Polygon

The long-awaited, long-teased live-action movie adaptation of Elden Ring is coming, and it’s got a big name attached to it: Alex Garland, the writer-director behind Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Civil War will helm the film. Garland is teaming up with production company A24, which is also backing the Death Stranding movie, for Elden Ring.

Publisher Bandai Namco and A24 confirmed their Elden Ring movie is in the works on Thursday. Details on the movie adaptation are non-existent, but Elden Ring lore co-author George R.R. Martin is set to co-produce, according to Deadline.

Elden Ring pushed developer FromSoftware’s brand of challenging action-role-playing games forward by dropping players into a true open-world environment, giving them more freedom than past games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne. The game’s story casts players as a Tarnished, a fallen hero who journeys to the dreary Lands Between to restore the shattered Elden Ring and become the region’s new Elden Lord. The game has been FromSoftware’s most successful game to date; in April, the company announced that sales of Elden Ring had exceeded 30 million copies.

FromSoftware released an expansion — Shadow of the Erdtree — for Elden Ring in 2024. A multiplayer-focused spinoff, Elden Ring Nightreign, will be released on May 30.

Garland’s most recent movie, Warfare, which he co-directed, was released in April to critical and commercial success.

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There is no shortage of first-person shooters out there, to the degree that some of them can start to blur together. Mouse: P.I. For Hire, however, has one of the most unique art styles I’ve ever seen in the genre. Think Cuphead, but with more explosive action — and way more mice to kill.

The monochromatic visuals, which are all hand-drawn, are coupled with a catchy jazz soundtrack. The game is a 1930s noir where you’ll be investigating a corrupt city full of crooks. The premise sounds serious until you notice the protagonist running around with an arsenal fit for a circus. Here’s a fun trailer:

You’ve got period staples like Tommy guns and sticks of dynamite right alongside a can of spinach and a finger gun. All of these weapons have special animations that make Mouse: P.I. look like a playable cartoon where every death is comical. Count me in.

There’s no set release date yet, but the game will be coming to all major modern platforms, including Nintendo Switch 2. The game was highlighted today as a part of Six One Indie, an hourlong indie showcase that packed 48 different titles from all sorts of genres, which you can check out here.

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Blue Prince’s PlayStation 5 save file bug is finally over thanks to a new patch Raw Fury released Thursday. Tonda Ros*,* directorand creator of Blue Prince, released patch notes for update 1.04.5, directly addressing a stubborn bug, which, according to the game’s Reddit community, appears around day 100 and prevents players from saving any progress.

The patch notes described the glitch as the “PlayStation 5 save rollback issue” and explained that it was “caused by a duplication of save data causing new save information to time out and not be saved.”

With the new fix, Ros alerted players they shouldn’t have any “issues progressing and saving the game past the point where the bug was initially encountered.” Unfortunately, any progress that wasn’t saved due to the bug won’t be recovered, and players will return to Mount Holly on the day the bug first appeared.

The patch also addresses bugs that cause the player to lose steps, preventing players from entering the highest rank, and more spoiler-heavy issues.

Nonetheless, the director asserted that a definitive version of the game will be achieved through the forthcoming 1.10 patch.

Patch 1.10 is set to include changes and additions such as “an overhyped arcade game, a curious house cat, accessibility features like color assist mode, controls remapping, cursor size/opacity settings, and widescreen support. Some UI/UX improvements, more variations for end-of-day manor descriptions and accompanying house illustrations, HUD display customization, final room/item balancing, and the addition of a handful of extra cinematics that I am still working on (the unlockable challenge modes actually have their own unique openings and endings!)”

Hopefully, there won’t be any more save file glitches as players head from patch 1.04.5 to 1.10. Happy drafting!

Blue Prince is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC.

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Sciel is a true heavy-hitter in your Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 party, offering a fairly straightforward way to make number go up compared to her counterparts.

While, yes, Lune and Maelle can dish out serious damage, both require some preparatory work to achieve that output, whereas Sciel only requires you to be aware of her comparatively more streamlined Twilight mechanic.

If you’re interested in the best of the best for your scythe-wielding teacher, this Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 guide will break down the best Sciel build, including her best weapons, attributes, Pictos, and skills to quickly dispatch foes.

Best Sciel build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Sciel works as a support unit and DPS, but we believe her talents are much better in a damage-dealing role. She’s at her best as the team’s primary source of damage.

With Sciel, you want to apply Foretell stacks on enemies and then trigger those stacks with the appropriate skills. The best skills for Sciel will allow her to mark enemies as well for her other teammates to trigger, so she works well with at least one other dedicated damage dealer — preferably Maelle.

The best Sciel build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is:

Attributes: Defense and LuckWeapon: CharnonSkills: Twilight Dance, Sealed Fate, Final Path, Delaying Slash, Fortune’s Fury, and Plentiful HarvestPictos: Immaculate, Glass Cannon, and Inverted Affinity

Sciel’s best attributes by far are Agility and Luck. Her skills and playstyle are meant for someone who can attack often and deal critical hits, too. What’s more, in the game’s opening act, the best weapon for Sciel, the Scielson, scales well with the stats mentioned above. As you progress, you’ll be swapping weapons to the Rangeson and Charnon, respectively, but once you reach the endgame and the Charnon, you’ll have access to guaranteed critical hits. This allows you to Recoat her attributes away from Agility and put them into Defense instead.

Below, we’ll explain in more detail why this is the best Sciel build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Best attributes for Sciel

Your attribute spread for Sciel will look different depending on how far in the game you are. Make sure to save a Recoat for the late game so you can prioritize the perfect attributes for the final stretch.

In Act 1, prioritize Agility and Luck for the extra turns and crit chance. (You can also put points into Vitality to give Sciel some survivability in the early game.)

In Act 2, the best weapon for Sciel becomes the Rangeson, so her attributes should reflect that. You should alter your strategy and prioritize Agility and Defense.

Once you get Charnon, you’ll want to Recoat your attributes again, only this time prioritizing Defense and Luck for that weapon’s scaling.

Best weapon for Sciel

The best weapon for Sciel is the Charnon.

This missable weapon can be found by defeating the Gestral Merchant, Grour, at Renoir’s Drafts. To find this merchant, you must have Esquie’s diving ability, which you get when he reaches relationship level 6. Defeating Grour will allow you to purchase the Charnon. Hopefully you’ve been saving your cash — it costs a whopping 89,884 chroma!

The weapon’s strength comes from its Level 4 passive, granting guaranteed critical hits when Sciel is in Twilight. Sciel’s abilities fit into one or two categories, Sun and Moon. Using a skill will generate a card of the assigned typing. Once you’ve generated both a Sun card and a Moon card, Sciel will enter Twilight, offering increased damage and double the amount of Foretell you can stack on an enemy.

The goal is to ensure Sciel spends as much time in Twilight as often as possible, so it only makes sense you’d want a weapon that empowers the stance to new heights.

Best Pictos and Luminas for Sciel

You will need some time to build up the best Pictos and Luminas for Sciel. The best Pictos in her case are Immaculate, Glass Canon, and Inverted Affinity. Below are the detailed descriptions of what these Pictos do and the stats they grant bonuses to.

Immaculate — Speed and Crit Rate. 30% increased damage until a hit is received.Glass Cannon — Speed. Deal 25% more damage, but take 25% more damage.Inverted Affinity — Health and Crit Rate. Apply Inverted on self for three turns on battle start.50% increased damage while Inverted.

These Pictos are pretty much the “One Shot Setup.” They provide Sciel and other DPS characters the scaling and damage necessary to dictate the battlefield. However, the trade-off of these Pictos is low survivability. If you’re not a God at Expedition 33’s defense mechanisms, maybe you should practice them as you make your way through the game and to Sciel’s perfect build. You can also offset this weakness a bit with the right Luminas.

We’d recommend using the following Luminas, depending on how many Lumina Points you have.

Augmented Counter IAuto RushCritical BurnDead Energy IIRouletteEmpowering ParryEnergising JumpEnergising ParryEnergising Start IIFirst StrikeTaintedFull StrengthPainted PowerRecoveryCheaterSolidifyingSweet KillWarming Up

Best skills for Sciel

The best skills for Sciel are the following:

Twilight Dance: Deals extreme single target Dark damage. 4 hits. During Twilight, extends Twilight duration by 1 turn. Consumes all Foretell to deal additional damage.Sealed Fate: Deals high single target damage. 5-7 hits. Uses Weapon’s element. Each hit can consume 1 Foretell to deal 200% more damage. Critical Hits don’t remove the Foretell but still gets the damage increase.Final Path: Deals extreme single target Dark damage and applies 10 Foretell. 1 hit. Can Break.Delaying Slash: Deals medium single target damage. 2 hits. Uses weapon’s element. Consumes Foretell to increase damage and delay target’s turn.Fortune’s Fury: Targeted ally deals double damage for one turn.Plentiful Harvest: Deals medium single target Physical damage. 2 hits. Consumes all Foretell on a target and gives 1 AP to a party member for each Foretell consumed.

These moves allow you to properly set Sciel or your chosen sub DPS unit for success. Fortune’s Fury will be your primary skill. Combined with a skill like Marking Card, it is perfect for unleashing considerable damage on the game’s more challenging encounters. Final Path and Twilight Dance are your primary sources of damage if you prefer another weapon. However, with the Charnon and its awesome critical hit passive, you can’t go wrong with Sealed Fate.

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Bandai Namco’s bold new take on Pac-Man — the 2D action platformer known as Shadow Labyrinth — has a secret: Despite being a grim sci-fi, Metroid-inspired game that looks nothing like a traditional Pac-Man sequel, there’s actual real Pac-Man gameplay in here. A new trailer for Shadow Labyrinth reveals the Maze, a portion of the game that for shorthand purposes looks a hell of a lot like Pac-Man Championship Edition 3.

The core gameplay of Shadow Labyrinth has players controlling a mysterious warrior named Swordsman No. 8, who is accompanied by a Pac-Man shaped guide named Puck, battling to become the apex predator of an alien planet. But at certain points in Shadow Labyrinth, you’ll play honest-to-goodness Pac-Man maze levels that draw inspiration from the Championship Edition line of pellet- and ghost-chomping games. Shadow Labyrinth’s take on Pac-Man gameplay adds to the Championship Edition formula, with jumping, boost pads, giant ghost boss battles, and a variety of maze types.

In other words, if Shadow Labyrinth hasn’t quite done it for you thus far, it might be worth checking in on your feelings after watching the game’s new trailer.

Bandai Namco revealed Shadow Labyrinth at last year’s Game Awards. But before that, the game publisher teased a darker, bloodier take on Pac-Man in the form of an animated short in Prime Video’s Secret Level anthology series. Shadow Labyrinth doesn’t appear to be quite as gory as Secret Level’s “Circle,” but it’s definitely a swerve for Pac-Man.

Shadow Labyrinth will be released on July 18, for Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.

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While Lies of P is set to receive a big update this year when the prequel DLC Overture arrives, another update will be just as noteworthy: Lies of P is going to receive difficulty options. Meaning, the notoriously difficult soulslike is going to become easier — and more accessible.

“We wanted to make sure a wider audience of players could play the game,” game director Jiwon Choi told VGC. Lies of P has already found an audience — it sold 1 million copies in its first month on market and has been played by at least 7 million people — and an easier gameplay experience can open it up to more players who were put off by its difficult and unforgiving nature.

Choi noted this decision stemmed from player feedback as well as “from our developers” at Neowiz and Round8 Studio. “So by making development adjustments and introducing these difficulty options, we can offer the experience to different types of players. This broadens the base.” The default difficulty will be named “Legendary Stalker” while the two new options will be called “Butterfly’s Guidance” and “Awakened Puppet.” Polygon has reached out to Neowiz for further comment on the details of these difficulty options, and will update this story when we hear back.

New difficulty options will also be a welcome addition for longtime Lies of P players and soulslike vets; anyone who’s been absolutely bodied by the Mad Clown Puppet before the Opera House knows what I’m talking about. And while Lies of P has plenty of bosses worthy of a challenging and engaging fight, some, like the Green Monster of the Swamp and the Walker of Illusions, are more frustrating than fun. The ability to lower the difficulty on future playthroughs for bosses like those will certainly circumvent some of the frustration stemming from those encounters.

Alongside the DLC and difficulty options will also be a new boss rush mode, Death March. You’ll also be able to replay boss fights via the new Battle Memories mode, which is really something that every soulslike game needs.

Lies of P, your other favorite Belle Époque game next to Clair Obscur, launched in 2023. It was a Game Pass hit and a critical darling, with our review saying it, “breath[ed] new life into an overcrowded genre by allowing you to fabricate your own truth with the characters you meet, shaping the world with your choices.” Overture is expected to launch this summer and will include 15-20 hours worth of content.

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The streets of Grand Theft Auto 6’s Leonida are bustling with all sorts of zany characters who help bring Rockstar’s satire of Florida to life. Typically, this fictional mass of non-playable plebs find a balance between being complete randos and looking realistic enough to be believable. Potentially, you could point to any character in the GTA 6 trailers so far and be able to find at least one human being IRL who looks uncannily familiar to that NPC; we’ve got a population of over 8 billion to work with here. But there are now two totally different instances where fans think that Rockstar lifted the likeness of two actual people.

The first time transpired back in 2024, when Laurence Sullivan, a man known as the “Florida Joker,” threatened Rockstar with a lawsuit over a character he believed mimicked his viral mugshot from 2017. The character in question did bear some resemblances to Sullivan in that both of them clearly took cues from DC’s Dark Knight, but ultimately Florida Joker did not sue the makers of GTA 6. He did, however, demand millions of dollars in compensation in exchange for the “free marketing” he was providing them. To date, it does not appear that Sullivan was ever paid.

That same trailer, which debuted GTA 6 for the first time, also included a Black character adorned with dreadlocks, a white tank top, and a hefty collection of gold chains. This prompted a response from a TikToker named zoeepoppyy, who posted a video back in 2023 while standing next to a still of the trailer.

“They done cloned Tyrone,” the man said while sucking his teeth in disapproval. “C’mon, can I get paid?” he asked. zoeepoppyy pointed to details like his hair, his chain, his glasses, as well as facial features as evidence for the copycat.

@zoeepoppyy

Everybody know this me from GTA6 🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️😡 its going on 7 days i aint get paid yet whats going on i need everybody too say something #gta6

♬ original sound – Zoee_poppyy

Two years later, Rockstar released a second trailer for GTA 6 — and some things were different. One of these tweaks appears to be the same Black character who triggered the rip-off allegations. This time, however, the NPC is wearing a red hat, a lighter set of shades, a small mustache, and braids. Notably, both characters are wearing a white tank top and the same set of gold chains, the centerpiece of which displays some type of horned animal.

Rockstar did not respond to a request for comment on whether or not this was intended to be the same character, or if the adjustments were made in light of the TikToker’s allegations. But judging from a Twitter post that has been viewed over 13 million times in the span of a few days, fans are convinced that Rockstar changed the character specifically because of the TikToker.

Rockstar Games changed the appearance of a character from GTA 6 Trailer 1 after a Florida man claimed it was him and asked for money. pic.twitter.com/EX2MhqkNJA

— GTA 6 Countdown ⏳ (@GTAVI_Countdown) May 19, 2025

While it’s possible both of these things are related, it’s also worth noting that games in development change all the time, for all sorts of reasons. Jason, one of the protagonists, saw a huge visual upgrade in between trailers for GTA 6. His first iteration leaned more in the generic direction of gruff, buzzcut main character. His latest version, on the other hand, is affixed with a daintier flow of locks that can grow heavy with sweat. You can even spot individual strands of arm hair from afar. Really, the entire trailer is full of impressive changes ranging from the background scenery and weather to minor details like physics and muscle deformation.

That, and, Grand Theft Auto always seems to be ducking some sort of likeness controversy. Infamously, Grand Theft Auto 5 saw Lindsay Lohan sue Rockstar over a character named Lacey Jonas. In that case, the judge ruled that while some similarities were apparent that overall, “indistinct, satirical representations of the style, look, and persona of a modern, beach-going young woman that are not reasonably identifiable as plaintiff.”

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Ultron has stolen Cerebro from the mutants of Krakoa in Marvel Rivals Season 2.5 story, and has now become a playable character, introducing a new map and a slew of new Team-Up changes.

“Ultron is a strategist who can provide consistent healing to his allies,” according to Creative Director Guangguang. He attacks with energy beams as his primary attacks and can fly, joining the sky alongside Iron Man, Storm, and the Human Torch.

As such, the Team-Up Ability system is being updated “with broader adjustments,” adding six new attacks, removing four, and another that’s been adjusted. Naturally, Ultron and Iron Man have a Team-Up ability where Ultron is allowed to fire Uni-Beam lasers that pierce through anything in its path.

Lead Combat Designer Zhiyong detailed new Team-Ups: Venom and Jeff the Land Shark’s “Symbiote Shenanigans” tether to allies for healing; The Punisher and Black Widow’s “Operation: Microchip” grants Widow a piercing line-shot mode; Luna Snow crafts ice arrows for Hawkeye that hit harder the farther the target, even through terrain cover; and Rocket Raccoon and Peni Parker’s “Rocket Network” boosts Peni’s Bionic Spider-Nest and drops armor packs, while she powers up Rocket’s Battle Rebirth Beacon to summon Cyber Webs, Spider-Drones, and Arachno-Mines—though only one beacon can be active at a time. And after fan suggestions, Storm and Jeff receive a “Jeff-Nado” ability similar to Storm’s Team-Up with Human Torch, but instead of a fire tornado, it’s water.

However, Luna and Jeff “Chilling Charisma”, Hawkeye and Black Widow’s “Allied Agents”, Spider-Man, Peni, and Venom’s “Symboite Bond”, and Rocket Raccoon and The Punisher’s “Ammo Reload” are being completely removed. But it appears the latter will still be available for Winter Soldier, which makes me, a Bucky main, very happy. However, Iron Man will no longer be part of the “Gamma Charge” team-up, leaving it to just The Hulk and Namor.

A few other things were mentioned, like an experimental mode coming June 6 called Ultron’s Battle Matrix Protocol, where players build their own lineup of heroes and craft builds to enhance their traits in a “streamlined, strategic, numerical-based solo tactical” gameplay mode. There are also new hero proficiency avatars on the select wheel and two new personalization systems: mood and emoji for players to express themselves on their nameplate and in-game.

The new map: Hellfire Gala: Arakko, Krakoa’s sister island, has been transformed into Ultron’s lifeless mechanical headquarters. And of course, a few character buffs, nerfs, and changes will be introduced.

Buffs-Dr Strange – Magneto– Punisher – Squirrel Girl – StormNerfs– Groot – Captain America– Emma Frost – The Thing – Iron Fist– Human Torch– Psylocke – Mister Fantastic – NamorChanges– Luna Snow – Jeff the Land Shark

Check out the video above for the full details.

Marvel Rivals season 2.5 is slated to launch May 30, a day after Season 0 Battle Pass comes to a close. After that, seasons are expected to shorten to two months each.

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Following the release of Triumphant Light, The Pokémon Company has announced the fourth themed booster pack for Pokémon: Trading Card Game Pocket, Extradimensional Crisis, introducing Ultra Beasts to the mobile collectible card game.

Ultra Beasts, first introduced in the Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon video games, are enigmatic creatures from another dimension. They arrive through Ultra Wormholes and emit a strange, otherworldly energy. Pokémon TCG Pocket introduces cards like Buzzwole ex, Blacephalon, Nihilego, and Guzzlord ex, including a few more Pokémon from the Alola region, such as the debut of Type: Null.

To mark the Ultra Beasts’ debut in Pokémon TCG Pocket, a themed binder cover featuring these powerful creatures will be available in the Shop starting May 29, purchasable with shop tickets. Additionally, players can highlight their favorite card using a new floral display board, which can be obtained with event shop tickets earned during the upcoming Wonder Pick event, running June 11-28.

There will be three events during June to coincide with the release. The first is the Ultra Beast Drop Event starting June 3-13, where players can take on special solo battles to earn new promo cards, including Ultra Necrozma ex. The Wonder Pick Event next starts June 11-21, where promo cards for Poipole and Stufful will be available to pick. Lastly, the Ultra Beast Mass Outbreak Event starts June 22-28, where Ultra Beast-related cards will have increased chances of appearing in rare picks and bonus picks.

Collecting Pokémon cards through the app might be the safer — and less stressful — option right now. You don’t want to be competing against the scalpers who camp outside GameStop literally risking their lives to get Pokémon cards.

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Monster Hunter Wilds fans have been asking Capcom what a new weapon type for the game would look like, and the company may have an answer: deez hands. Capcom announced Thursday that Monster Hunter Wilds will get a free Akuma layered armor, complete with his moveset, in a Street Fighter 6 collaboration arriving on May 28.

The crossover trailer shows Akuma fighting Ajarakan and Congalala, hitting a Rathian with a Gou Hadoken, dodging with his Ashura Senku, chaining together fleshed-out combos, and, of course, his iconic Raging Demon finisher. And don’t worry, if you don’t like the idea of using fisticuffs, Akuma can use weapons during battle against MHW’s behemoths, too. Players will also receive a free Blanka-chan layered armor set for their cute Palico partner.

To snag these free add-ons, you’ll be tasked with completing a new side mission called “Ultimate Strength.” The quest will only be available to hunters at Hunter Rank 21 or higher, so be sure to rank up before the event rolls out.

Players must speak with the Vespae Unit Handler Quinn to start the quest at the Oilwell Basin Base Camp. Other arena quests, such as “Demonic Strength” and “True Strength,” will be available to earn even more free content. And if you can”t get to the special mission right away, don’t fret; Capcom states that “after its addition as a free update, this collaboration will be a permanent addition to the game.”

Furthermore, Capcom is releasing a special paid DLC cosmetic pack that features emotes and attire for Alma, allowing her to dress up as Cammy and Chun-Li. Various Street Fighter 6 backgrounds, gestures, stickers, and pendants will also be available for purchase.

Monster Hunter Wilds is available now for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.

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With Tetsuya Nomura finally breaking a three-year silence to drop new Kingdom Hearts 4 details, what better time to revisit the series’ most iconic weapon? The Keyblade has long sparked debate — is it a sword? Should it be included in Cool Sword Day celebrations? Or is it simply a giant key-shaped billy club? Regardless of classification, the Keyblade stands as one of the most revolutionary one-handed fictional weapons, alongside the lightsaber — not just for its bold, genre-defying design, but for how deeply it’s woven into the lore, with each unique Keyblade symbolizing each wielder’s alignment with light or darkness.

While the Kingdom Key remains the franchise’s most recognizable blade, thanks largely to its constant presence in marketing, no Keyblade has captured fan devotion quite like Oblivion. Oathkeeper trails closely behind, earning a strong third place. The designers at Square Enix surely know the popularity of these Keyblades in the fandom, as all three appear in every major installment. But beyond their striking designs, it’s Oblivion and Oathkeeper that best embody Kingdom Hearts*’* core theme: the eternal clash between light and dark. That makes them far more than just cool weapons; they’re narrative anchors.

In the original Kingdom Hearts, most new Keychains — items that transform the appearance and abilities of your Keyblade — are earned by completing Disney-themed worlds. These worlds have usually offered loose retellings of their respective films, often feeling like standalone adventures with minimal connection to the overarching storyline of Kingdom Hearts. However, Oathkeeper and Oblivion came from Traverse Town and Hollow Bastion, respectively, which are two original worlds — meaning, they’re not worlds based on Disney movies. What’s more, the  Keychains for each weapon have a strong significance for Kingdom Hearts’ protagonist Sora; one is deeply tied to Kairi, his love interest, and the other to his best frenemy, Riku.

Kairi gives Sora the Oathkeeper after he awakens her from her slumber and brings her to Traverse Town for safety. She offers him her “lucky charm” as a promise that they’ll be reunited. The charm resembles a Paopu Fruit from their home, Destiny Island — a fruit said to bind the destinies of two people who share it, ensuring they’ll always be connected, no matter what. Meanwhile, Oblivion is found in a chest in Hollow Bastion, mere feet away from Sora’s final confrontation with Riku — a confrontation that mirrors their playful sparring match at the beginning of the game.

Oathkeeper and Oblivion have always shared a yin-and-yang dynamic, reflected in everything from how they’re acquired to the two characters they’re tied to; that’s even before we factor in their stark white and black color schemes. Oblivion’s in-game ability focuses on strength, while Oathkeeper prioritizes magic. Oathkeeper’s appearance emphasizes the elegance of a Keyblade, while Oblivion highlights the destruction. They’re a terrific pair; they went together like lamb and tuna fish.

What has truly cemented the importance of these two Keyblades is their prominent appearance in the game’s secret ending, Deep Dive / Another Side, Another Story. It features a hooded figure in an unknown location, dual-wielding both Oblivion and Oathkeeper in a fight with another mysterious silver-haired figure, who ends up taking and wielding Oblivion during the confrontation. Little did we know then that the hooded figure was Roxas, another version of Sora, and that Riku was the silver-haired man who took Oblivion for himself. At the time, fans couldn’t fully grasp the implications of this final scene, but that moment instantly elevated the significance of both weapons. The secret ending was shrouded in mystery, yet the presence of Oathkeeper and Oblivion strongly hinted that the hooded figure had a deep connection to Sora, Riku, and Kairi.

It’s clear Nomura had grand plans for Oathkeeper and Oblivion, deliberately threading them deeper into the series’ overarching narrative than most other Keyblades. Still, he probably didn’t expect them to eclipse the franchise’s default weapon: the iconic Kingdom Key. Despite its central role and compelling history as the light counterpart to King Mickey’s Kingdom Key D, not to mention that it initially chose Riku before ultimately selecting Sora, it’s Oathkeeper and Oblivion that has came to embody the emotional core of the franchise, capturing the hearts (pun intended) of millions of fans along the way.

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In the classic board game Betrayal at House on the Hill, a group of players explore a haunted house gathering useful items and leveling up their stats until the Haunt becomes active and one of the players switches sides and starts killing everyone else or performing some twisted ritual. Now Hasbro and Avalon Hill are adding fresh horror to the mix with the It: Chapter Two-themed expansion Betrayal at the Neibolt House: The Evil of Pennywise launching on Aug. 1.

Priced at $24.99, the add-on casts three to six players as residents of Derry, wandering new locations to gather items inspired by the film before triggering one of five haunts. The group might have to fight Pennywise together — facing down some very creepy new minis — while the traitor could wind up controlling the Losers Club’s nemesis Henry Bowers.

The game will be available to play and buy at the Avalon Hill booth at Gen Con later this summer.

Avalon Hill will also be demoing Sanibel, the new game from Wingspanand The Fox Experimentdesigner Elizabeth Hargrave, which will launch in early 2026. Located along Florida’s Gulf Coast, Sanibel is well known for seashells that people will sometimes gather at sunrise with flashlights to have the first pick of what washed up on the shore.

In the new game, players will move along a board representing the beach to pick up sets of shells and shark teeth, sometimes racing ahead to beat the competition and sometimes backtracking to snag what a wave has just deposited. The tiles are placed on a player mat representing a bag, and you’ll need to pay close attention to how each one is scored at the end of the game. During a press conference announcing the game, Hargrave says she used the crowdsourced biodiversity tracker iNaturalist to make sure the most popular shells of Sanibel were represented in the game while the shark teeth are a nod to her dad’s personal collection.

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In his seemingly endless quest to not finish The Winds of Winter, Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin has a new project on the table: He’s producing a magical-realist reimagining of the story of Hercules, animated by Blue Spirit, the Emmy-winning studio behind the bloody Netflix revenge series Blue Eye Samurai. The film is based on the novella A Dozen Tough Jobs from Howard Waldrop, a Nebula Award winner and Martin’s lifelong friend.

A Dozen Tough Jobs sets the Greek myth in 1920s Mississippi, making Zeus’ son Hercules a former sharecropper descended from slaves. After being released from prison for a heinous crime, he lands in the custody of the wicked Boss Eustice, and has to earn his freedom through spins on the classical 12 labors of Hercules. That story feels like a good fit for Blue Spirit, which combined Japanese history and the blood-soaked trappings of Quentin Tarantino movies in Blue Eye Samurai.

Joe R. Lansdale (Bubba Ho-Tep, Hap & Leonard) is writing the script for Lion Forge Entertainment, the studio behind the Oscar-winning short Hair Love. No timeline for the release has been announced.

“If anyone understands the power of epic stories and expansive franchises, it’s George R.R. Martin,” Lion Forge founder David Steward II said in a news release. “With A Dozen Tough Jobs, we’re reimagining a timeless legend through fresh, culturally rich lenses. This isn’t just a retelling — it’s a groundbreaking take unlike anything audiences have seen before, grounded in history but pushing myth into uncharted territory.”Martin previously produced the 2022 short film adaptation of Waldrop’s short story Night of the Cooters, starring Vincent D’Onofrio. Beyond Game of Thrones, he is producing several other projects in various stages of development, including adaptations of Nnedi Okarofor’s Who Fears Death, Roger Zelazny’s Roadmarks, and his own Wild Cards shared-world anthology series.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

Gigantamax Machamp is making its Gigantamax debut in Pokémon Go, and given its a bit of a powerhouse, it’ll need some coordination to take down. It’s expected to hit hard, so you’ll want to bring out the tankiest of your tanks to help you out with this.

Machamp will specifically appear as part of Gigantamax Machamp Max Battle Day on Sunday, May 25, from 2-5 p.m. in your local time, appearing at power spots every 30 minutes or so. (This also comes hot off the heels of a Machop Community Day event the day before, so make sure to stock up on Machop Candy!)

Below we list Gigantamax Machamp’s best counters and weaknesses in Pokémon Go, as well as general battle tips for the big guy.

Gigantamax Machamp weakness

Machamp has a few weaknesses, though there’s only a few we can really take advantage of: flying-, psychic-, and fairy-type moves.

That being said, it’ll be resistant against rock-, bug-, and dark-type moves, so don’t use those unless they’re just fast moves to help charge the max meter.

Gigantamax Machamp best counters

Try to bring at least one of these attackers:

Dynamax Metagross with Zen Headbutt (Max Mindstorm)Dynamax Moltres with Wing Slash (Max Airstream)Dynamax Unfezant with Air Slash (Max Airstream)Dynamax Charizard with Air Slash (Max Airstream)

Yep, you read that right — Dynamax Charizard, not Gigantamax. Gigantamax Charizard will always have G-Max Wildfire as its attack, regardless of what its fast move is set to, and in this case, you want a flying-type max move. That said, you can still bring a powered-up Gigantamax Charizard if that’s what you’ve got! Bring anything that can bring the damage; the list above is just the best stuff to bring.

As of this writing, there’s a Timed Research set that will reward you with a Dynamax Beldum, alongside Beldum Candy to help you prepare for this tough fight, so you should invest in that if you can.

For defenders/tanks, bring one or two of the following:

Dynamax Blissey with PoundDynamax/Gigantamax Gengar with LickDynamax/Gigantamax Venusaur with Vine WhipDynamax/Gigantamax Blastoise with Water Gun

These guys’ job is just to soak up the damage from Machamp while generating as much energy as possible with their fast attacks. Note that your mileage may vary here — if Machamp knows Close Combat, your Blissey may have a harder time. If Machamp knows Payback, then your Gengar might be in trouble. If possible, bringing one of each and then swapping depending on Machamp’s moveset is going to be the to-go strategy here when it comes to tanking.

Consider just bringing the strongest Dynamax or Gigantamax Pokémon you have. If you have a maxed out Gigantamax Toxtricity and your Dynamax Metagross isn’t leveled (and you don’t have the means to power it up), just bring your Toxtricity.

General Gigantamax Machamp tips

If you’ve been struggling in Max Battles, here’s some general tips to survive — and make sure you’re an asset to your team. Gigantamax battles involve way more strategy than the usual rampant tapping that you do in raids, so make sure to know what you’re doing before jumping in.

Make sure you have enough players. High-efficiency groups with maxed out investments can take down the Machamp with fewer people, but practically, if you don’t have hundreds of spare candy and even more Stardust laying around, this isn’t going to be an option for you. Make sure you have as many people as possible to ensure that you get your beefy muscle man.Don’t sleep on Max Spirit and Max Guard. Teams work best when there’s a variety of moves, not just maxed-out attacks. Each player should bring Pokémon with the defensive and healing moves unlocked as well. Max Guard will focus single-target damage towards you and reduce the damage taken; Max Spirit will heal the whole party. These moves are really important to make sure your damage-dealers can keep dishing.Remember to swap to super effective moves when it’s time to Dynamax. For Dynamax Pokémon, their max moves are determined by whatever type their fast move is. This means if you have a Darmanitan with Fire Fang, it will know Max Flare. A Gengar with Lick will know Max Phantasm. Take advantage of this and make sure to swap to a Pokémon that will deal super effective damage to your target before Dynamaxing, if you can.Focus on your fast moves. You want to spam your fast moves to build up that Dynamax meter and often times, using your charge move is actually a DPS loss when compared to the damage you could be doing with your max move will be. Spam those attacks!Level up a few ‘mons, but you don’t have to go too hard. Depending on your group size, you absolutely do not need to max out all your Dynamax Pokémon to level 40-50. While this will make it easier on the rest of your group, if this isn’t an investment you can make, you don’t have to stress about it. Power things up as high as you can afford to, but don’t fret if you don’t have a maxed out Pokémon.All of that said, make sure to come as prepared as you can be. This is a team effort and there’s a chance that a full group of four can still fail. Do not just bring your unleveled Dynamax Wooloo expecting a free ride to a powerful Pokémon. (After all, if everyone does that, then you certainly won’t clear the battle.) Again, you don’t have to completely max out your Pokémon, but it will be better for everyone involved if you bring something helpful to the table.Keep your eye out for a shiny Machamp! If you clear the raid, there is a chance that the Machamp you catch will be shiny — which also means it’ll be a guaranteed catch. Use a Pinap Berry to score extra candy if you get lucky enough to find a sparkly Machamp.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

As a super soldier ready to face all kinds of demons, upgrading your armor is crucial if you want to win the war in Doom: The Dark Ages.

The upgrade system in Doom: The Dark Ages allows you to not only make your weapons and shield stronger. They can make you an invincible soldier—only if you obtain all the Demonic Essence from special enemies called “leaders.” You can find leaders that’ll increase capacity for your ammo, health, and armor.

But it’s all too easy to get lost in hell looking for Demonic Essence. In this Doom: The Dark Ages guide, we’ll cover how to upgrade your armor and show you where to find all armor upgrade leaders in the game.

How to upgrade armor in Doom: The Dark Ages

Armor in Doom: The Dark Ages works as a barrier, preventing your health from depleting when attacked. When all your armor bar is depleted, all damage will deplete your health bar. By having a larger pool of armor points, you can take more direct damage without worrying too much about losing health.

If you want to upgrade your armor, you need to collect the Demonic Essence from specific leaders. You can identify them based on a symbol above their heads. The leaders who give you the armor upgrade have a green shield symbol over their heads.

You can claim a leader’s Demonic Essence by defeating them in combat. Most encounters against leaders involve not only fighting a powerful foe but having to deal with their demonic companions who populate the arena.

Here’s a list of all the locations of armor upgrade leaders in Doom: The Dark Ages, followed by maps and a general explanation of how to defeat them.

Sentinel Barracks (Chapter 4)

The first leader who gives you an armor upgrade is found in Chapter 4 “Sentinel Barracks.” You’re led by the main mission to the red zone marked with a crowned skull icon.

The leader is an armored Mancubus. This is a stronger version of the regular Mancubus and they have unique attacks. Prioritize using the Accelerator weapon to break their armor.

This demon has unique attacks that you can parry. Wait for them to release a barrier with three fire points. One is always green, so position yourself and use your shield. Hitting the leader with their own attack helps to break their armor faster.

Siege – Part 1 (Chapter 6)

Destroying the Gore Portals in Chapter 6 “Siege – Parte 1” is a long mission, but it will inevitably lead you to the arena where the armor upgrade leader is. You can see the area by looking, from the initial gate to the right side of the map.

This is the first encounter with a leader who has a morale bar. This system gives leaders a shield that is only disabled after you have defeated a certain number of demons present in the area to deplete their morale bar.

Focus on the big ones — like the Mancubus who’s on a platform — to reduce larger chunks of the morale bar. Once the bar is down, it’s time to face the armor leader of this chapter, a Pinky Rider.

This boss wears armor, so you can follow the same strategy used against the previous leader. Parrying their Hell Surge arrows and shooting from afar is the best way to kill them and make sure you don’t die.

Abyssal Forest (Chapter 8)

Your journey as the Doom Slayer takes you to the Abyssal Forest in Chapter 8, trying to find the path to the Forge. In this chapter, you find another leader from whom you must claim an Armor Demonic Essence.

You can’t miss this leader since they are in a large area you must pass through during the main mission.

In this chapter, you need to follow another Pinky Rider leader, but this time they don’t have a morale bar. The process of defeating them is faster but not necessarily easier. Be careful with the other demons who are helping them and get yourself another Armor upgrade.

The Forsaken Plains (Chapter 10)

Chapter 10 “The Forsaken Plains” takes you to the remains of a battlefield where the body of an Atlan rests and one of the dangers you must face in this new area is an Armor upgrade leader.

You can find the leader by following the quest mark to the right side of the map. It will be pointing to one of the Hell Cannons that you need to destroy. In front of it, there is a red zone with a crowned skull icon.

The leader of chapter 10 is an armored Mancubus, an already familiar foe. However, this time they have a morale bar, elevating the difficulty of the encounter. Alongside the Mancubus, you will find armored Hell Knights, who can turn your life into hell.

Hellbreaker (Chapter 11)

After making your way through the infernal lands using the Atlan, it’s time to enter the castle and find Ahzrak in Chapter 11 “Hellbreaker.”

As you enter the actual building while progressing the main mission, you reach the arena where some demons like Whiplashes and Revenants will be waiting for you.

The leader of this chapter, an Agaddon Hunter, appears after you have defeated some of these initial enemies. Agaddon Hunters are strong enemies and they can become invulnerable when enveloped by a barrier.

They do perform, however, slash attacks that you can parry. Try to bait them and prepare your shield. Consider using your strongest close-range weapon for this fight.

From Beyond (Chapter 13)

You have a vast arsenal of weapons, a cyberdragon, and all the courage you could muster to face the giant tentacles from another world in Chapter 13 “From Beyond.” Use all you have to reach the final arena in the chapter and find another Armor upgrade leader.

The fight occurs in front of the final Demonic Portal and it is against a Revenant leader. They have a morale bar which you can quickly deplete by defeating the Imp Stalkers and Whiplashes in the area.

Even after the leader’s shield is down, a Vagary demon will appear. You should focus on defeating them before going after the leader since their attacks cover the arena.

As regular Revenant demons, the leader will shoot skulls of energy at you. Try to parry all green skulls to trigger your Shield Rune. When they freeze, parry the double projectiles. This will make the Revenant stop being invulnerable faster.

City of Ry’uul (Chapter 15)

Although the location of the leader in Chapter 15 “City of Ry’uul” is easily reached during the main mission, triggering the encounter involves finding a secret place.

Once you’re on the platform with a crowned red skull icon, use the green gate to reach the next platform. A Mancubus will appear to your right. Kill them and climb the wall. Cross to the other side of the new area, get close to the edge and drop to the lower level of this platform.

Use the newly formed green portal to cross the area and get to a platform with a tree. Destroy it with your shield to trigger the encounter with the leader.

You will be fighting an armored Hell Knight. The challenge is to survive against the other demons that appear on the platform. From Revenant to a Cosmic Baron, you need to beat them all before the leader spawns.

The Kar’Thul Marshes (Chapter 16)

You’re getting close to the end of the game but there are still some leaders to defeat. You find one of them in Chapter 16 “The Kar’Thul Marshes.”

The main mission in this chapter is to gather the Relic Fragments and as you get to one of them on the left side of the map, you can find the arena where you meet another Agaddon Hunter leader.

They have a morale bar and the enemies in the area are tough ones. There is a Cacodemon Hybrid and an Acolyte attacking you alongside the leader. Go after the former first since they are easy to hit, then look for the latter.

To defeat the leader, you can follow the same strategy we used in the previous encounter with one of these demons. Parry their attacks and hold your shots when they have the barrier around them.

Belly of the Beast (Chapter 18)

In Chapter 18 “Belly of the Beast,” you’re exploring the inside of a huge creature and looking for its weak spots. In the area where you find the first of these, you also find this chapter’s leader.

Before the fight can begin and the leader is summoned, you need to defeat some waves of enemies composed of Mancubus, Shield Soldiers, and a Cosmic Baron.

The leader is an Acolyte, one of the most annoying demons in Doom: The Dark Ages. They aren’t necessarily stronger than a Cyberdemon or an Agaddon Hunter, but they have a shield and warp to another location if you get too close.

Use a gun like the Impaler to damage them from afar and, if you can get close enough, use one of your shotguns or even the Rocket Launcher to hit them hard.

Resurrection (Chapter 20)

The mission to destroy all the Siege Towers in Chapter 20 “Resurrection” forces you to explore most of the areas in this chapter. You end up finding the last Armor upgrade leader in front of the tower on the right side of the map.

You will need to defeat another Acolyte leader and they get some help from all the other bad boys you have already faced. There is a Mancubus, a Cosmic Baron, a Cacodemon Hybrid, a Revenant, and more.

Although the leader doesn’t have a morale bar, you want to clear the area and be done with the secondary targets before you have to go play tag with the Acolyte. But by killing them you complete all the armor upgrades in the game.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

Grappling with mental health issues is a major theme in Brandon Sanderson’s epic fantasy series The Stormlight Archive. As the series’ heroes fight hostile armies and the machinations of a god bent on controlling the entire cosmere, they also have to confront their own depression, imposter syndrome, and repressed memories in order to grow and gain new magical powers. But it’s not just the people who need therapy — it’s just as valuable for the series’ sentient swords.

The Stormlight Archives is set on the wartorn world of Roshar, where the most powerful warriors wield massive swords known as Shardblades. Shardbearers can summon the six-foot blades from mist and turn the tide of battles by cutting through everything in their path. Princes duel each other to show off their combat prowess for the right to wield them.

But it turns out those swords used to be evencooler. Shardblades are the physical manifestation of spren, sentient fragments of the gods Honor and Cultivation that can bond with humans to bestow them with incredible powers like healing, flight, and the ability to create illusions. But long ago the humans laid down their blades and broke the oaths that bound them and their spren together. That process proved to be so traumatizing to the spren that it locked them in the shape of weapons in the physical world. In their own world, the Cognitive Realm, these spren appear to have their eyes scratched out and wander around catatonic.

Prince Adolin Kholin is blissfully unaware of all of this baggage when the series opens. He just loves fighting duels with his shardblade. But as the series goes on and his friends and relatives start bonding new spren, he starts feeling outclassed. His dad urges him to set aside his dead shardblade in the hopes of attracting a living spren, but he refuses to abandon it.

Instead he starts talking to his blade, imagining it was listening to him. And it turns out it was. Through persistence, he is able to reach Mayalaran, who shares her name and basic thoughts with him. That bond lets him summon the blade faster than normal and in the Cognitive Realm, Maya doesn’t just follow him aimlessly but fights on his behalf and eventually finds her voice again. Her connection to someone who wouldn’t give up on her allowed her to heal. Maya then becomes able to reach out to other spren who had similarly been viewed as irreparably broken and rallies them to help Adolin and the people he fought with. They found a path forward with a new sort of bond that didn’t put all the power in the hands of humans.

Sanderson further explores the theme of talking to those who seem unreachable with Adolin’s friend Kaladin, a surgeon’s apprentice turned legendary soldier. Adolin fights to help Kaladin cope with his depression and PTSD, and Kaladin takes that as a calling after discovering that the conventional medical wisdom is to leave the mentally ill alone in dark rooms. He starts using group therapy to help other soldiers. The work is so successful he’s tasked with helping Szeth, an extremely skilled warrior and assassin driven mad by a cycle of abuse and self-loathing.

Kaladin has a hard time reaching Szeth, but through extensive work is able to help him cope with his intrusive thoughts. But Szeth isn’t the only one who needs that therapy. The lessons are also learned by Szeth’s sentient sword Nightblood.

Nightblood looks like a Shardblade, but it was forged on another world with the purpose of destroying evil. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really understand what evil is. As a result, it’s often very cheerfully telling people who carry it that they should start killing people around them because they might be evil, and also it gets bored when sheathed. When it is wielded, it’s overwhelmed by bloodlust and will quickly drain the life from whoever is swinging it.

Kaladin teaches Szeth that he is not a thing — that he doesn’t deserve how he’s been treated as a pawn by greater powers. His words also hit home for Nightblood, who was sent across worlds for the purpose of killing a god. That therapy helps Szeth free his homeland from the same twisted force that ruined his childhood with Nightblood in hand, with the sword restraining itself and avoiding killing Szeth because it realized it’s also not a thing. It’s a triumph for the power of therapy for humans and sentient weapons alike.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

In Quentin Tarantino’s 2003 movie Kill Bill: Volume 1, vengeful assassin The Bride (Uma Thurman) seeks a sword from the legendary swordsmith Hattori Hanzō (Sonny Chiba). “I need Japanese steel,” she says. “I have vermin to kill.” Hanzō has sworn off making instruments of death, but when he learns the vermin is his former student Bill (David Carradine), he consents to forge her a new sword. It is his finest work. The Bride accepts the beautiful weapon in a solemn ceremony, and she’s off on her murderous way. It’s one of the coolest scenes in a cool movie.

Twenty years later, another female assassin got her own version of a Japanese swordcrafting story, in Amber Noizumi and Michael Green’s Netflix animated series Blue Eye Samurai. Mizu (Maya Erskine) is a half-white, half-Japanese warrior in the Edo period, filled with bitterness at her rejection by Japanese society, posing as a man, and seeking vengeance against four devilish white men, any of whom might be her father. In flashback, we learn how she was taken in as a child by the blind swordsmith Eiji (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), whom she calls Swordfather. She learned smithing from him, and swordfighting from his customers. She forges a sword using metal from a meteorite, and sets off on her murderous quest.

[Ed. note: Major spoilers ahead for Blue Eye Samurai.]

In its very first episode, Blue Eye Samurai pays a bold, direct tribute to Kill Bill. A Mizu training montage is soundtracked by Tomoyasu Hotei’s “Battle Without Honor or Humanity,” the guitar instrumental that was an iconic needle drop in Tarantino’s film, and went on to become a ubiquitous, almost clichéd shorthand for determined preparation and ice-cool swagger. Quoting it in such a similar story seems both obvious and risky. What if Blue Eye Samurai doesn’t measure up?

But perhaps this is both sincere homage and gentle misdirection on Noizumi and Green’s part. Because Blue Eye Samurai’s swordcrafting arc goes an awful lot deeper than Kill Bill’s version, and the creators have much more on their minds.

A swordcrafting story beat has obvious, mythic appeal. It’s a rest stop on the hero’s journey that allows them to reflect and gather strength; the preparation of the weapon mirrors the hero’s preparation to use it — they’re both being “tempered” and “sharpened.” It’s also an origin story for the weapon that imbues both it and the hero’s quest with resonance. (In the case of Kill Bill, The Bride’s sword is imbued with Hattori Hanzō’s regret at the countless lives his swords have taken, and with the righteousness of The Bride’s quest to kill the deadly Bill.) Above all, it emphasizes what makes the weapon special — and by extension, what makes its bearer significant. It’s a power fantasy. As Hattori Hanzō tells The Bride: “If on your journey you should encounter God, God will be cut.” Cool.

At first, it seems as though Blue Eye Samurai is heading in the same direction as Kill Bill, especially considering the mythic dimension of the meteorite sword. But Noizumi and Green deepen and complicate the swordmaster-and-student dynamic, weaving in the show’s themes of identity and trauma. Master Eiji teaches Mizu how to beat the impurity out of the metal — but tells her not to push too far. “An impurity in the right place is a quality,” he tells the girl, whose racial identity and gender are both considered impurities in this era and country — flaws the blind swordsmith can’t see, or chooses to ignore.

But the meteorite metal defeats him. “No man can tame this cursed metal,” Eiji says. But Mizu does. At the end of the first episode, as she leaves her Swordfather to go on her quest for revenge, she raps her new sword on the floor, and its unmistakable ringing sound tells Eiji she has succeeded where he failed. Oddly, though, we don’t see her forge her mythic weapon — at least, not the first time. Although Blue Eye Samurai is a revenge narrative, and it’s plenty bloody, Noizumi and Green are aiming for something other than the violent catharsis Tarantino is so drawn to.

Mizu’s sword serves her well on her adventures, and the two of them leave a trail of lopped-off limbs and heads behind them. But in a climactic confrontation in episode 6, the villainous Abijah Fowler (Kenneth Branagh) fires his flintlock at Mizu, and the shot shatters the sword’s blade. In episode 7, a similarly shattered Mizu returns to Master Eiji to reforge her weapon. “Your sword broke because the blend was wrong,” he says. “It was too pure. The metal wants to be blended with new steel.” But, disappointed in the heedlessness of Mizu’s thirst for blood, he refuses to reforge it: “The fire in you rages beyond control. I have no steel for you.” In other words, he’s effectively saying, “Your sword is broken because you are.”

Mizu resolves to smelt her sword down herself in a kiln of her own making, but fails at first. She falls back on the reflexive self-hatred of anyone who’s suffered a lifetime of discrimination: “Perhaps a demon cannot make steel,” she says. Master Eiji encourages her to try again, and it’s only when she smelts the metal as her true self — naked, breasts unbound, skin inscribed with the Heart Sutra (a key Buddhist text) — that she succeeds.

“A sword from this steel could kill a god,” Master Eiji says, in another nod to Kill Bill. But crucially, Mizu declines to use it to forge a new blade. “You were right, I don’t deserve a sword, not yet,” she says, vowing to continue her quest without it. “You can determine if I am worthy of a sword of this metal made by your hand.”

This level of self-knowledge and self-denial does not fit into the usual templates for a revenge story, or a swordcrafting arc. With a gentleness and nuance quite foreign to the heroic dimensions of these stories, Blue Eye Samurai folds Mizu’s complex, human relationships with both Master Eiji and herself into what’s usually a far simpler preparing-for-battle sequence.

Mizu’s original meteorite sword was not revered for its perfection, but flawed by it. It was a pure tool of killing, made in hatred and self-rejection, and at the moment of truth, it broke. Paradoxically, Mizu earns the right to reforge it by understanding that she is not yet ready to. Instead, she asks her Swordfather to one day make it for her, because a sword accepted as a gift of love from one father would be more beautiful and honest than a sword forged in hate to kill another.

It’s bold to tell a swordcrafting story in which the sword doesn’t actually get made. Perhaps we’ll get to see it in the show’s second season. But Blue Eye Samurai has already shown that it isn’t just a typical power fantasy or revenge story, and the sword at its center has an unusual depth of symbolism. In season 1 of the show, Mizu takes the first step toward becoming the person the sword deserves. There’s still a long road ahead for both of them.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

If you asked any Nintendo fan prior to the reveal of the Nintendo Switch 2, they’d likely tell you that the world would never see a sequel for Mario Kart 8. Why would Nintendo bother? A full decade after its release, the latest entry in the iconic racing franchise kept selling like hotcakes. In the age of live-service games, a company like Nintendo could simply continue updating the base game to its existing base of customers. Right?

Except, as it turns out, Nintendo was not merely sitting on its laurels. According to a new developer diary for Mario Kart World, the Japanese developer has quietly been working on a follow-up for Mario Kart 8 for a long time now. Technically, Nintendo was already thinking about what it might do in the next game during the development of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Actual prototype development began in March 2017, a few years after the initial 2014 release of Mario Kart 8.

While everyone assumed that Nintendo was just watching the money pile up, the reality was that Mario Kart World was initially intended for the original Nintendo Switch. The booster course packs that Nintendo released for Mario Kart 8 were an attempt to buy itself time while it figured out how to approach the next game.

What took things so long? Well, as it turns out, one-upping the most popular game in your modern catalog isn’t easy.

“I felt that in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, we were able to perfect the formula that we’d been following in the series up to that point, where players race on individual courses,” says Mario Kart producer Kosuke Yabuki. “That’s why, this time, we wanted the gameplay to involve players driving around a large world, and we began creating a world map like this.”

Nintendo knew that it couldn’t simply create new courses and characters and call it a day. Had that been the case, the sequel would have gone with a more iterative title like Mario Kart 9.

“In previous Mario Kart games, after finishing a course, you’d move on to the next course,” Yabuki continued. “However, I thought that with modern technology, being able to seamlessly transition between courses and realize a single, vast world wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. So, with this in mind, we set out to create a new kind of Mario Kart.”

Another wrinkle for Nintendo was the knowledge that many franchises were reinventing themselves in similar ways as the open-world structure became vogue. How would Mario Kart fit into the mix? Hearing Nintendo describe its conundrum, it really seems as if the company felt an immense pressure after the explosive success of Mario Kart 8. It then became easy to overthink minor details. Apparently, Mario Kart World’s creators often found themselves saying things like, “Well, that’s how we did it in the last game.”

Programming director Kenta Sato explains that from “a player’s perspective, it can sometimes feel particularly disappointing when a sequel changes too many things. So, as someone involved in game development, I felt that our first challenge was to figure out how to add new elements while still making it satisfying for those who’ve played previousMario Kartgames.”

Beyond mental roadblocks, Nintendo had to contend with technical hiccups as well. The Switch, as we know, is not a particularly powerful piece of hardware — which complicated the prospect of having 24 players in a single race.

“When we were developing for the Nintendo Switch system, it was difficult for us to incorporate everything we wanted, so we were always conscious of what we were giving up in return,” Sato says. “We discussed things like toning down the visuals, lowering the resolution, and we even considered dropping the frame rate to 30 fps in some cases. It was a tough situation.”

Eventually, once the prospect of a more powerful Switch was tangible, Nintendo didn’t have to think about how to pull off Mario Kart World in terms of trade-offs. The Switch 2 “suddenly opened up a bunch of possibilities on what we could do,” says Yabuki. “It was truly a ray of hope.”

You can read the full multi-part developer diary here, where they share details like how Nintendo came up with a playable cow and why food became such an important design pillar for Mario Kart World. No word, however, on how the Moo Moo cow feels about her comrades’ ability and willingness to pull up next to her eating a damn cheeseburger.

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From Polygon via this RSS feed

Early in Dragon Ball, Master Roshi destroys the moon, setting the stage for many more absolutely wild feats to come in the various Dragon Ball anime and manga series. Planets get blown up left and right, perhaps none more consequential than Frieza destroying Namek — which, of course, took longer to blow than the five minutes he threatened.

It’s a dramatic climax to perhaps the best saga in the entire franchise, and when it was done, both viewers and in-universe characters were left thinking the series’ biggest threat to date was done for. Frieza, already sliced in half by his own Destructo Disc-like attack, was blasted — and seemingly killed — by Goku (“You fool!”) and was unable to escape Namek before it went kablooey. And yet, somehow, Frieza survived in a remarkable display of resiliency.

In reality, he didn’t die because he needed to be fodder for the series’ next new and mysterious character: Trunks. Because the next time we see Frieza, he gets owned by the teenager’s sword.

This is a series where its protagonist flung himself straight through a Demon King as a kid, Buu’s screaming ripped a hole through dimensions, and multiple planets were destroyed throughout. So how in the world can such an intimidating foe get done in by a sword? Easy: rule of cool.

When Trunks arrives on the scene, he automatically becomes one of Dragon Ball’s coolest characters. The purple hair, Capsule Corp. jacket, mystery around his identity, and, of course, his sword all make him one cool dude. He’s also the first Super Saiyan we meet after Goku achieved the form (and before the series had a Super Saiyan bargain sale). And to display just how powerful Trunks was, Frieza had to go out like a chump.

Frieza’s body survived a lot of damage on Namek, even before he was sliced in half (and once again, Frieza’s final fight took much longer than five minutes). This dude ate a Spirit Bomb to the face and came out of it with, what, a swollen eye? And then a freakin’ sword does him in?

Rule of cool.

Trunks slicing Frieza in half produces quite the sick-ass shot in the anime. We’re treated to a POV look at Trunks sliding in half before the camera cuts to showing Frieza cleanly coming apart. The two halves then float in the air for a moment, giving us a gory peek at Frieza’s insides, before Trunks decides he isn’t done and puts his sword to further use. He chops Frieza up into chunky fleshy and mechanical bits and then decides to finish him off with a ki blast to the chunks, leaving nothing left of the once-frightening antagonist.

We get our first glimpse of who Trunks is here. His time battling the Androids made him all business; he wouldn’t be letting Frieza power up just to test himself. Instead, Trunks cuts down the threat before the threat can harm anyone. This is a sharp contrast to his father, who, of course, later on commits one of the Cell Saga’s worst sins in letting Cell become Perfect.

This isn’t the last time we see Trunks use his sword either. He brandishes it in Dragon Ball Super’s Future Trunks Saga against Goku Black, which is perhaps even more ridiculous, as Goku Black has the strength and resiliency of, well, Goku. Who has the God ki by that point. My word, what a wonderful series.

Trunks’ sword hits peak cool in that arc as he morphs it into something of a Spirit Bomb to use against Zamasu. Infused with the hope and ki of what’s left of humanity, I buy that his sword can not only hold up in a fight and not shatter, but slice cleanly through Zamasu in what’s kinda become Trunks’ signature move — slicing baddies to bits.

When a pervy old man can blow up a moon with his energy, maybe weapons like swords don’t make a lot of sense in the Dragon Ball universe. But because Trunks using his sword to slice bad guys in half is that cool, who’re we to say no?

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Cineverse dropped a first trailer today for the American release of Escape From the 21st Century, Yang Li’s frantic time-travel comedy movie about three hapless teenage nerds who mysteriously gain the ability to jump forward into their future adult bodies whenever they sneeze. The film, released in China in 2024, is the kind of goofy, high-energy, effects-driven mayhem that used to be the specialty of Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer producer/director/star Stephen Chow, but with a twist: This movie was more expressly made for a generation that grew up with video games.

That aspect of the story comes across most clearly in a subplot that turns an old Street Fighter II game cartridge into the movie’s central McGuffin. But it plays out on the screen as well, via comic overlays, anime-style splash screens, pop-ups that emphasize the action, and a training montage designed to turn the central threesome into video game characters. The story mostly plays out in live-action, but stylized animation gives the story some texture as well. Here’s Cineverse’s summary:

Escape from the 21st Century is a 2024 action sci-fi film from China that follows three teenage boys — Wang Zha, Chengyong, and Pao Pao — who stumble upon a time-traveling phenomenon after falling into a lake with mysterious colors. With every sneeze, they leap 20 years into the future, only to discover a world under threat by a powerful crime syndicate. As secrets unravel and loyalties are tested, the trio must train for two decades to return stronger and save humanity.

Escape from the 21st Century is scheduled to release in select American theaters on June 9, and will come to the streaming service Fandor later this year.

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When Disney initially invested $1.5 billion in Epic Games, a shape for the partnership seemed easy to trace. Surely, Fortnite would get lux branded skins alongside superhero-themed seasonal events, all tied to the release of major Marvel movies. Perhaps we’d see the digital equivalent of a Disney theme park? Nobody would have guessed that the deal would end up producing a slur-wielding AI of Darth Vader – much less that he might portend the future of the gaming industry at large.

AI was always coming for the world of video games, of course. Over the last few years, the fruit of AI has become impossible to avoid. Anything you Google will be answered with AI; feeds are flooded with AI-generated impossibilities molded to catch your attention. In the world of education, students can scarcely imagine a world without the help of ChatGPT.

By contrast, the provenance of AI has almost seemed absent in the gaming industry. At most, you’d get the occasional headline about a gaming company slipping in a piece of art that didn’t pass the human sniff test.

It’s not that the gaming industry isn’t interested in the technology. In late 2024, for example, Ubisoft revealed that it was working on a prototype that could aid its writers in generating narrative details for non-essential characters, with the ultimate goal of allowing players to freely converse with anyone without breaking immersion. But until Epic announced its AI version of Darth Vader for Fortnite, no major blockbuster video game had actually put similar technology in a release.

It would be a gamble. So far, users have been able to break and bend AI to behave in ways that the tech is explicitly programmed to avoid. Then you’ve got hallucinations, which refer to the instances where AI will make up an answer out of thin air. The prospect of trusting AI to interface with a real human being without something going wrong is a risky one, especially for a medium where users value a sense of immersion. The reputational damage that could befall a company like Nintendo if Mario ever got caught in a loop of saying something much worse than “vertical bar pilates” cannot be overstated. Imagine if Princess Peach got caught having a “heated gaming moment”?

Yet here we have Disney – one of the most valuable and premium brands in the world – birthing a Darth Vader meant to survive in the barbaric jungle of video game voice lobbies. Disney is a notoriously protective company that releases products only after they’ve been sanded to exude a perfect, inoffensive sheen. Anyone with a pulse could have predicted what happened next.

Both companies must have had an inkling of where things could go wrong. According to data miners, files inside the AI flagged topics like terrorism, a wide variety of vulgarities, and pre-set responses to potentially offensive prompts. Clearly, Epic Games didn’t account for every possible variation of the word “fucking.” And how could it? Fortnite players have figured out how to curse at each other using nothing more than sprays. Darth Vader never stood a chance.

To Epic Games’ credit, the company swiftly issued a patch to help bring Darth Vader into more brand-friendly territory. Whatever changes happened under the hood are working well enough to tamper the deluge of crass down to a faint trickle. People are still sharing clips of Darth Vader, but the nature of the posts is tamer – astonishing, even. Did you hear about the Darth Vader AI who won a tournament match?

So if Disney could brave it, why not others? Darth Vader, for all his mishaps, may be seen as being instructive more so than he might be viewed as a cautionary tale for gaming companies hoping to do the same. The embarrassment of a haywire bot can be muted, so long as the blunders are funny enough. No one would bat an eyelash if NPCs in Grand Theft Auto 6 started cursing and spouting bigotry.

The Vader experiment is likely only the beginning of something bigger. Disney certainly has high hopes for what the technology might do for the company. In a call with investors back in March, a couple of months before Darth Vader, Disney CEO Bob Iger called AI the “most powerful technology our company has ever seen.” But, he conceded, the company wants to move carefully when it comes to AI.

“Given the speed that [AI] is developing, we’re taking precautions to make sure of three things: One, that our IP is being protected,” Iger said in a call transcript by Variety. “That’s incredibly important. Second, that our creators are being respected, and last, that our customers are being considered and valued, particularly as this technology emerges rapidly.”

Respectability is the priority with the shortest description here, second to IP protection and the value provided to a consumer. Cynically, it is difficult to discern if looping in the estate of James Earl Jones was truly done to do Vader justice versus staving off the criticism that shadows other occurrences of an AI replicating the work of a real human being. More often than not, this sort of thing can come off as tasteless. For a tech debut of this magnitude, Disney likely wanted to have a semblance of ethical principles.

It is notable that the company specified the Darth Vader AI had the blessing of Jones’ estate given that the company has already used similar technology to voice the character in other forms of media. And last time, the news carried a heroic tinge: Darth Vader’s voice was created in a bomb shelter, amid the throes of a national war. If nothing else, the rollout of the AI voice tech shows that Disney knows how to play the PR game.

Still, in the wake of AI Vader, the vibes are ominous. Earlier this month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made headlines while discussing the concept of the loneliness epidemic. Meta’s experiments with things like celebrity AI chatbots, he suggested, serves a noble purpose. Most people don’t have nearly as many friends as they’d like, Zuck claimed. AI could fill that void, possibly better than an actual human could.

“Today, most of the time spent on Facebook and Instagram is on video, but do you think in five years we’re just going to be sitting in our feed and consuming media that’s just video?” Zuckerberg posed in a podcast. “No. It’s going to be interactive. You’ll be scrolling through your feed, and there will be content that maybe looks like a Reel to start, but you can talk to it, or interact with it, and it talks back, or it changes what it’s doing. Or you can jump into it like a game and interact with it. That’s all going to be AI.”

These days, people aren’t sharing clips of Darth Vader repeating puns straight out of a Bart Simpson prank call. They’re sharing how Darth Vader consoled them over the loss of a loved one. They’re in awe that Vader will tell them that they are valued and shouldn’t commit suicide. They’re slapping their knees as they annoy Darth Vader enough to force the AI to rage quit.

In the abstract, it’s easy to ridicule Mark Zuckerberg for implying that AI could ever replace the love and warmth of a living, breathing being. But we’re already venting to Darth Vader and falling in love with ChatGPT. Perhaps we are all still underestimating the power of the dark side.

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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt celebrated ten years of monster slaying on May 19, and publisher CD Projekt honored the milestone with an anniversary stream starring Geralt voice actor Doug Cockle, a stunning new trailer, and The Witcher 3 price drops across platforms for those who aren’t one of the 50 million who’ve already purchased it. Yet, while you may want to celebrate by booting up The Witcher 3 for one more hunt, consider instead diving into the books that provided the foundation for CD Projekt Red to build the games upon.

I bought The Witcher 3 five years ago, but to avoid another Game of Thrones situation (where silly me watched the show before reading the books), I committed to reading the entire book series before installing the game. And I’m so glad I did! Andrzej Sapkowski’s two short story collections and six novels all tell an amazing story, as well as provide so much context and depth for the events of The Witcher 3.

If you start The Witcher 3 without the knowledge of the books, you’ll be unknowingly hindering the emotional impact of so many characters and quests in The Witcher 3. Take Geralt and Yen, for example. Their fates are literally tied together due to the events of the short story “The Last Wish,” and Geralt’s wish ensures they never stray from the other’s orbit for long. Yet The Witcher 3’s quest of the same name explores the wish’s impact from Yen’s point of view; it’s left her with an uneasy feeling regarding what the two truly mean to one another, leading to one of the best quests in the entire game — one that I don’t think can emotionally resonate with the same impact if you hadn’t read about these two from their from first meeting onward. They’ve both loved and hurt each other over the years, but are meant to be together, djinn or no djinn.

Reading the short story collections and novels will also introduce you to some of the best supporting characters found in Witcher canon. The later books mostly concern Geralt’s pursuit of a missing and fleeing Ciri, and along the way he’s joined by his Hansa, a Fellowship of The Ring-like group of excellent supporting characters. While you certainly know Dandelion from the games, the Hansa also includes the heroic Nilfgaardian soldier Cahir and my personal favorite Milva, human ally to the majority-elven guerilla fighters Scoia’tael. Each member of Geralt’s Hansa has a captivating arc, and the books are perhaps worth reading for them alone.

With The Witcher 4 too many years away, now is the perfect time to dive into Sapkowski’s eight-book series (with a ninth on the way!). Not only will the books enrich your experience playing The Witcher 3, but they’ll also provide context on why this saga was Ciri’s story all along. Yes, the books are told mostly from Geralt’s perspective and you embody him in the games, but his role in the novels is in part to advance Ciri’s plot, to save her from falling in the machinations of evil men like Emhyr and Vilgefortz who want to use her and her Elder Blood gene to advance their own schemes.

Having Ciri star as a Witcher in CDPR’s next game and follow in her father figure’s footsteps is a natural continuation of her story. Yes, this may essentially canonize one of the multiple endings of The Witcher 3, but the other two — her dying, or her becoming empress of Nilfgaard — either cut her journey short or don’t quite fit the character.

There’s a vocal minority on the internet that tends to cry out when *gasp* a woman stars as the playable character in a game, and that group has let their thoughts be known about Ciri. To them, I say listen to Geralt himself (well, his voice actor) and “read the damn books” — anyone who does will soon realize this saga has always been about Ciri.

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Pokémon Go players can buy a “Fuzzy Fighter” paid Special Research ticket for $8 as part of the “Final Strike: Go Battle Week” event. The ticket was only originally available for purchase from March 5-10, but it’s available again until May 27, making many wonder: Is this “Fuzzy Fighter” Special Research worth buying?

You can get one Kubfu for free from the “Might and Mastery” research, though if you want a second one, you’ll need to buy this research.

Below, we explain our thoughts behind the value of the “Fuzzy Fighter” Special Research and list out all the steps for the research.

Update (May 21): We’ve confirmed more information about Dynamax Kubfu and have updated this guide to reflect that.

Is the ‘Fuzzy Fighter’ Special Research ticket worth it?

The short answer is: If you really want a second Kubfu, then yes, but note that the Kubfu you get is only Dynamax and it will be powercrept eventually by Gigtanamax Urshifu.

Let’s break it down, using prices from the Pokémon Go webstore (as usual) to be as thrifty as possible.

The pass costs $8 and there’s no $8 coin bundle. Math-ing it out, $8 is roughly 1,100 coins, based on the $10 coin bundle. This pass gives the following rewards:

10 Pinap Berries4 Golden Razz Berries4 Silver Pinap Berries20 Poké Balls20 Great Balls20 Ultra Balls1 Incense1 Star Piece5 Hyper Potions5 Revives2 Premium Battle Passes5 Rare Candies

Buying the pass from the webstore also gives you an additional three Rare Candies and three Max Revives. You can only buy a few things from the above list from the in-game shop, and those items total up to 440 PokéCoins. That said, of course, you can’t buy things like Ultra Balls, Rare Candy, and the special berries, so while they don’t have an exact PokéCoin value, so you’ll need to use your own discretion to value those items based on your own needs.

As part of the pass, you’ll also get encounters with Stufful, Teddiursa, Tyrogue, Cubchoo, Pancham, and of course, a second Dynamax Kubfu.

If you just want a second Kubfu for your collection, that’s a good enough reason to grab this pass. However, if you’re big into Max Battles, then it’s a little more complicated than that — and in fact might not be worth it after all.

When this research was first available in March, we didn’t know if the “Might and Mastery” research would follow the path that Kubfu does in the mainline Pokémon games. The Isle of Armor DLC for Pokémon Sword and Shield revolves its story around Kubfu. You get one, you train it into an Urshifu — and then you give it a special soup that allows it to Gigantamax. However, now that the research can be fully completed, we know that your Dynamax Kubfu is going to stay Dynamax. No soup for him!

If you like Max Battles a lot, you will prefer a Gigantamax Urshifu, not one that Dynamaxes. Dynamax Urshifu will very likely be heavily outclassed in stats by Gigantamax Machamp and you may not want to sink all that hard-to-get candy and Stardust into a critter that will be outclassed by another version of itself down the line. As of writing this, Dynamax Urshifu has its uses (depending on which form you pick), but any hardcore Max Battler will likely have the Pokémon that outclass it (Gengar and Inteleon) already.

Gigantamax Urshifu will be worth investing into, whenever it does appear, but for now that second Dynamax Kubfu doesn’t have too much use.

‘Fuzzy Fighter’ Special Research steps and rewards

Below, we list the full steps and rewards for the “Fuzzy Fighter” Special Research.

‘Fuzzy Fighter’ step 1 of 5

Catch 30 Pokémon (2 Golden Razz Berries)Collect 500 Max Particles (Stufful encounter)Spin 10 PokéStops or gyms (20 Poké Balls)

Rewards: 1 Incense, 10 Pinap Berries, 1,000 Stardust

‘Fuzzy Fighter’ step 2 of 5

Explore 5 km (20 Great Balls)Spin 20 PokéStops or gyms (Teddiursa encounter)Power up fighting-type Pokémon 10 times (2 Silver Pinap Berries)

Rewards: 1 Premium Battle Pass, 5 Revives, 1,000 XP

‘Fuzzy Fighter’ step 3 of 5

Use 10 berries to help catch Pokémon (20 Ultra Balls)Win 3 raids (Tyrogue encounter)Power up water-type Pokémon 10 times (10 Kubfu Candy)

Rewards: 1 Star Piece, 5 Hyper Potions, 1,000 Stardust

‘Fuzzy Fighter’ step 4 of 5

Catch 15 different species of Pokémon (2 Golden Razz Berries)Defeat 5 Team Go Rocket members (Cubchoo encounter)Power up dark-type Pokémon 10 times (10 Kubfu Candy)

Rewards: 1 Premium Battle Pass, 5 Rare Candies, 1,000 XP

‘Fuzzy Fighter’ step 5 of 5

Earn 5 candies exploring with your buddy (2 Silver Pinap Berries)Make 2 excellent throws (Pancham encounter)Level up a Max Move (10 Kubfu Candy)

Rewards: Dynamax Kubfu encounter, 3 Kubfu Candy XL, 1,000 Stardust

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Guillermo del Toro recently spoke at the Cannes Film Festival, sharing some details about his upcoming film Frankenstein, set to release on Netflix later this year. As reported by Variety, he said he’s been asked whether his movie will have “really scary scenes.” That prompted the Academy Award-winning director to ponder how people would receive the movie made: “For the first time, I considered that. It’s an emotional story for me. It’s as personal as anything. I’m asking a question about being a father, being a son… I’m not doing a horror movie — ever. I’m not trying to do that.”

While it can be confusing to hear a man with story and producer credits on a film literally called Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (adapted from the excellent book of the same name) say he’s “not trying to do” horror, that mindset aligns with most of his career.

Del Toro’s early movies, like Cronos and The Devil’s Backbone, can certainly be classified as horror. While his later films feature frightening elements, though, they break away from conventional horror and lean more into gothic fantasies and dark fairy tales. I was as scared as anyone by the Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth, perhaps his most famous film, but that doesn’t make it a horror movie. It’s more of a fantasy and a parable, examining the realities of war through the eyes and imaginative reinterpretations of a young girl.

Though Crimson Peak tells a ghost story, it features romance at its core. And The Shape of Water continues a focus on romance, as well as telling a story centered around embracing the Other. With an ending that sees protagonist Elisa (Sally Hawkins) becoming a mythical creature herself, it’s more of a fairy tale than a horror film.

Emphasizing with the ostracized is at the core of plenty of del Toro’s work, whether its Elisa and The Amphibian Man’s fairy-tale-esque love story or Hellboy’s pursuit of normalcy in del Toro’s adaptation of Mike Mignola’s comics. “The first time I thought I was going to avenge the creature was when Marilyn Monroe is coming out [of 1954’s The Creature from the Black Lagoon] in The Seven Year Itch with Tom Ewell, and she says the creature just needed somebody to like him,” del Toro said at Cannes. “I fell in love with Marilyn, and I fell in love with the creature in that scene at a very early age. And I thought, you know, all we have is people that look at people the wrong way. That’s what we have in this world.”

Don’t expect Frankenstein to be any different. “[F]or me, it’s an incredibly emotional movie,” del Toro said. With its focus on the parental relationship between Victor Frankenstein and his creation, Frankenstein sounds similar to del Toro’s last film, the stop-motion Pinocchio. “[Geppetto] has asked, almost like in a horror tale: ‘I want my child back.’ And the child comes back in a way that he doesn’t recognize,” del Toro told Polygon about Pinocchio in 2022. It marked his return to animation after a pooping burglar destroyed his first attempt at the medium. Now that’s what I’d consider a horror story.

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Xbox Game Pass appears to be taking a page from Nintendo Switch Online’s playbook by adding a slew of classic titles to its library.

Xbox and Antstream Arcade have joined forces to launch Retro Classics, which gives all Game Pass members access to a 50+ collection of Activision titles like “Commando, Grand Prix, Kaboom!, Mech Warrior 2: 31st Century Combat, and Pitfall!”according to Xbox.

The initiative is described as a “commitment to game preservation and backwards compatibility,” as such, these titles will be available to play “across console, PC, and on supported devices with cloud gaming.” That means Xbox consoles, the Xbox app on PC, supported LG and Samsung smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV devices, and Meta Quest headsets. To access Retro Classics, users must download it via a Game Pass membership.

Players can also compete against friends, rivals, or the global community through unique challenges. What’s more, it offers the ability to save and reload progress, “a first for many classic titles,” Xbox boasts. Additional games are slated to arrive from Activision and Blizzard, with an expectation to have over 100+ titles added to the collection over time.

Now it’s obvious Xbox itself doesn’t have a bag of classic titles as deep as Nintendo, which has been churning out games since the first Star Wars trilogy. But it is good to see Microsoft putting those retro Activision classics to good use after acquiring the company a couple of years back.

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