Another weekend, another visit from Xur and his bag of Exotics in Destiny 2. The latest update to the game made another big change to Xur’s inventory, giving you even more chances to get the Exotic weapons and armor you might not have. Unfortunately, though, Xur is only carrying Year One Exotics this week.
To find Xur this weekend, head to the Tower. Drop onto the Hangar side and head to the stairs behind where the Dead Orbit folks hang out. You’ll find Xur up on a catwalk near the edge of the area. Leading Xur’s haul is the Jade Rabbit Exotic scout rifle, which gives you extra precision damage when you chain body shots, and also returns ammo to the gun’s magazine.
In the armor category, Titans can snag the Dunemarchers leg armor, which increases your sprint speed and builds up a static charge when you sprint, which releases chain lightning when you use melee attacks on enemies. Hunters get the Lucky Pants leg armor, which increase the handling speed of hand cannons and load rounds into your stowed hand canons when you nail precision shots with other guns. Finally, for Warlocks, there’s Starfire Protocol, an Exotic chest armor that gives you an additional Fusion grenade charge, with grenades giving you Rift energy and damage from Rift empowered weapons giving you grenade energy.
Here are all the Exotics Xur offers this week and what they’ll cost you:
If you’re bummed with the Year One haul Xur brings this week, you’ve got another option: You can purchase a Fated Engram. Starting this week, Fated Engrams can now dish out Exotics from the Forsaken expansion. If there’s anything you’re missing from the first expansion of Year Two, you can now potentially get it, if you can afford it–Fated Engrams will run you 97 Legendary Shards, and you can only get one per account each week. Xur also offers the Five of Swords challenge card for free, which allows you to add difficulty modifiers that increase your score in Nightfall runs.
Xur also brings another Invitation of the Nine this week, a weekly bounty that gives you a Powerful gear drop, a bit of story about the Nine, and a new Lore entry. If you’ve been keeping up each week, this one will send you to Mercury to complete Garden World Strike. You’ll also need to kill Cabal, Hive, and Vex enemies.
Epic Games has nerfed Fortnite: Battle Royale’s Baller vehicle. In a post on Reddit, the developer stated it has “deployed a hotfix reducing the health of The Baller from 300 to 200,” meaning no title update is necessary for the change to take effect.
“In the 8.20 patch notes, we said we would add the ability to shoot through the glass of Ballers in a future update,” Epic continued. “We’ve played with shooting through glass and it didn’t feel like the right solution.”
The Baller was first introduced last month, and allows players to ride around the map like a hamster in a wheel. Epic clearly felt the vehicle was overpowered, however, hence the reduction in health.
A little more than a year ago, Vivendi finally lost to Ubisoft in a lengthy, messy legal battle for control of Ubisoft. Vivendi ended up selling its remaining stock in Ubisoft, effectively severing its relationship with the company. Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot isn’t being coy when he calls the whole ordeal a “fight.”
is not easy to do in huge companies,” Guillemot said on this month’s episode of IGN Unfiltered. “So when you’re attacked with a company that has a different philosophy, you know it can affect what you’ve been creating from scratch. So you fight with a lot of energy to make sure it can’t be destroyed.”
In early March, PlayStation’s Great Indoors Sale knocked the price of one-year PS Plus member down to $45 (it usually sells for $60), and while that sale has long since ended, anyone who didn’t stock up on another PS Plus subscription has another chance to get it for that price. Right now, a one-year PS Plus membership is discounted to $50 at Newegg, and if you use the promo code EMCTYUV58, another $5 will be slashed from the price, marking it down to $45.
As a reminder, you can stack PS Plus subscriptions, so even if you’re already a member, here’s a great chance to renew your subscription at a discount. Newegg is limiting this deal to two per customer, but you’ll still walk away paying $90 for two one-year subscriptions instead of $120 (or $45 instead of $60, if you opt for just one). A PS Plus membership not only extends to PS4, PS3, and Vita systems, but will most likely roll over to PlayStation’s next-generation console, too.
The deal ends Sunday, so act fast, especially if your PS Plus subscription is scheduled to expire soon.
PS Plus is PlayStation’s premium monthly subscription that grants access to online multiplayer, free monthly PS4 games, and exclusive discounts. April’s games for PS Plus members include science-fiction RPG The Surge and open-world survival game Conan Exiles, both of which are free to download for the rest of the month. Another new perk of PS Plus: Sony recently rolled out the PSN ID change feature, and while the first time you change your ID is free, subsequent changes carry a $10 fee–except for PS Plus members, who will only have to pay $5 each time.
Niantic has a couple of big events lined up for Pokemon Go next week, from a special Latios Raid to the return of the annual Eggstravaganza. Before that, however, the developer is holding April’s Community Day. The monthly event returns this Saturday, April 13, giving players around the world another chance to earn bonuses and capture some rare Pokemon–including a new Shiny.
Just like previous months, April’s Community Day will only run for three hours, during which you’ll be able to find increased spawns of this month’s featured Pokemon. While the duration period is always the same, the particulars of each Community Day–such as what time it starts and what other bonuses you’ll be able to earn–typically vary month by month, so we’ve rounded up all the important details you need to know about this month’s event below.
What Is The Featured Pokemon?
Each Community Day, Niantic designates one “featured” Pokemon that’ll serve as the star of the event. Throughout the Community Day, the featured Pokemon will spawn more frequently in the wild than it normally does, making it a good opportunity to stock up on them. On top of that, Community Days typically offer players their first opportunity to catch the Shiny version of that month’s featured Pokemon, and the monster can learn a special move if it fully evolves by the end of the event.
The featured Pokemon for April’s Community Day is Bagon, the first form of the fan-favorite Dragon Pokemon Salamence. Throughout the event, Bagon will be much more common than it normally is, and you’ll have your first chance to capture a Shiny Bagon. Moreover, if you manage to evolve Bagon all the way into Salamence up to an hour after the event ends, it’ll automatically know the powerful Dragon-type attack Outrage.
What Time Does It Start?
Up until last month, Niantic traditionally held each Community Day during a specific window of time, which varied depending upon your region; in North America, for instance, the event would always run from 11 AM – 2 PM PT, while Europe’s Community Day would take place from 10 AM – 1 PM UTC.
Beginning in March, however, Niantic changed the schedule for Community Days. Rather than holding the event during specific times in each region, it will now take place everywhere from 3-6 PM local time. This should make it much easier to remember when the Community Day is happening, as you no longer need to convert the event hours to your time zone.
What Other Bonuses Are There?
Along with increased Pokemon spawns, Niantic offers a few other bonuses during each month’s Community Day as an extra incentive to go out and participate in the event. This month, you’ll earn triple the usual amount of XP for capturing Pokemon throughout the Community Day. Additionally, Lure Modules–which typically only last 30 minutes–will remain active for three hours when used during the event.
Star Wars Celebration is finally here, and there are several noteworthy panels poised to announce details about upcoming games, movies, and TV shows. The event is scheduled for the full weekend, so we’ll keep updating this hub of information with additional announcements as they occur.
Ahead of Star Wars Celebration, we already know there are scheduled panels for the upcoming movie Star Wars: Episode IX, as well as TV shows The Mandalorian and The Clone Wars animated series. Respawn is also set to have an official reveal for its scheduled Star Wars video game, Jedi Fallen Order. The full schedule is available for anyone to see, and many of the panels will be live streamed. So if you can’t make it out to Chicago this weekend, you can still follow along online.
Star Wars Celebration is an annual event for fans of the stories told a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away. Although there are several exhibits, panels, and viewings that celebrate Star Wars vibrant past, most of the event is devoted to teasing tidbits of the franchise’s future, whether that’s new movies, television shows, books, or comics.
One significant piece of news that came out just before the start of Celebration, aside from what we learned about Disney+, concerns the post-Episode IX Star Wars movies. According to Disney boss Robert Iger, there will be “a bit of a hiatus” after that movie. Subsequent films are already in development, but it seems like the recent, rapid-fire pace of new movies will slow down somewhat as Lucasfilm focuses on its Disney+ shows.
There are two major panels at Star Wars Celebration this year. The first is devoted to Episode IX and is occurring today at 11 AM CDT, which works out to 12 PM ET, 9 AM PT, 5 PM GMT, and 4 AM AEDT in Australia on Saturday. The second is scheduled for the reveal of Respawn’s upcoming Star Wars game, Jedi Fallen Order, and happens on Saturday at 1:30 PM CDT, which works out to 2:30 PM ET, 11:30 AM PT, 7:30 PM GMT, and 6:30 AM AEDT in Australia on Sunday.
Star Wars: Episode IX has yet to be named, but we expect that to change very soon. Completing the third Star Wars trilogy that started with J.J. Abrams’ The Force Awakens, Episode IX is scheduled to release in December 2019. Initially, Jurassic World’s Colin Trevorrow was directing the final major act of Rey, Finn, and Poe’s story, but Disney fired him over creative differences. Abrams was brought on as his replacement.
Little is known about the plotline for Episode IX. The Last Jedi dismissed several of the more notable plotlines surrounding the characters from The Force Awakens–such as the importance of Snoke and Captain Phasma, as well as the identity of Rey’s parents. However, The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson has said he’d be okay if Abrams chooses to retcon Rey’s parentage in Episode IX.
Jedi Fallen Order
Like Episode IX, little has been confirmed about Respawn’s Jedi Fallen Order. A brief teaser of a broken lightsaber’s glowing hilt accompanied by the message “Don’t stand out” has been released, and, during E3 2018, Respawn boss Vince Zampella announced Jedi Fallen Order would take place after Revenge of the Sith. The game puts players into the boots of a Jedi padawan that escapes Order 66, and will release during 2019’s holiday season. Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords writer Chris Avellone has also announced he’s finished his portion of Jedi Fallen Order.
Additional details are expected to be revealed during the Jedi Fallen Order panel during Star Wars Celebration. “Join the head of Respawn Entertainment, Vince Zampella, and Game Director, Stig Asmussen, along with many special guests, to be the first to learn about this holiday’s highly anticipated action adventure game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order,” the panel description reads. “Hear how Respawn and Lucasfilm collaborated on this original Star Wars story, following a young Padawan’s journey in the Dark Times following Order 66. And of course, we’ll have a few surprises in store.”
The Clone Wars Animated Series
Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series is getting a surprise seventh season, which sees the reunion of Anakin Skywalker and his padawan learner, Ahsoka Tano, after she left the Jedi Order at the end of Season 5.
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Based on the Season 7 San Diego Comic-Con trailer–which can be seen above–the show’s return picks up mere moments before the start of Revenge of the Sith. Anakin and Obi-Wan are called in to take a hologram call, only to see that it’s Ahsoka and Mandalorian warrior Bo-Katan Kryze. In the novel Ahsoka, we learn that Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka reunite on Mandalore after Ahsoka leaves the Jedi Order–just prior to the former two being called away to save Chancellor Palpatine from being kidnapped by General Grievous. However, before then, the three, along with Clone Captain Rex and Commander Cody, go on to fight in one last battle: the Siege of Mandalore.
The Mandalorian
The Mandalorian is one of the TV series to launch with Disney+, the company’s new streaming service. The series takes place prior to the events of The Force Awakens, and a panel during Star Wars Celebration is scheduled to reveal additional details.
The first season consists of eight episodes and showrunner Jon Favreau believes it will serve as a good entry point for those unfamiliar with Star Wars. “Since we’re starting with new characters in a new time period, it’s a great way to bring new fans in,” he said.
Anticipation is sky-high for Star Wars: Episode IX, which releases in December and will complete the current trilogy that kicked off with 2015’s The Force Awakens. But fans will have to wait for the next movie in the franchise, with Disney boss Bob Iger revealing that Star Wars on the big screen will soon be going on “hiaitus.”
In an interview with Bloomberg to mark the launch of the annual Star Wars Celebration this weekend, Iger stated that the studio plans to take some time off after Episode IX hits theaters. “We have not announced any specific plans for movies thereafter,” he said. “There are movies in development, but we have not announced them. We will take a pause, some time, and reset, because the Skywalker saga comes to an end with this ninth movie. There will be other Stars Wars movies, but there will be a bit of a hiatus.”
Iger told Bloomberg that the studio plans to focus on Star Wars TV projects for the time being. It has been confirmed that the live-action TV show The Mandalorian will be available on the streaming service Disney+ when it launches in November. In addition, there is a series focused on the Rogue One character Cassian Andor in the works, plus a new season of the animated show The Clones Wars.
Episode IX will be the fifth Star Wars movie to be released in four years. While The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and Rogue One were big box office hits, last year’s Solo: A Star Wars Story was the first commercial failure in the series. After the movie only grossed $392 million worldwide, there were reports that Disney’s plans for more spin-off movies had been cancelled.
In terms of the Star Wars movies that we know about, there are separate trilogies in development from Last Jedi director Rian Johnson and Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss. It was recently rumored that Benioff and Weiss’s films will be set in the Old Republic, several thousand years before the events of the current movies.
For more on Star Wars Celebration, go to GameSpot sister site CNET to see a full rundown of what to expect from the show.
