PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has been a phenomenon this past year. Not only has it seen explosive growth, but it's also helped inspire a wave of other battle royale games coming this year. If you have an Xbox One and haven't hopped on the PUBG drop plane yet, now's your chance. PUBG is currently free to play for Xbox One owners through Sunday, April 22. The only catch is that you have to be an Xbox Live Gold subscriber to take advantage of the free play weekend.
To download the full-game trial, simply head to the Xbox Store or click into the Gold section on the dashboard of your Xbox One. Any progress you make during the free play weekend will carry over into the full game, should you decide to buy it down the line.
Now is a good time to buy, too, because the Xbox One version of PUBG is getting the desert map Miramar next month. Seeing as Erangel is the only map available now for Xbox One players, that will effectively double the game's playable real estate. Along with the new map will come three additional vehicles: a minibus, pickup truck, and jet ski.
In addition to the free play weekend, the Xbox One version of PUBG is getting a limited-time DLC pack that contains some new outfits (see below). The pack costs $7 and will be available from April 19 to May 19.
Meanwhile, the developers are currently working on a smaller map for PUBG on PC, dubbed Codename: Savage. If history is any indication, it should arrive on Xbox One a few months after it lands on PC.
Not everyone is a PUBG fan. If you're firmly in the camp of the free-to-play competitor Fortnite, you'll be pleased to hear that game just got an update and is offering players double XP this weekend. Let the battle of the battle royale games begin.
In Season 1, Legion borrowed the X-Men's general backdrop--there are mutants, they have special abilities, and people generally don't like 'em--to tell a very personal story about mental illness.
In Season 2, things are different. These days, Legion is going all in on its comic book heritage. By weaving together the themes, tropes, and some other, more direct connections to the comics, Legion is finally starting to feel like a real X-Men adventure. Here's why.
1. Protecting a world that hates and fears them
In Legion Season 1, our heroes were concerned with keeping the mutant haven Summerland safe and saving David Haller from the Shadow King. That's a fine goal, but it's a little self-centered. For their sophomore outing, that the team has thrown in with the government-run Division III in order to stop Amahl Farouk and save the world. In other words, David, Syd, Ptolemy, and the rest are no longer mere mutants. Like the X-Men themselves, they're now bona fide superheroes.
2. The future is doomed (probably)
Days of Future Past. Age of Apocalypse. Old Man Logan. The Aksani's Earth-4935. In the X-Men universe, you can't throw a fastball special without hitting some kind of alternate timeline or post-apocalyptic future. In Season 2, Legion is embracing the trope wholeheartedly. David spends the first few episodes hopping through time. A future version of Syd tries to help him prevent doomsday. Heck, future-Syd is even missing a limb. As per X-Men tradition, that's how you know that things get bad.
3. A couple of honest-to-goodness supervillains
In Season 1, the Shadow King was less a character and more a force of nature. He wore other people's faces and lurked in the corners of David Haller's mind. In Season 2, Amahl Farouk's in all of his glory, and it turns out that he fits right in among Magneto, Mr. Sinister, Apocalypse, and all of the X-Men's other big bads. Farouk's not the only supervillain on the scene this season, either; future-Syd warns David that someone even worse is coming. If it turns out to be David himself? Well, as they say, like father, like son.
4. Young pretty people in love (and trouble)
Many die-hard X-fans start reading for the superheroics, but it's the franchise's soap opera-style twists that keep them sticking around. Between David's missing year, his many secrets, and his devotion to two different versions of the same woman, Syd and David's relationship is getting more and more complicated, and it's not necessarily going to end well. Just ask Kitty Pryde and Colossus, Rogue and Gambit, Cyclops and Jean Grey, Cyclops and Emma Frost, Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor, Cyclops and--eh, you get the idea.
5. We are not alone
When the team's resident scientist, Cary Loudermilk, is analyzing the sphere that kidnapped David during the Season 1 finale, he name drops the Shi'ar. In terms of Legion, that doesn't mean much. In terms of the X-Men, that means everything. In the comics, the Shi'ar are an alien race who play a major role in the X-Men's adventures (Professor X and Shi'ar Majestrix Lilandra might be the X-Men's OTP), especially the classic Dark Phoenix Saga. The Shi'ar may or may not have much to do with Legion's overall plot, but just knowing that they're around brings Legion much, much deeper into the X-Men's world.
6. Professor X, up to no good once again
In "Chapter 11," the third episode of Legion's second season, the Shadow King calls out David's father, Professor X, and accuses the X-Men founder of interfering in other people's business. For Chuck Xavier, that's pretty much par for the course. Over the X-Men's 55 year history, Professor X has gotten up to all kinds of shady stuff, including crushing on his teenage student, faking his death to teach his teen charges a lesson, enslaving a sentient artificial intelligence, concocting plans to kill the X-Men, and much, much more. It's not just a Legion thing. That guy is seriously the worst.
7. Other mutants are having other adventures, we're just not seeing them
During the season's first episode, Ptonomy casually mentions something called the Lazarus Affair, which many fans are taking as a reference to a relatively obscure storyline from the early '00s. It's a throwaway line, but if the fan theories hold up--and the evidence is stronger than you'd think--it implies that X-Men characters, like Deadpool 2's Domino, are out there doing their own thing. That makes Legion kind of like walking into a comic shop and seeing all of the X-Men books on the shelves. There's no way to follow them all, so you have to follow the storylines you're interested in. Everything else still happens. You just don't know the specifics.
8. Are they people, or are they weapons?
When is it okay to treat a person like a tool of war? The X-Men comics confront that question all the time, and it looks like Legion is going to tackle that issue head on, too. Not only is Division III raising an army of super-soldier children (if you thought of X-23 and the Weapon X project when you learned that, you're not alone) but we recently learned that the Mi-Go monks were taught that Division III has a weapon that can stop the Shadow King. That weapon's name? Why, David Haller, of course. It's not clear exactly what this means for David's future, but if Mr. Haller has questions, he might want to look up a fella named Logan. He's been down this road a few times before.
9. Secondary mutations and newfound abilities
One of the fun things about following the X-Men is that their powers are constantly growing and changing--Iceman used to look like a snowman, and now he's an Omega-class mutant--and Legion's second season is taking that trend and running with it. Now, Syd can swap minds with animals. Cary and Kerry's whole body-sharing mechanic has been flipped. David can travel through freakin' time, even if he needs help from Cary's isolation chamber to do so (and lets not ignore how closely that device resembles daddy Xavier's own psychic-booster, the computer known as Cerebro, either).
10. Scenes from the X-Men comics? Yeah, we've got those
In Season 2's third episode, Legion flashes back to the Shadow King's physical death, and if it looks familiar there's a very good reason. The scene itself is lifted directly from Uncanny X-Men #117, which contains the first battle between Xavier and Amahl Farouk. While Legion's shown us a version of this conflict before, this iteration unfolds exactly like its comic book counterpart, even if the camera never actually shows Professor X.
11. David himself
Here's the thing about David Haller: In the comics, he's not a good guy. Not always, anyway. Legion might've used the Shadow King to explain away David's schizophrenia, but he's headed down a dark path just the same. He's lying to his friends. He's working with the enemy. It's not a matter of if he'll break bad, but when. After all, as Emma Frost, Mesmero, Cassandra Nova, Jean Grey, and David himself prove, in the X-Men's world, psychics are always bad news. Avoid them at all costs.
Hearthstone's latest expansion, The Witchwood, was released last week. A little piece of it was held for after launch, though, and Blizzard is beginning to open up about it. The single-player portion of the expansion is coming next Thursday at 10 AM PT. The new Monster Hunt mode will be similar to Dungeon Run from Kobolds & Catacombs, with a few significant differences.
Rather than your regular Hearthstone classes, Monster Hunts will be undertaken as one of four characters with their own unique hero power. Tess Greymane is a Rogue-type with Scavenge, which lets you Discover a class spell that has been cast during the game. Darius Crowley has a cannon that fires at enemies positioned directly across from it, and if it kills them, it refreshes and can be used again. The other two are Houndmaster Shaw and Toki the Time-Tinker, but Blizzard didn't reveal their powers yet. Similarly, there are new treasure cards as well as some returning from Dungeon Run.
The Monster Hunt will also introduce 45 new boss characters, each with their own unique powers and dialogue. The big new addition comes in the Nemesis characters, unique bosses that match up with the four playable characters. The final boss, Hagatha the Witch, will unlock after each Nemesis has been defeated. Blizzard teased that it will take all four heroes together to beat her, but it stayed mum on what exactly that means.
Presumably defeating Hagatha and completing Monster Hunt will unlock some special reward. Finishing Dungeon Run with all nine classes unlocked a special card back, for example.
The first poster for the reboot of horror classic Halloween has been released. The movie arrives in October and sees original star Jamie Lee Curtis return to the franchise that made her famous. It's directed by acclaimed indie director David Gordon Green (George Washington, Pineapple Express), with a script co-written by comedian and actor Danny McBride (Eastbound and Down, Alien Covenant).
The poster is simple and moody, featuring a close-up of the masked face of Michael Myers, the iconic killer of the Halloween series. The mask has seen better days and it certainly suggests that the movie is going for a seriously scary vibe. Check it out below.
Halloween hits theaters on October 19. It's produced by Blumhouse Films, which has released some of the most successful horror movies of recent years, including Get Out, Split, and the Purge and Paranormal Activity franchises. John Carpenter, who directed the original 1978 Halloween, is involved as a story advisor and is reportedly composing the movie's score. Although nothing is known about the story, last year Carpenter revealed the movie will be a direct sequel to the original, ignoring all the other sequels and remakes that have been released over the past 40 years.
In a recent interview with Charleston City Paper, McBride spoke about his and Green's approach to the movie, and how they were tapping into the more subtle scares of the first film. "The original is all about tension," he said. "Laurie Strode [Curtis' character] doesn't even know that Michael Myers exists until the last minutes of the movie. So much of it you're in anticipation of what's going to happen and the dread that Carpenter spins so effortlessly in that film, I think we were really trying to get it back to that.
"We're trying to mine that dread. Mine that tension and not just go for gore and ultra-violence that you see some horror movies lean on. To us, it was all about bringing back the creep factor and trying to find the horror in your own backyard, in our own homes."
We're giving away a God of War Limited Edition 1TB PS4 Pro, grey DualShock 4 Controller, and copy of the game!
This special bundle features a fully customized Leviathan Grey 1TB PS4 Pro console inspired by Kratos' Axe, a matching DualShock 4 wireless controller with insignia, and a copy of God of War Day One Edition.
Entry is open to United Kingdom residents only, since the prize is shipping from the UK. Competition ends Monday, April 30 at 7:00 PM BST. One (1) winner will be chosen.
Enter below (the additional entries are OPTIONAL to increase your chances of winning):
The Nintendo Switch Eshop is adding a bunch of new releases this week, headlined by the arrival of South Park: The Fractured But Whole. It won't be available until April 24, but when it drops it will bring the first two DLC packs along with it. Danger Deck and From Dusk Till Casa Bonita will be available to purchase as well, and the third expansion, Bring the Crunch, is coming later this year to all platforms.
The offerings are sparse among other Nintendo platforms. Wii U gets Aqua Moto Racing Utopia, and 3DS gets Cycle of Eternity: Space Anomaly. In addition, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is updating with a Fortune Cookie Shop, which doles out random items, and Gulliver, a seagull who can help you get rid of unwanted clothing and furniture.
Syfy is continuing to beef up its comic book offerings. Currently, the network is home to DC Comics drama Krypton, along with the adaptation of Grant Morrison's graphic novel Happy. Now Syfy is turning another property into a series--and it has enlisted some big names to make it a reality.
Joe and Anthony Russo, who directed the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War, will executive produce an adaptation of Deadly Class, based on the graphic novel by Rick Remender and Wes Craig. Set in the 1980s, the series will follow a homeless teenager "recruited into a storied elite private school where the world's top crime families send their next generations," a press release reads. That teen will then have to stick to his own moral code, as he struggles to survive the school.
The cast includes some very interesting and exciting names, as well. Benedict Wong (Avengers: Infinity War), Benjamin Wadsworth (Teen Wolf), and Lana Candor (X-Men: Apocalypse) will all star. Joining the Russos as executive producers are Remender, Miles Orion Feldsott (Bionic Woman), Mike Larocca (Spy), Adam Targum (Banshee), and Lee Toland Krieger (The Age of Adaline). Krieger also directed the pilot.
There's no word on when Deadly Class will premiere just yet, though it's not the only project Syfy has in the works. The network is also adapting George RR Martin novella Nightflyers, which is in production now.
Just like the ongoing BioWare Store closeout sale, Bethesda is throwing a clearance sale all of its own, and for similar reasons. The current iteration of the Bethesda Store will shut down on April 25. The game maker hopes to unload its inventory before that happens, so it's offering major price cuts on gear from franchises like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls. The store will reopen in May, but for many items, now is your last chance to grab them--and at a major discount, no less. During the closeout sale, shipping is limited to the US.
You'll find tons of apparel on sale. You can get t-shirts ($5) and hoodies ($20) featuring characters and logos from games like Wolfenstein 2, Dishonored 2, and Prey. A Vault 111 track jacket is on sale for $15, down from $48. You can even buy ugly Fallout or Dogmeat holiday fleeces for $5, down from $40. If you're still cold, a scarf featuring the Imperial dragon symbol from the cover of Skyrim is on sale for $5, down from $24. Most of the messenger bag prices are discounted to the $10 - $20 range as well.
In terms of collectibles, you can get a Nuka Cola bottle cap wall clock ($25), Vault Boy bobbleheads ($5), and pins galore. The store has also dropped prices on art books and guides for various games, as well as discounts on the games themselves. It has puzzles ($5), a Skyrim spell book ($5), and high-end statues on sale for over $100 off (though most of them still cost over $100).
In short, there's tons of fun stuff for fans of Bethesda's game portfolio. For the full list of discounted items, be sure to check out the Bethesda Store's sale page. And if you're a fan of BioWare, it has similar items based on Mass Effect and Dragon Age in its clearance sale, so check that out too.
If you're after deals on video games, you have loads of ways to save on PS4, PC, and Xbox One games this week. And whether you've played it before or not, it's never a bad time to download Peggle on PC for free.
PUBG Corp. has been regularly expanding PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds with new features since it officially launched on PC back in December, such as the recently added event mode. The developer has announced it is currently at work on another highly requested feature, which will be implemented on the game's test server "soon."
In a post on Steam, PUBG Corp. revealed that it is introducing the ability to select which map you want to play. "Map selection is something that players all over the world have continuously asked for," the developer wrote. "We take your feedback extremely seriously, but we also want to be thoughtful about how we implement changes to PUBG."
Once the feature is available, players will be able to select if they'd prefer to play on the original Erangel map or the newer Miramar when starting a game. If both maps are selected, the game will randomly choose between them. You can take a look at a screenshot of the map selection UI below.
"Work on the feature is almost complete," PUBG Corp. says. The developer hasn't revealed a time table for when players can expect it to arrive in the live game, but it will first be implemented on PUBG's test server, with an official launch following "soon" after.
In addition to Erangel and Miramar, PUBG Corp. is currently working on a third map dubbed Codename: Savage, which is a quarter of the size of the previous two. PUBG Corp. recently held a second round of testing for Savage this week, though that was only available to select players who received a beta key for the Closed Experimental Server. PUBG Corp. is also working on an underground cave system for Savage.
The 1980s animated series MASK is in development as a feature film at Paramount. Deadline reports that the movie studio has tapped The Fate of the Furious director F. Gary Gray to develop and direct. The producers are looking to attach a writer for the concept, described as "a contemporary subculture movie with a youth empowerment angle."
MASK was introduced in 1985 by toy company Kenner, and so the seasons would align with planned action figure launches. It followed the brilliantly-named "Mobile Armored Strike Kommand" unit, a group of elite commandos with vehicles to match. They took on a cabal of terrorists known as VENOM, which stood for Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem.
If that all sounds vaguely similar to another hot '80s toy property, G.I. Joe, you're not the only one to have noticed. A few years ago, Paramount and Hasbro were planning a massive cinematic universe of '80s nostalgia, which would team up G.I. Joe, Micronauts, Visionaries, Rom, and MASK. Earlier this year, though, the writers attached to that project said it had been scuttled. This is the first we've heard of a MASK adaptation being back on track, but it seems unlikely to fold into G.I. Joe-iverse.
[Update] Blizzard has said that, as of yet, Rialto is not available in the PTR as previously indicated. It is expected to become available in the next few hours.
Overwatch's latest map, Rialto, was added as part of the game's limited time Retribution PvE mode. The arena appears to have proved popular, as developer Blizzard has now added it as a PvP map on the game's Public Test Realm on PC.
This time round, Rialto is set during the day, rather than night as it is on Retribution. The map is only available for Escort matches right now and will likely come to the main game on PS4, Xbox One and PC soon.
Retribution is live now and runs until April 30. Alongside the PvE mode and returning cosmetics from last year, you can also take part in the returning Uprising PvE mode. Both of these, like the Junkenstein's Revenge mode released around Halloween, are only available on a limited-time basis because Blizzard doesn't think they offer the necessary level of long-term depth.
An update was recently released for the live version of Overwatch that nerfed D.Va and buffed Reaper, among other balance changes. D.Va's damage output has decreased, while Reaper's Death Blosson now reloads his shotguns after it's used. His Wraith Form, meanwhile, now grants a 50% speed bonus (up from 25%), and the ability can now be canceled.
The digital PC game retailer GOG is running a PC game sale based on its "most wishlisted" games and DLC. It's called the Most Wanted Games sale, and it runs through April 23. You can find all of the items on sale on GOG's website but below we'll run down some of the best deals in the sale.
If you have a couple hundred hours you're looking to fill up, you can't go wrong buying The Witcher 3: Game of the Year Edition for $20. It comes with the enormous action-RPG, plus the two massive expansions that came out later. It's a killer deal on one of the best RPGs ever made.
Speaking of superb RPGs, Divinity: Original Sin 2 is on sale for $38. It's a fully modern isometric RPG that we loved. Fans of the genre may also want to check out the enhanced editions of these classics: Planescape Torment for $7 and Baldur's Gate 2 for $5.
Thoughtful types may enjoy the cryptic puzzles in The Witness for $16, while fans of intense action will be better suited with Superhot for $12 or Hotline Miami 2 for $4. Old-school gamers who haven't checked out Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove or Owlboy can give them a try at $20 each.
Horror game fans can save money on titles like Darkest Dungeon ($10), which tasks you with keeping your party sane in addition to keeping them alive. The freaky game Soma also got a steep price cut, landing it at $6.
Those are just a few of the many "most wishlisted" games on sale at GOG. Visit the front page of the site to see the full list.
Some links to supporting retailers are automatically made into affiliate links, and GameSpot may receive a small share of those sales.
If you have a pile of games you're ready to trade in, you can get extra cash at GameStop for a limited time. Usually when you trade in a game, you can choose to have it paid out as a lower amount of cash or a higher amount of store credit. From now through April 22, however, GameStop is paying out just as much cash as it would store credit.
There are a couple details to note here. It's only valid at participating stores in the US and Guam, and it's not valid in California (sorry, folks). You can see a list of the ineligible stores here.
But if you want cash for your trade-ins, now is the time to make the trades. If you don't want to be surprised by the trade-in value, you can find out how much GameStop pays out here. And if you want to compare the results to other retailers, you can do the same at these links for Amazon and Best Buy.
GameStop has one other trade-in deal going on that could be useful for anyone planning to buy God of War or Nintendo Labo when they launch on April 20. If you put your trade-in credit toward those games, you'll get up to 40% extra value, depending on your Pro membership level. You can find the details for that deal here.
Fortnite's v3.5.2 update is now available for PS4, Xbox One, PC, and mobile, and it introduces a handful of new content to both Battle Royale and Save the World modes. On top of a new limited-time playlist, Epic has thrown in another incentive to play the game this weekend: double XP.
From now until Sunday, April 22, all Fortnite players will earn twice the normal amount of XP when playing Battle Royale mode. Save the World fans also have an enticing reason to play this weekend, as Epic is offering free Into the Storm llamas. Players will receive a llama each day they log in this weekend, with four to collect in total.
The double XP weekend coincides with return of the 50v50 game type. Epic had originally planned to hold the limited-time mode last week, following the release of the 3.5 update; however, it was postponed due to ongoing account issues, which came after the game experienced a significant bout of downtime.
50v50 v2 is a "new and improved" version of Fortnite's first limited-time mode. As its name suggests, it pits two teams of 50 players against each other in a fight for survival. Each team has 10 minutes to loot the map at the start of a round, during which time the storm closes in on an already-visible circle. Supply drops will also fall every two minutes in batches of three to six, but they will only land within the final storm circle.
In addition to the new limited-time mode, update 3.5.2 introduces another new weapon to Battle Royale: the Light Machine Gun. This gun can be found as floor loot and in Treasure Chests or Vending Machines, and it has a fast fire rate and a 100 round magazine. The update also addresses an assortment of bugs and adds a new weapon to Save the World. You can find the patch notes here.
God of War is now available for pre-loading on PlayStation 4, for those who purchased digital copies. That gives you several hours to load it up before the game unlocks at midnight ET tonight. In addition, Sony Santa Monica has issued a day-one patch. The patch weighs in at 6.1 GB and updates the game to version 1.1. We'll share the patch notes as they become available.
If you haven't yet pre-ordered at all, you may want to check out our release date and pre-order bonus guide. Various goodies come from different retailers, and the Digital Deluxe version is available exclusively from the PlayStation Store. It comes with a digital art book, digital comic issue, a PS4 dynamic theme, and a few pieces of equipment.
God of War has received a round of rave reviews, including our own GameSpot review, in which Peter Brown praised it for continuing to deliver hard-hitting combat while finding new avenues for storytelling. All of that has made it the current highest-rated PS4 exclusive on our sister site Metacritic.
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