t anything we hadn’t seen before. A few mass murders. A tape sent to the news. A public ambush of a charity gala. Overall, I still wish we weren’t two actresses removed from the original Ivy. This is a character who goes back to the pilot episode, and “Reunion” involved her trying to get revenge for her dad’s death, but Peyton List just doesn’t feel connected to anyone.

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Amazon’s Man in the High Castle Isn’t Attracting Enough New Members

Making prestige television in today’s market requires large amounts of cash, but with streaming services like Netflix and Amazon staying tight-lipped about production and marketing costs, it’s difficult to know exactly how much these shows cost. Thankfully, a recent study has shed new light on just how much companies are willing to invest in a flagship series.

In a report from Reuters, which claims to have internal documents from Amazon that reveal not only production and marketing costs, but also the strategy Amazon uses to determine whether or not a show is successful. It’s called the “cost per first stream” approach, which analyzes the viewing habits of new Prime subscribers. The data reveals that Man in the High Castle Season 2 cost around $107 million to produce. That’s a large sum and it’s not paying off the way the company would like it to.

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Attack on Titan 2 Review

With its first Attack on Titan game in 2016, developer Omega Force laid down a rough but promising groundwork for what a game based around the anime phenomenon should be: fast-paced and thrilling aerial battles against gargantuan Titans with a unique control scheme that allows you to zip around effortlessly using Omni-Directional Mobility Gear. Attack on Titan 2 builds upon that foundation with a much-improved interface and some cool new tricks to slice the napes of a Titan in fun and extravagant ways. But the sharp edge of this sequel is dulled a bit by an all too familiar story mode hamstrung by plodding pacing.

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Here’s Fortnite Mobile Gameplay On iOS

The much-anticipated invites for Fortnite mobile have gone out to select iOS users. We’ve been playing the game this afternoon, and it is indeed Fortnite for mobile, just as promised. You can check out our first impressions with the game above.

Fortnite mobile really does offer up the full Battle Royale experience. At least initially, the touch controls have proven somewhat difficult–there’s a lot to manage without any physical buttons, though there is some generous auto-aim. Performance seems fairly good, though there is a noticeable visual downgrade from other versions.

One notable change from the PC, PS4, and Xbox One versions is an indicator that lets you know the direction of incoming fire and nearby chests. This is presumably meant to give players an opportunity to find these things while playing without sound, which is normally the easiest way for identifying those things.

In order to play Fortnite on mobile, you’ll need an iPhone 6S/SE, iPad Mini 4, iPad Air 2, iPad 2017, iPad Pro, or a newer Apple device with iOS 11. Invites are being sent out by email to those who signed up–you can still do so on Epic’s website–with Android support set to come in the next few months. If you registered but haven’t gotten an invite yet, you may still receive one; Epic says more will be sent out “as the servers can handle more players.”

The game will feature optional cross-play with other platforms and get the same updates as those versions. Epic describes it as a “work in progress beta,” so you should expect to encounter some hiccups if you get in. Meanwhile, Epic has just released a new 3.3 update that adds Battle Royale and Save the World content.

Krypton Pilot Review: Does the Superman Prequel Soar?

Everyone knows the story of Krypton: The destruction of Superman’s home planet is the inciting incident that allows Kal-El to come to Earth as a baby and grow up to become its greatest protector, an origin story that has been told and retold in countless comic books, TV shows, and films over the past 80 years.

But as Action Comics (the series that first introduced the world to the Man of Steel back in 1938) prepares to release its milestone 1000th issue in April, Syfy is offering an origin story for the origin story — taking us back 200 years before Superman’s birth to meet Seg-El (Cameron Cuffe), his grandfather, as an equally headstrong young man.

Why should we get invested in the fate of a planet that’s doomed to die? Because it turns out that Krypton’s fate is inextricably linked to Superman’s, thanks to an intriguing time travel element introduced in the pilot. We catch up with Seg-El after his family has been disgraced and stripped of its social standing thanks to the forbidden scientific research of his grandfather, Val-El (Ian McElhinney, aka Game of Thrones’ Barristan Selmy), who believes the planet is in danger and, spoiler alert, may be on to something.

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Free PUBG Xbox One DLC Coming As It Hits 5 Million Players

Though Fortnite is dominating a lot of the conversation around the battle royale genre in recent days and weeks, PUBG is still pushing ahead and performing well. On Xbox One, the game recently passed 5 million players, Microsoft announced today.

The game, which launched in December, reached 1 million players on Xbox One in its first 48 hours, 3 million as of the start of January, and 4 million by the end of that month. We don’t know if the game has sold exactly that many copies, but it is clear that PUBG is a big hit on console.

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To celebrate the 5 million player milestone, developer PUBG Corp. is giving away a free cosmetic item–the PUBG5 jacket. Everyone who bought the game and created a character as of March 22 at 12:01 AM PT will get the free DLC. You can see the jacket in the image above.

Unlike other Game Preview titles, PUBG on Xbox One does not offer a free trial, which may have helped improve sales.

Additionally, PUBG Corp. released an infographic that shows off some big-time stats about the game. Almost 5 million people have won chicken dinners, with the average time to win coming in at 34 minutes. 4.6 billion bandages have been used, while around 41 million people died by way of failing to escape the storm. 952,312 people were killed by way of the game’s trademark frying pan.

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While Fortnite might have eaten away at PUBG’s dominance to an extent (thanks in part to Drake), the game remains immensely popular on Xbox One and PC. On PC, the game hit 2.5 concurrent players on Steam today, which is well ahead of the No. 2 game–CS: GO–which had around 540,000 concurrent users today, according to Steam’s public data.

PUBG is only available for console on Xbox One thanks to a timed-exclusive partnership Microsoft has with PUBG’s publisher. Though no official announcements have been made, PUBG Corp. has said it wants to bring the game to every platform, so a PS4 edition sounds more like a matter of when not if.