Planning to upgrade your weapons and armors in Assassin's Creed Shadows? Your gear pieces, once acquired, are set based on your character's level. As such, they won't be viable as you continue to progress. The damage that your weapon deals, and the bonuses provided by your armor, might not be enough for tougher encounters. Our guide discusses how the blacksmith upgrade mechanic works so you can continue using your armaments in the long run.Table of Contents [hide]How to upgrade weapons and armor in Assassin's Creed ShadowsHow to upgrade weapons and armor in Assassin's Creed ShadowsUpgrading weapons and armors is fairly straightforward. You simply need to recruit the blacksmith NPC, Heiji, and then build the Forge facility in your hideout.You'll receive the quest to find Heiji early in the campaign. After the introductory portion, Tomiko tells Naoe that a man named Heiji might be able to help your cause.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Are you curious about how to get more scouts in Assassin's Creed Shadows? These NPCs are more akin to a resource, as they can be used to discover the exact locations of objectives based on clues. Moreover, they can gather materials for future use. We've got a guide to help you with this particular feature so you can have a smoother playthrough.Table of Contents [hide]How to get more scouts in Assassin's Creed ShadowsScout uses and utility functionsHow to get more scouts in Assassin's Creed ShadowsYou can get more scouts, or refill your available scouts, via certain buildings in your hideout, like the Kakurega and Study. A couple of helpers also join up as part of an early-game encounter.Scout uses and utility functionsAs mentioned earlier, scouts have two key functions:Continue Reading at GameSpot

Added to Cookie Run: Kingdom via the Match Made With Oven event, Black Forest Cookie comes with a very special skill that makes it work best when paired with her duo. But even without that, Black Forest Cookie is still a worthy character on her own that can shine with a wide variety of other cookies as well.

Squid Game is regarded as one of the best live action series of recent times for many reasons, with one of them being its innate unpredictability. Hwang Dong-hyuks critically acclaimed dystopian thriller does an excellent job at making the viewer feel that every character is unsafe, and that they can die at any point in the story.

Thrown to the Dogs is an early quest you can find in Assassins Creed Shadows in the Izumi Settsu region. It is part of the People of Settsu board of your Objectives menu.The quest starts with finding an abandoned dog at a grave who youll have to follow to find his owners hidden inheritance.Our Assassins Creed Shadows guide will tell you how to start Thrown to the Dogs, where to find the dog, and where to find the key to complete the quest.Where to find the dog in Thrown to the DogsThe Thrown to the Dogs quest will be on the People of Settsu board of your Objectives menu after you reach the Hideout in the main story. The start point for the quest will already be on your map. Look for it northeast of Osaka and northwest of Tennoji Temple, home to three Lost Pages.When you arrive at the location, the marker will disappear and youll have a fuzzy area to explore. Start on the Tennoji Temple area on the east side of the blur. Theres a narrow path leading out of a cemetery and up a small hill. Follow that path through the trees.At the top, youll meet a stray dog who has had a rough go of it. Pet him and learn that he belonged to a man named Ichiro.After you pet him, youll follow the dog for a ways down the road. Along the way, youll have to deal with a few samurai.Eventually, hell lead you to an estate. There, youll meet Ichiros sister, Takako, who will explain that her brother hid their inheritance and the key somewhere. However you deal with Takako, your next objective is to find the key and claim the inheritance.Where to find Ichiros key in Thrown to the DogsObserve your environment (holding down L2/LT on a default scheme) to look around and youll highlight three locations with blue dots. The one youre after is to the right (northeast) of where you talked to Takako.Loop around to the back of the building to find a gap where you can crawl under the floor. Crawl along until you can pick up Ichiros key.When you crawl back out, the dog will be gone. Naoe will say he probably went back to the gravesite. Luckily, your map will have a waypoint for you this time.Back at the grave, open the box the Tsuki-maru dug up to claim the inheritance: Ichiros Letter, 60 minerals for your Hideout, and a Tsuki-maru pet.How to invite Tsuki-maru to your HideoutNaoes comment that Tsuki-maru would make a great guard dog is more than an empty promise. Head back to the Hideout and go to the table in the Hiroma room to improve Hideout.Open the Build menu and tab over to Dogs (and Cats) on the right. From there, you can place Tsuki-maru in your Hideout along with any other dogs and cats youve met.For more Assassins Creed Shadows guides, see our running lists of Lost Pages, Kuji-kiri, and armor locations. Or see our full Assassins Creed Shadows walkthrough, and our guides on how to get all companions and romance options.

In Assassins Creed Shadows, youll need to accrue mastery points in order to level up your various skill trees. You get them by leveling up, but there are a few ways you can score extra mastery points as you explore Japan.Below, we explain what mastery points do and how to find more of them in Assassins Creed Shadows.What are mastery points in Assassins Creed Shadows?Mastery points are used for unlocking skills via the skill tree and shouldnt be confused with knowledge points, which are used for expanding the number of skills youre able to unlock in each mastery skill tree.Mastery points are used for unlocking the individual skill on the skill tree. The more advanced the skill, the more mastery points itll cost. If you want to flesh out a ton of different skill trees, youll need to collect a ton of mastery points.How to get mastery points in Assassins Creed ShadowsYoull get mastery points as you level up, at a rate of one mastery point per level. You can gain XP by completing quests, taking down enemies, and doing just about any form of completable content in the game.You can also earn mastery points from a few kinds of activities, including the following:Killing Samurai Daisho in castles, which will reward you with one point per killDefeating The Onryo, big baddies that have quest prerequisites that bring you closer to the targetClearing optional bounties associated with organizations like The KabukimonoYou can see the castles on the map as objectives (obscured by question marks until you get close enough) and inspecting the map icon will tell you how many Samurai Daisho (and mastery points) there are at that castle. The Onryo and other optional targets are viewable via the Objectives menu. The harder the target, the more mastery points youll get.For more Assassins Creed Shadows explainers, heres how to get more knowledge points, how to get more rations, how to get more scouts, and how to get all companions and romance options. Plus, see our all weapons and all armor lists.

While Apple has offered password management solutions for years, it was only this past fall that the company finally rolled out a dedicated passwords app, appropriately named "Passwords." It's a bit basic, but it's built into the OS, and it gets the job done. (It's also free, which helps.) If you're fully into the Apple ecosystem, it's an easy way to create, store, and access the passwords of your numerous accounts. However, as it happens, Passwords has a critical security flaw that Apple only recently addressed.Here's the situation: Passwords has a security feature that helps you change an account's password directly within the Passwords app. This is particularly helpful if the app detects that one of your accounts' passwords has been compromised. You can tap on the account, choose "Change Password..." and open an in-app browser that will direct you to the account's website, where you can change your password.As convenient as this feature is, it contained a significant security risk. As discovered by security researchers with Mysk, whenever you tapped "Change Password..." on an account, Passwords would connect to the site using an unencrypted HTTP protocol, before redirecting to the encrypted HTTPS protocol. This encryption protects your connection between your device and the website you're visiting. Without it, an actor with privileged network access could take over the connection and redirect the link. Let's say the Passwords app warns you that your Yelp password has been compromised, and you need to change it. No problem: You tap your Yelp account in the app, then choose "Change Password..." However, a bad actor follows your activity, and before the real Yelp website can load, they redirect you to a fake Yelp site. Here, the fraudulent page encourages you to share your sensitive information, and since you think you're visiting the real Yelp site, perhaps you do. And just like that, you've been phished. As Mysk tells 9to5Mac, We were surprised that Apple didnt enforce HTTPS by default for such a sensitive app... Additionally, Apple should provide an option for security-conscious users to disable downloading icons completely. I dont feel comfortable with my password manager constantly pinging each website I maintain a password for, even though the calls Passwords sends dont contain any ID.This problem isn't contained to the Passwords app, however. According to Mysk, this flaw has existed since Apple rolled out the ability to detect compromised passwords in iOS 14, all the way back in 2020: This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. How to fix this 'Passwords' security flawApple quietly addressed this problem with the release of iOS 18.2. That update launched in December 2024, so changes are good you've updated your iPhone since then. However, if you haven't, you need to update to the latest version of iOS as soon as possible. (As of this article, that's iOS 18.3.2, which coincidentally contains another important security patch.) To update now, head to Settings > General > Software Update, then follow the on-screen instructions to download and install the update.