It's been nearly nine years since the first How to Train Your Dragon film arrived in theaters, launching an animated franchise that has spun off into sequels, a TV series, and a number of short films. Now, with February's How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,, the adventures of Hiccup and his best dragon friend Toothless are coming to an end.
This third and final movie--for now, at least--will give fans a closure that a lot of other franchises don't get the luxury having. "I think they're gonna be simultaneously sad and satisfied," star Jay Baruchel, who voices Hiccup in the films and TV series, told GameSpot.
It's not just the fans that will have to come to terms with the end of the franchise, though. Baruchel himself is saying goodbye to a character he's played longer than any other. "It's hard not to get a bit kind of wistful, a bit melancholy," he said. "You know, I auditioned for this movie when I was shooting a movie called Tropic Thunder... There's very few things I've done for this long. I've been a son for 36 years. Been an actor for 20 some odd [years]. [I've] never played a part for as long as I played Hiccup. So it's gonna be [melancholic] to say goodbye."
Still, as producer Brad Lewis explained to GameSpot, it's best to go out on top. "When you fall in love with characters and you fall in love with a world in a story, obviously, you don't want that to end," he said. "At the same time, you also don't want it to get cheap. You don't want it to feel artificially extended, and relationships start to meander, right? You want it to have an intense emotional focus. So, for me, the great thing is we've been really focused on taking this trilogy and having these characters and these stories really have a conclusion to them."
Like Baruchel, though, Lewis expects there to be a bit of sadness from the audience, now that it's coming to a close. "Like all great endings, there's bittersweet aspects to it," he teased. "There's things that you're happy about, things that you wish emotionally that were really tough to accept. But that's, you know... if we can do that to an audience, then we've really done our job."
How to Trains Your Dragon: The Hidden World hits theaters on February 22.
Fortnite is now in Week 4 of Season 7, which means there's new challenges to do for those precious Battle Stars. Among the paid Battle Pass-exclusive challenges is a multi-stage one that begins by tasking players with search for the letter 'O' west of Pleasant Park. There's a further three parts to this challenge, with each one requiring players to find a letter. While the game provides the name of the location where these can be found, we've got more specific details that'll help you get to them quicker.
First up is the letter 'N', which under a frozen lake. One glance at the map and you'll know that can be found in the bottom left of the island, but if you aim yourself to land at the grid reference C7 you'll see there's a number of black floor panels in the middle. Equip your pickaxe, destroy those, and you'll fall into the area below where the letter can be found.
Next up is the 'O' in Pleasant Park, which is at the grid reference B4. You'll need to look for the house, head left of the gate, and you'll find it tucked away in the corner. Simply walk up to it, search it, and it's on tot he next one.
After that, it's the letter 'M' at Dusty Divot. This one is pretty easy to find as it's at the very center of the forest at grid reference G6. In the top left of that grid block you'll find a collection of what looks like metal containers and small white buildings, and there's a door in. Pop inside and you'll find the 'M' waiting in the corner of the room.
Finally, the letter 'S' is at Wailing Woods at grid reference I3. At the very center of the hedge maze is the wooden shack with the "Leave" sign on it. Smash the barrier directly below it and head inside, and you'll want to find the room in the north with old computers and the colorful lockers next to them. In there is a smaller room where you'll find the 'S' waiting for you. With that done, you'll have collected all the letters, which spell "NOMS" and you're done.
Fortnite Letter N, O, M, S Locations
Letter N: North of Polar Peak (C7)
Letter O: House at Pleasant Park (B4)
Letter M: Center of Dusty Divot (G6)
Letter S: Center of Wailing Woods (I3)
The other tricky challenge for Season 7, Week 4 involves taking out enemies at Expedition Outposts. We've put together a guide for exactly where you can find these outposts, and the the best way to give yourself the edge for when you get there.
While you're completing these, it's also worth taking a look at our 14 Days of Fortnite event guide, which breaks down all the special challenges available until January 2. They're quite easy to complete and you'll get yourself some nice cosmetic unlocks for doing them.
We might be in the Christmas break period but that doesn't mean the Fortnite challenges are on hold. We're now in Season 7, Week 4, and the latest selection of challenges have gone live for players to grind out and earn Battle Stars. As always, they're split into the free and paid Battle Pass categories, and in the former there's one that'll need you to head to very specific locations on the map, then eliminate enemies there.
Those specific locations are Expedition Outposts, which look like little red bunkers with a globe icon surrounded by arrows on them. They're usually surrounded by X-4 Stormwing planes, which are visible from quite high up and thus serve as good markers. In total, you'll need to take out three enemies at Expedition Outposts and, to make things easier, we've got a list of all the places you'll find one.
Of course, getting to the outposts is the easy part; eliminating enemies is where it gets difficult. To give yourself the edge focus on being quick, as these locations often have chests with good drops in them. If you're lucky enough to get to a chest before others, you may be able to grab a good weapon and take out enemies with less powerful guns at their disposal. Take a look below for the full list of Expedition Outpost locations.
Expedition Outpost Locations
South east of Lazy Links (F3)
North east of Pleasant Park (D3)
South west of Pleasant Park (C4)
West of Dusty Divot (F5)
West of Lonely Lodge (I5)
West of Paradise Palms
South of Shifty Shafts (D8)
With this challenge done and dusted, you can move on to the remaining ones. We've got a full list Fortnite Season 7, Week 4 challenges and, as you'll see, there's a few you can complete while doing this one. Specifically, the challenge that involves doing damage with a pickaxe. If you're bold enough, you may be able to get your outpost eliminations using the pickaxe.
Don't forget to take a shot at the 14 Days of Fortnite event guide challenges too, as they're quite simple and will unlock some very cool cosmetic rewards. Once you're done with all those, you may feel like mopping up challenges from previous weeks, and you can use our full Fortnite Season 7 challenge guide for help with that.
Get up off that couch and warm up those Fortnite fingers because there's another batch of weekly challenges for you to complete. We're now in Season 7, Week 4, and that means there's new Battle Stars to be earned, and doing so will level up your Battle Pass and get you one step closer to unlocking all those cosmetic rewards.
As always, there's two categories of challenges. The first is available to everyone, while the second is exclusive to those that have a paid Battle Pass. In the free section players will need to use an X-4 Stormwing plane in five different matches and launch fireworks three times for five Battle Stars apiece. The harder challenge in this group involves eliminating three opponents in Expedition Outposts, which will net you 10 Battle Stars.
For the paid tier, meanwhile, players are tasked with starting off a three-stage challenge by destroying 80 chairs. When you've done that, you'll unlock the second stage, and completing that will reveal the third and final stage in turn. After that, they'll need to get up-close and personal with enemies to deal 100 points of pickaxe damage for five Battle Stars.
For the remaining stars there's another multi-stage challenge which begins by searching the letter 'O' west of Pleasant Park. That's the first part of a total of five stages, so there'll be more to do after that. The final challenge tasks players with taking out three enemies at either Happy Hamlet or Pleasant Park. Take a look below for the full list of challenges.
Free
Use an X-4 Stormwing plane in different matches (5) -- 5 Battle Stars
Launch fireworks (3) -- 5 Battle Star
Eliminate opponents at Expedition Outposts (3) -- 10 Battle Stars
Battle Pass
Stage 1: Destroy chairs (80) -- 2 Battle Stars
Deal damage with a pickaxe to opponents (100) -- 5 Battle Star
Eliminate opponents at Happy Hamlet or Pleasant Park (3) -- 10 Battle Stars
Stage 1: Search the letter 'O' west of Pleasant Park (1) -- 3 Battle Stars
If you haven't been keeping an eye on Fortnite, you may have missed the 14 Days of Fortnite event that's been happening. Every day until January 2, developer Epic Games will be updating the game with one challenge per day which, if completed, will unlock a new customization option. We've been updating our 14 Days of Fortnite event guide regularly and, based on what we've seen, the challenges are quite simple, so they're a quick and easy way to score some cosmetics.
If doing these challenges has got put you in the mood to grind out some more, we've got a comprehensive Fortnite Season 7 challenge guide that'll help you with all the trickiest challenges from previous weeks. If you're planning to unlock everything in the season 7 Battle Pass, you'll want to get it all done as early as possible, as the last week rush to finish everything can be brutal.
Christmas has come and gone, which means the big shopping frenzy has drawn to an end. Thankfully, you can still get some great deals on video games if you know where to look. This week's sale at Best Buy finds discounts on a number of big games for PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Let's take a look at what kind of deals area available between now and December 30.
Fans of tiny retro consoles can get a killer deal on the PlayStation Classic this week. This plug-and-play system comes with two controllers and 20 games, and while it normally retails for $100, it's on sale this week for just $60, bringing it more in line with the pricing of Nintendo's Classic consoles. In other hardware news, if you buy any new Xbox One S or X, you'll get a $50 e-gift card for free.
As for the games, some of the fall's biggest titles are on sale for steep discounts this week. Fallout 76 is down to $40, as is Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Both of those games are big enough to keep you playing well into 2019. Battlefield V is even cheaper this week at $30, and it's scheduled to keep getting free updates for months to come.
Earlier this month, a quickly-deleted tweet from Netflix suggested that the acclaimed sci-fi anthology show Black Mirror would be returning to screens before the end of 2018. It turns out that the tweet was accurate, and the one-off Black Mirror "event" titled Bandersnatch is set to hit the service tomorrow, December 28. A trailer has now been released.
The trailer confirms the rumors that Bandersnatch will be set in the 1980s, and will focus on the creation of a new video game. Fionn Whitehead (Dunkirk) plays a developer who is hired by a software company to work on a game based on a novel titled Bandersnatch, whose author "went cuckoo and cut his wife's head off." It looks like a typically weird, futuristic nightmare--check the trailer out above.
The episode also stars Will Poulter (Detroit), Alice Lowe (Prevenge), and Asim Chaudhry (People Just Do Nothing). There have been rumors that Bandersnatch will be an interactive "choose-your-own-adventure"-style episode, in which viewers can make certain choices to affect the direction of the story. While we are unlikely to know for sure until tomorrow, it would make sense given what we know of the plot.
Season 4 of Black Mirror hit Netflix in December 2017, and in March it was confirmed that the show will return for a full fifth season in 2019. For more on Black Mirror, check out GameSpot's guide to the most WTF moments in Season 4.
If there's one thing that's been a hallmark of Vikings since the very beginning, it's the deaths of major characters that viewers hold near and dear. Still, in the latest episode-- titled "Hell"--a death came that was particularly surprising, even to the show's creator Michael Hirst.
It was only the end of Season 4 that saw the introduction of Heahmund, who became enamored with Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick) in Season 5. So it comes as something of a shock that he was dispatched of so quickly. "It was a bit of a surprise for me," Hirst told GameSpot. "These things sometimes, you have different possibilities in your head and then you think, not just about that character but how they fit into the pattern--the general pattern of where you want to take the other characters."
And while Heahmund's death will have a lasting impact, especially on Lagertha, his death also meant something to the tale being told about the bishop himself. In the episode, he saw visions of Hell that led him to believe his soul was doomed, after aligning with the pagans and falling in love with one. For Hirst, that's what was so surprising. He didn't realize that in writing Heahmund's story the way he did, he was also crafting the most logical ending for a bishop and a warrior for Christ.
"Because he felt he was a great sinner and that he was bound for hell, itt was difficult for me then to think how I could regroup and where I could take it," he admits.
In the end, though, Heahmund died in a way that was true to himself, regardless of where he may have ended up in the afterlife. "He's not particularly, political and scheming he's a warrior--a warrior for Christ," Hirst said. "And so when all those things were added up, then it made sense, that he should die, spectacularly, and he should die recognizing that, although he was going to hell, he loved her. He loved her. To me, that was a beautiful thing that despite his real fear of going to hell he was willing to admit that he was in love and that was great."
Still, Hirst admits it would have been nice to keep Heahmund around, should it have made sense in the story. "I thought Johnny was brilliant," the writer said. "He's absolutely wonderful, but it just seemed a kind of natural place to do that, poor guy."
As is usually the case with Vikings, though, nobody is truly safe or eternal. Viking history is long and caked in the blood of the fallen. From Ragnar Lothbrok to Christian monk Athelstan. When the time comes, everyone in this world faces certain death and chances are it's not going to be pretty.
Nintendo has announced the next in-game event for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. This week's Spirit event is titled "Oh Yeah! Mario Time!" and it features a variety of characters taken from the Mario series, as well as a handful of exclusive Spirits you can't get otherwise.
Unlike the previous two Spirit events in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate thus far, both of which were only available for three days, the "Oh Yeah! Mario Time!" event kicks off at 10 PM PT on December 27 (1 AM ET / 6 AM GMT / 5 PM AEDT on December 28) and runs until the same time on January 1, giving you five days to take advantage of it. During that period, an assortment of Mario Spirits, such as the Legend-class Pauline and Dry Bowser, will appear more frequently on the Spirit Board. You'll also earn additional Gold for defeating these Spirits.
On top of that, the event will also feature a couple of exclusive Super Mario Party Spirits: the Novice-class Dice Block, the Advanced-class River Survival, and the Ace-class Golden Dash Mushroom. These three have not previously been available in the game and will appear at set times every day throughout the event, so you'll want to add them to your collection while they're still around.
Nintendo is holding a different Spirit event in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate each week. Last week's event was the first part of the Fire Emblem Fest, which made Fire Emblem characters such as Azura and Eliwood appear more frequently on the Spirit Board. Nintendo hasn't announced the date for the second part yet, but it is slated to take place in January.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has been a big success for Nintendo thus far, breaking sales records for the series around the world since its launch earlier this month. The game was also met with widespread critical acclaim. GameSpot selected it as one of our 10 best video games of 2018. "There are so many wonderful things packed into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that, even in the short time between its release and our Best Of The Year discussions, it has filled us with an immense amount of joy," we said.
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