Epic Games has been fighting a crypto and metaverse company called Utherverse over patent infringement since 2021. Utherverse filed a lawsuit in June 2021 saying that Epic Games infringed on several of its patents related to people hanging out in big, virtual worlds with its Fortnite concert series — specifically, Ariana Grande and Travis Scott’s respective in-game performances. In January 2022, Epic Games filed a counterclaim wherein it says it has not only not infringed on Utherverse’s patents, but that several patents are invalid. Now, the two sides are headed for a jury trial set to begin on May 12, and the Grande and Scott digital performances are at the heart of it all. The two parties have been going back and forth in legal filings and meetings for years, narrowing the lawsuit down to one patent that describes technology used in “playing back an experience in a virtual worlds system,” per the original complaint. This could include letting people replay something that happened in a virtual world, like a concert or wedding. Utherverse, for its part, is self-described as “the world’s best 3D social network” where virtual events and “activities,” like weddings, are held. It’s got its own cryptocurrency that’s used in the virtual world. In the lawsuit, Epic Games has been arguing that Grande and Scott’s performances were created ahead of their concerts in Fortnite, so they aren’t recordings “of a prior experience that occurred in a virtual environment,” per a document filed Monday. Fortnite has been more than a battle royale video game for years now; it’s a space for people to hang out. Part of that experience is concerts. Epic Games broke Fornite player records in 2020 when Scott held an in-game concert that 27 million people showed up for. Grande headlined the next big Fortnite concert in 2021. Both events were huge, technical spectacles for Fortnite users to participate in. Travis Scott’s performance began with an explosion that transformed into a larger than life version of Scott as Fortnite players — in all their colorful, unique glory — danced at his feet. Fortnite players were transported into different locations as the concert continued — even heading underwater to swim around Scott as he performed. Grande’s concert took players into space and the clouds to float around Grande in bubbles. Naturally, there was plenty of space to emote, too. The concerts were replayed several times each over a course of a few days. The Fortnite concert series — regardless of the performer — has been a huge success for the game, which has continued to expand outward with its live events. But it’s the Travis Scott and Ariana Grande concerts that Utherverse is specifically calling out. Utherverse wants Epic Games to pay 15% of the revenue it earned from the two concerts. That information isn’t public, but a Forbes report from November 2020 suggested Scott grossed $20 million, including merchandise sales, from the Fortnite event. The jury trial set for May 12 is expected to run for four to five days. Polygon has reached out to both Utherverse and Epic Games for comment.

Horror movies are constantly calling out for experimentation; it’s a whole genre based around rules that are just waiting to be bent, twisted, or broken into a brand-new shape. Which is exactly why it’s such a shame that so many new horror movies are just slight variations on the same old ideas. But just last year we got two truly original horror movies — Azrael and In a Violent Nature — that truly felt like bold new directions for the genre. And now that both movies are streaming on Hulu, you can finally check them out for yourself.  In a Violent Nature’s logline is simple: It’s a slasher where we follow the killer instead of the victims. It’s a brilliant idea on paper, but one that’s obviously harder to do in practice. After all, most of these monsters don’t really talk, and while their feats of violence are often truly remarkable, that usually only makes up a small portion of the overall movie. If you really think it through, a slasher where you follow the killer would probably mostly be a movie about walking. And that’s exactly what In a Violent Nature is: a beautiful, pastoral film about a big monster who quietly and methodically walks through forests and fields in search of the teens who disrupted his supernatural slumber. Of course, when he actually does catch up with those teens, they meet violent and horrible ends. But the time in between is so wonderfully peaceful, and it gives the movie a different feeling of time and pacing than any other slasher you’ve seen.  Azrael, on the other hand, is a little more apocalyptic. The film takes place after the rapture and follows a woman named Azrael (Samara Weaving) who escapes from her cult, which has taken a vow of silence because they believe speech kept them out of heaven. To say too much about this one would ruin some of its fun, but suffice it to say that the woods Azrael escapes into are teeming with strange demonic creatures, and the cult she ran away from was up to more than just keeping quiet.  The whole movie is absolutely thrilling, and gorgeously shot, but what really makes Azrael unique is the fact that it’s almost entirely free of dialogue. Even without words, the movie’s incredible world comes through loud and clear, and Weaving’s talent for big-eyed expression makes her the perfect on-screen cipher for this wordless post-apocalypse.  Both of these movies are fascinating on their own, but taken together, it’s hard not to hope that their releases last year could be a sign that more experimentation is on the way in the horror genre. But as we wait for more new and unique movies on the horizon, at least you can stream both In a Violent Nature and Azrael on Hulu for now.

The launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 is only a few weeks away, and with it comes a healthy spread of games to play — and that are now available to pre-order. Releasing alongside the Switch 2 on June 5 is the brand new Mario Kart World and a handful remastered original Switch games, including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. You can also reserve copies of Switch 2 games that are slated to bed released throughout the summer, including the anticipated Donkey Kong Bananza and Super Mario Party Jamboree. (Though, we’ll need to wait a bit to enjoy highly anticipated titles like Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, Pokémon Legends: Z-A, and The Duskbloods.) Below, you’ll find a comprehensive collection of every game you can currently pre-order for Switch 2. And don’t forget to check out all the Switch 2 accessories and new Zelda amiibo you can get ahead of the console’s release.

This week, the highly anticipated second season of Andor premiered on Disney Plus with its first three episode arc. Naturally, most of the attention among Star Wars fans has been concentrated around Tony Gilroy’s live action drama series, but that’s not the only major Star War-related release to come out this past week. Last Friday, the second season of Light & Magic, the documentary series on the history of the visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic, also came out, along with an episode dedicated in part to Jar Jar Binks actor Ahmed Best. The second episode, “There Must Be A Way,” covers a lot of ground, including the scaling up of Industrial Light & Magic in the aftermath of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, the emotional toll the critical backlash to Jar Jar Binks took on Best as a young actor, and the production of the 2002 sequel, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. One of the biggest challenges the production faced was not only creating a convincing computer animated rendition of Yoda, who before had been portrayed by puppeteer Frank Oz, but to bring to life Lucas’ dream of a climactic battle between the Jedi Master and his former apprentice Count Dooku. YesThis is legit, from Lights & Magic season 2You truly are the best, Ahmed Best https://t.co/7NSd9cX0e9 pic.twitter.com/3GRTvHMhK1— 🦋Rai Harn | ライ・ハーン🇮🇩 (@RaihanH98) April 23, 2025 “The sentence that stopped most of our hearts at ILM in the script was, ‘In a fight that defies description, Yoda and Count Dooku battle, period,’” animation supervisor Rob Coleman wryly recounts during the episode. Naturally, that didn’t give Coleman and the team at ILM much to go off of. Luckily Best, who was trained in martial arts and a huge anime fan, stepped in to help.  Best introduced Coleman to several anime, including 1988’s Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack, as well as classic martial arts films like Fist of Fury and Swordsman 2. “I saw Swordsman 2, the Jet Li film, and these ninjas; they start flying,” Coleman recounts. “The panic just went… boop. Now I could see Yoda.” The entire episode is worth watching, to say nothing of both seasons of Light & Magic in their entirety. It’s incredible to learn about all the work and creativity that went into producing the Star Wars prequel trilogy, sobering to witness Best recount his struggles with depression, and revelatory to see the connective tissue between Yoshiyuki Tomino’s masterpiece and Attack of the Clones’ most spectacular moment laid bare and transparent. And we owe all to Rob Coleman and Ahmed Best. The Force is strong with these two. Light & Magic is streaming on Disney Plus.

What is an “Xbox game”? Fairly recently, the answer was simple: An Xbox game is a game that you play on your Xbox. But now, with Microsoft pushing a multiplatform strategy — and openly challenging preconceived notions of what even counts as a platform — determining the best Xbox games isn’t as straightforward as it was. For us, though, the answer is still pretty simple, if somewhat evolved. Some games (Halo, Forza) will always be Xbox games regardless of how many platforms they land on, the same way a mobile Mario game is still a Nintendo game. But others fall under the broader category of, if an Xbox is the primary way you play games, you shouldn’t miss these — regardless of who published or developed them. What follows is our list of the best Xbox games as of April 2025. How we pick the best games on Xbox The Polygon staff plays a lot of video games, and everything in this list comes personally recommended by at least one of us. We determined what should be on our list of the best Xbox games by looking at the quality of each title, but also with an eye for breadth and variety — so you should find something on the list you’ll enjoy, no matter what genres of game you like, how much time you have, or what vibe you are after.

Are you ready for some football? There’s never really an offseason for America’s most popular sport, but the biggest event on the offseason calendar — the NFL draft — begins Thursday night, and Electronic Arts has marked the occasion with a great draft-themed ad for EA Sports College Football 26 and Madden NFL 26, alongside the confirmation of the games’ respective release dates this summer. EA’s two-and-a-half-minute commercial “The Call” — which will air during coverage of the draft on ABC, ESPN, and NFL Network — focuses on a fictional wide receiver named J.D. Matthews Jr. We see everything that goes through his mind when Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn calls him to let him know that the team is taking him with the 29th overall pick in the draft. And as Quinn recounts the chip-on-his-shoulder story of Matthews Jr.’s football career through high school and college, we see the emotion play out on the Texas Longhorns star’s face. The draft is the great crossroads between college football and the NFL, the place where NCAA standouts hope to realize their lifelong dream of becoming professional athletes. For those lucky few who get that life-changing phone call on draft day, it’s the culmination of so much hard work — and, of course, a new beginning, with all kinds of possibilities and pitfalls ahead. “The work’s just starting,” Quinn reminds his new rookie wideout. EA’s pitch here is that football fans can experience the full spectrum of this journey by playing both EA Sports College Football 26 and Madden NFL 26. The publisher announced Thursday that this year’s iteration of the franchise formerly known as NCAA Football will be released July 10 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. It will be followed on Aug. 14 by Madden, which will be available on Nintendo Switch 2 and Windows PC as well as PS5 and Xbox Series X. That’s right: EA is now leaving last-generation consoles behind, making 2024’s Madden NFL 25 the final entry in the series to be released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Speaking of older consoles, Madden NFL 26’s Switch 2 version will end a nearly 13-year drought for Madden games on Nintendo platforms — the last one was a scaled-back version of Madden NFL 13, which was a Wii U launch title back in November 2012. EA has not yet released any real information about the modes and features of this year’s Madden game; we’ve asked the company about whether there will be feature parity between the Switch 2 version and the PC/PS5/Xbox Series X versions, and we’ll update this article when we receive a response. Pre-orders are now available for College Football 26 and Madden NFL 26 on all platforms. (While you can’t get the Switch 2 version through EA’s website, Amazon is taking pre-orders for a game-key card “physical” copy of it.) Just like last year, people who know they want to play both titles can get them in a discounted package known as the MVP Bundle. This set, which is only available digitally and only on PS5 and Xbox Series X, packs together the deluxe editions of the college and pro games for $149.99 — a savings of $50 over buying them separately for $99.99 a pop. Along with a raft of in-game bonuses for modes such as Ultimate Team, Road to Glory, Dynasty, Franchise, and Superstar, each Deluxe Edition comes with three days’ worth of early access to the game in question. (You can see the full list of pre-order goodies on the College Football and Madden websites.)

Vilverin is one of the first dungeons you can go to in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered. It’s an early game dungeon, but if you know what to look for and how to complete it, you can exit this location with some high-value items like the Varla stone as well as a starting set of armor. This Oblivion Remastered guide will show you how to solve all the puzzles in the Vilverin dungeon plus show you some of the loot you can get. Vilverin dungeon location in Oblivion Remastered Vilverin is located just northeast of the Imperial City. You know you’ve found it when you find scattered ruins and a door with a glowing blue sigil. Walk up to the door, and the game will allow you to pass through the “Stone Door to Vilverin” and enter the dungeon. All Vilverin dungeon puzzle solutions in Oblivion Remastered There are a handful of puzzles (and other moments where finding the right key will help you) where it’s not always clear what you have to do. Below we explain how to solve the puzzles and make your way through the dungeon. Vilverin puzzle #1 solution The first little puzzle in this dungeon is a secret door located in the Vilverin Canosel section of the dungeon. The stone door to Vilverin Canosel will take you to a room with hallways that branch north, south, east, and west from a central point. Walk forward from where you entered and turn left to arrive at the hallway with the secret door in it. If you are confused at any point, pull up your dungeon map and it shows you the path to the next room (even if you haven’t discovered the door). The door will automatically open once you walk far enough into the room. Vilverin puzzle #2 solution The second puzzle is a block puzzle in Vilverin Wendesel. In the southern part of Vilverin Wendesel the dungeon, there is a puzzle with six blocks inside a room with six doors. Each block opens and closes a certain door in the room. Pressing the upper right block will open the door with the Vilverin chamber key (the key you need to proceed). Two of the other two blocks will open doors to rooms that contains chests, but be prepared to fight some undead. There is a special switch you need to use to get a rare item called a varla stone. You can get a varla Stone, a valuable item worth 1,000 gold, if you know the right switch to press. When in the far south room of Vilverin Wendesel, you will see a “Varla Stone Cage” hanging in the center. Defeat the undead and walk up the stairs that lead to the upper level of the room. There is a cube-shaped switch there. Press it and the cage containing the stone will lower and you can go collect it. Vilverin dungeon loot in Oblivion Remastered Other than the varla stone, this dungeon is a good opportunity to get some starter armor for your journey and other items like the ayeleid statue and welkynd stones. You can collect loads of welkynd stones as you explore the dungeon, they are the glowing blue stones that help light the building. Here is how to get everything else. Just as you enter the dungeon, walk down the spiral staircase to the first room. Defeat the bandits so you’re safe and look around. Near the center of the room there is a crate with a chest and other items on top of it. The chest contains 11 gold. Here is what you can grab sitting on crate: Iron curiass Iron boots Iron claymore If you look to the right of the cart, you’ll see some sleeping bags on the ground. You can also pick up a set of iron greaves that are sitting on the ground. The other item you will want to grab is the ayeleid statue located in Sel Sancremathi. It’s sitting right in the open but it’s easy to walk past if you aren’t looking for it. Just walk up to it to collect it. It’s worth 250 gold.

One of the more surprising features arriving with the Nintendo Switch 2 is the ability to hook up a camera to your console to use in tandem with its new GameChat functionality. The Discord-like feature allows to chat with friends and see each other while playing Mario Kart World or other online multiplayer games. If you’d like to pre-order the official Switch 2 camera ahead of the June 5 launch, you can currently reserve one for $54.99 from Best Buy, GameStop, Target, Walmart, or Nintendo. The Switch 2 camera was originally going to launch at $49.99, but Nintendo increased the prices of almost all of the Switch 2 accessories following news of tariffs, though the cost of the console remains unchanged. While it’s been confirmed that Switch 2 will support a variety of third-party USB-C webcams, Nintendo’s official camera is a somewhat affordable option that comes with a built-in stand and privacy shutter (the microphone is built into the Switch 2 itself). There will be an app built into the Switch 2 that tests compatibility of non-Nintendo webcams. Another camera option launching shortly after the Switch 2 on June 11 is the Hori Nintendo Switch 2 Piranha Plant camera. This $59.99 camera takes the form of the carnivorous plants found in the Mushroom Kingdom, and is currently available to pre-order from Best Buy or Target. The Piranha Plant camera has a posable stem that can detach from the base, while the mouth can be closed to serve as a privacy shutter. Just note that while this camera is more expensive than the first-party version, the resolution of its camera is just 480p, compared to the 1080p found in the official Switch 2 camera. The Nintendo Switch 2 camera and many other accessories will be hitting shelves June 5 — the same day as the Switch 2 console itself. You can currently pre-order plenty of other Switch 2 accessories, Switch 2 games, and new Zelda amiibo. As for the console, after Switch 2 pre-orders opened on April 24, the console quickly sold out. We’re unsure what stock availability for the console will look like between now and the June 5 release, but you can check out our Switch 2 pre-order guide to look for possible restocks.

A Florida teenager is suing Roblox and Discord for what she describes as the platforms enabling the alleged sexual abuse and exploitation she faced using them, according to a lawsuit filed April 21. The girl, now 18, says she started using Roblox at 12 after getting permission from her parents to use the app. Several years in, according to the lawsuit, the girl’s father discovered that his daughter had been communicating with an older man whom they describe as having groomed her through both Roblox and Discord. The lawsuit says the man coerced and manipulated the girl into sending explicit photos and videos, then used these as blackmail to extract more from the girl. The two met on Roblox games called MIC Up and Write a Letter, per the lawsuit. The lawyers, Anapol Weiss and Girard Sharp, write in the complaint: Soon after Plaintiff was sexually exploited as the result of Defendants’ defectively designed apps, she became severely depressed and introverted. She refused to eat in the lunchroom, instead retreating to the quiet, isolated bathroom stalls. Her grades declined significantly, whereas they had previously been stellar. She had great friends and alienated herself from them. She dropped out of the ROTC program that she previously loved. She stopped roller skating and going to the beach, activities that she had previously insisted upon doing on a regular basis. They also say the girl self harms and has attempted suicide as a result of the abuse. The 18-year-old’s story is a small part of the 100-page complaint, which details her own story, but also alleges the exploitation of children as a systemic issue that both Roblox and Discord have failed to address. “This action, therefore, is not just a battle to vindicate Plaintiff’s rights—it is a stand against Defendants’ systemic failures to protect society’s most vulnerable from unthinkable harm in pursuit of financial gain over child safety,” the lawyers wrote. The lawsuit cites comprehensive Bloomberg reporting that has been, for years, detailing Roblox’s alleged pedophile problem. It also cites a report from Hindenburg Research, which Roblox has refuted. The company has since rolled out numerous child safety tools, but problems persist: A Bloomberg report from Monday detailed a group recreating mass shootings on the gaming platform. Weiss, too, has already sued Roblox in February in a lawsuit that uses a lot of the same language, wherein she alleges a 13-year-old boy was “horrifically and traumatically sexually exploited” on Roblox. On April 16, Florida attorney general James Uthmeier subpoenaed Roblox to collect information “about how the platform markets to children, sets age-verification requirements, and moderates chat rooms.” A day later, on April 17, New Jersey attorney general Matthew Platkin announced he’s suing Discord over “deceptive and unconscionable business practices that misled parents about the efficacy of its safety controls and obscured the risks children faced when using the application.”

Grand Theft Auto 5 remains the top-streamed game on Twitch, the Amazon-owned platform announced Thursday. Broadcasters streamed more than 25.8 million hours of GTA 5 in 2024 — and viewers clocked in “1.4+ billion hours watched across all audiences,” per a news release published by Twitch. GTA 5 was the top gaming category in 2023, too, second overall to the Just Chatting category. It’s remained among the top games watched each year, especially as GTA Online role-playing became more popular on the platform. But it’s also likely the hype for Grand Theft Auto 6 that’s kept GTA 5 among the top spots; Rockstar Games gave eager fans a look at a GTA 6 teaser trailer in 2023. In what’s expected to be the biggest launch of the year — and maybe years — GTA 6 is expected to be released in fall 2025. There’s no release date just yet, however. Instead, people continue to play (and watch) GTA 5, thus the huge numbers. Twitch also shared that League of Legends totaled 1.19 billion hours watched, Valorant had 804 million hours watched, Fortnite totaled 539 million hours watched, and Call of Duty racked up 451 million hours watched. In total, there were 15.6 billion hours of gaming streams watched. The company also noted that VTubers grew exponentially over the year, with 1.1 billion hours watched globally.

Dbrand’s tough, yet versatile Killswitch case for the Nintendo Switch 2 will launch in June, around the same time the console itself launches on June 5. Through a specific release date has not yet been announced, you can reserve the Switch 2 Dbrand Killswitch case right now by making a $3 deposit. This deposit guarantees you a slot when units become available to purchase and will be deducted from your total at checkout. Exact pricing and configurations for the new Killswitch are currently unavailable, but will follow a similar model to the versions available for the Steam Deck and ROG Ally, according to Dbrand. (Note: The Steam Deck case was priced at at $59.95, with the option to bundle additional accessories for a discount.) In addition to receiving a number of exclusive cosmetic skins, the new Killswitch will also launch with Dbrand’s new Prism 2.0 “idiot-proof” screen protector, which comes packaged with an applicator that ensures optimal placement on your screen without bubbles or gaps. The new Killswitch for the Switch 2 offers many of the same features found on its previous models for the Steam Deck and ROG Ally. This latest model designed for the Switch 2, however, includes a variety of improvements, including more ergonomic hand grips, an integrated kickstand, and a transparent travel cover with built-in storage for your physical games. This and many other accessories will be hitting shelves in June — the same month as the Switch 2 console itself. The Switch 2 is available to pre-order now for $449.99 through Best Buy, Walmart, GameStop, and more retailers, along with plenty of other Switch 2 accessories, Switch 2 games, and new Zelda amiibo.

The Nintendo Switch 2 won’t launch with a new 3D Mario game, but we will get the next best thing: a new 3D platforming game starring Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong Bananza will come out for the Switch 2 on July 17, and it’s currently available to pre-order from Walmart, Best Buy, GameStop, and Target for $69.99. (Note: GameStop online pre-orders don’t open until 11 a.m. EDT.) If Mario’s power is eating mushrooms and jumping on turtles, Donkey Kong’s power is eating bananas and punching stuff. Donkey Kong Bananza features plenty of platforming, but a key pillar of the gameplay is also DK’s ability to break things. Bananas may give humans a little pep in their step, but they bestow Donkey Kong with far better abilities, like chucking boulders, punching through walls, and generally causing wanton destruction. In some cases, DK is even capable of burrowing through surfaces and ripping chunks out of the environment. While Donkey Kong Bananza won’t be released in time for the Switch 2 launch, Mario Kart World and other titles will be hitting shelves on June 5 — the same day as the Switch 2 console itself. The Switch 2 is available to pre-order now for $449.99 through Best Buy, Walmart, GameStop, and more retailers, along with plenty of other Switch 2 games, Switch 2 accessories, and new Zelda amiibo.

With the upcoming launch of the Switch 2, Nintendo is giving Zelda fans more reasons to get excited, and to dig deeper into their wallets for spare bucks. Not only are there Switch 2 editions of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom (each promising performance upgrades and intriguing Zelda Notes features), there are new Legend of Zelda amiibo, too. Four amiibo based on Riju, Tulin, Yunobo, and Sidon will hit shelves on June 5, the same day as the Switch 2, its accessories, and some games. The Zelda amiibo will cost $29.99 each — a price increase compared to previously launched amiibo of a similar level of design complexity, which we’ve typically seen retail between $15.99 and $19.99. On April 18, Nintendo announced they were also raising the prices of Switch 2 accessories in response to recently announced tariffs. In addition to these Legend of Zelda amiibo, you can pre-order new Street Fighter 6 amiibo, that are also coming out on June 5. So far, amiibo for Kimberly, Jamie, and Luke have been confirmed, and they’ll cost $39.99 each at Walmart, Best Buy, and GameStop. (Note: GameStop online pre-orders don’t open until 11 a.m. EDT.) If you’re considering pre-ordering a Nintendo Switch 2, you can do that now at Walmart, Best Buy, GameStop, and more retailers. Many of the Switch 2’s accessories and games are available for pre-order, as well.

A fancy new crafting/gathering game mode, Cosmic Exploration, is out in Final Fantasy 14 with some pretty enticing rewards, so the reasonable thing to do is… immediately look up macros to help you automate the process and ease the grind, right? Well, I have some bad and good news for you. The bad news is that each crafting job has dozens of items to craft, each with varying durability, quality, and progress requirements — which means there’s no “one macro” for everything, as there is for Ishgard Restoration. Rather, if you want to be able to macro everything, you’ll need tons of macros set up. The good news is that you don’t really have to keep all those macros on your hotbar. I’ll disclaim this by saying I’m not an expert crafter. I use macros and I know fundamentally what the crafting skills do, but I don’t have enough expertise yet to make my own optimal macros from scratch or anything like that. That said, my recommendation below may not be the best way to go, but it has worked fairly well for me. I’ll update this guide with better information if other strategies being to appear, though. (As of this writing, Cosmic Exploration has only been out for a day, so… y’know.) Below we explain how you can use macros to make FFXIV’s Cosmic Exploration easier, though it won’t heavily automate the process for you the way it would have in other crafting content. How do Cosmic Exploration crafts work in FFXIV? As mentioned above, Cosmic Exploration crafts all have varying levels of durability, required progress, and quality. You may need to craft scrambled eggs with 60 durability for one craft, but then you’ll need a solution that only has 20 durability for the next. Since these numbers fluctuate wildly, it’s impossible to make a macro that’ll work for everything. While you can definitely make a set of macros for each individual item (especially for the lower leveled crafts), even heavily melded crafters are going to have a tough time juggling the high level stuff, most of which requires at least two macros (30 lines) to make one craft. Your macro page will fill up pretty fast. On top of that, some of the Class-A missions have time limits, so your lengthy macro that takes 80 seconds to play out might not cut it. (For context, half my gear is pentamelded and the rest is still overmelded, and it takes anywhere from 30 to 32 lines of macros for me to complete the A-rank crafts with food and potions — and despite that, there are still a few crafts I haven’t hit gold on.) All of that said, it can be tough to make things work in Cosmic Exploration, but I have a kind of janky solution for you! How to make crafting macros for Cosmic Exploration in FFXIV Here’s what I did to both scratch my completionist itch, completing “Stellar Successes” (achievements), and minimize the number of macros I kept around: Find all your crafting stats on your character screen and plug them into Raphael, a website used to generate macros based on your stats and the item you desire. Open your “Stellar Missions” (the green button on the Cosmic Exploration UI) and select your mission. Input whatever recipe the mission says to craft into Raphael. Copy and paste the generated macro into the User Macros menu. (I pasted it over the same two macro slots because… my macro menu is pretty full already.) Use that macro to craft however many of the item you need to complete the mission. Turn in the mission. Repeat steps two through six to complete as many missions as you can with a gold rating and unlock as many higher-rank missions as you can. If your crafters aren’t maxed, you will hit a wall eventually. Once you’re done gold starring the lower-level stuff, you can wipe all those macros out, if you’ve been saving them. After you hit that wall (whether it’s from needing to grind out more levels or from just hitting the end), you’ll need to figure out which set of missions you can complete conveniently, taking your personal and differing factors into account. Do you want to deal with food/potions? How long does it take to complete one craft? Are you able to clear is consistently with a silver or gold rank? From there, use Raphael to make yourself a set of three to five macros for that tier of crafts. For example, if you’re max level, but you’re struggling to complete the Class-A missions, you can just opt to do the Class-B ones instead, ideally hitting gold for each one you complete. I have macros for the culinarian recipes “Stable Jelly Drink,” “Stable Ration,” and a few others and I just purposely make sure to select missions that I know I have macros set up for. Unfortunately, this specific strategy really only works efficiently on PC. While you can type out macros on PlayStation and Xbox, since you can’t paste them directly, it may be annoying to make new macros for each craft. That said, you can just literally use the skills that Raphael shows you in order, and then manually type up the few macros for the missions you plan on grinding. Also, don’t forget to enlist into Critical Missions as they pop up to get more loot and EXP. Ideally, you should just be crafting to pass the time and get EXP/loot between these events. Of course, you will ultimately need to figure out how to get the Class-A crafts done, if you want to make a coveted Cosmic Tool (the relic tool for Dawntrail). However, if you’re just looking to farm currency and EXP, crafting the easier stuff will get the job done. Looking for the short version? Plug your stats into Raphael and make macros to gold star everything, and then just keep a few for crafts that you can repeat.

Entei is joining the Max Battle hype in Pokémon Go, allowing you to take it on and possibly catch one that can Dynamax, following the appearance of its sibling (Raikou) last month. It’ll be featured during a Max Battle Weekend event, running from April 26 at 6 a.m. until April 27 at 9 p.m. in your local time. During this event, you’ll be able to claim more Max Particles each day (up to 1,600 from 800), you’ll get more Max Particles from Power Spots, the amount you have to walk to get particles will be cut down to 1/4, and Power Spots will refresh more often. From April 21 until the Max Battle Weekend ends, the particle cost to power up Max Moves has also been cut to 3/4 the usual amount, so it’s a great time to build some counters. Below, we list out some general Max Battle tips and counters for Dynamax Entei in Pokémon Go. Dynamax Entei weakness Entei is a solo fire-type Pokémon, so it has quite a few weaknesses: ground-, rock-, and water-type moves. There are a few Pokémon we could use at this point to take it down, which is nice (in comparison to some other big targets we’ve had, that only have one or two viable counters). All of that said, Entei will take less damage from bug-, steel-, fire-, grass-, ice-, and fairy-type moves, so you shouldn’t really use those unless you have to use them to build up your gauge. Dynamax Entei best counters For attackers, try to bring at least one of the following with its max attack built up: Gigantamax Kingler with Metal Claw Dynamax Inteleon with Water Gun Dynamax Excadrill with Mud Shot Dynamax Kingler with Bubble Gigantamax Blastoise with Water Gun This time around, none of Entei’s moves should cause any of these great distress, though you shouldn’t really be using these outside of the Dynamax/Gigantamax phase to dish damage. For tanks, you’ll want to bring one or two of the following with Max Guard/Spirit leveled up: Dynamax Blissey with Pound Dynamax/Gigantamax Blastoise with Water Gun Gigantamax Snorlax with Lick Notably there is a Timed Research set that rewards you with a Dynamax Sobble encounter, Sobble Candy, and tons of particles to help you get an Inteleon, if you want. Note that Inteleon will get a Gigantamax form down the line, so I only recommend investing in this if you have tons of Sobble Candy to spare. Ultimately, as usual, just bring the strongest Pokémon that you have to help contribute to the group. If you only have a Dynamax Sobble as a type-based counter, but you have a build Dynamax Gengar, you should just bring the Gengar. General Max Battle Tips If you’ve been struggling in Max Battles, here are some general tips to survive — and make sure you’re an asset to your team. While Gigantamax Battles are tough, a Legendary Max Battle shouldn’t be as tough as that. You can slack a little, but you should still heed our advice: Make sure you have enough players. High-efficiency players with maxed out investments will likely be able to solo Entei, but this isn’t going to be realistic for most people. Try to go at it with three other players for the highest chance of winning. Note that unlike Gigantamax Pokémon, the Dynamax Legendary Pokémon have a max party size of four (rather than 40). 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 and Max Spirit will heal the whole party, so 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 Cryogonal with Frost Breath, it will know Max Hailstorm. 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 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 Entei! If you clear the raid, there is a chance that the Entei 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 Entei.

Leveling up in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered is far more complicated than it needs to be. You don’t just earn XP and click through a menu. Instead, the leveling system dictates that you do a bunch of other actions first. Our Oblivion Remastered guide will tell you all about the leveling system. We’ll also cover how to level up all skills and your general character level in Oblivion Remastered. How to earn XP in Oblivion Remastered You don’t earn XP in Oblivion Remastered by killing enemies (well, not directly). Instead, you earn XP by improving your major and minor skills. And you improve those by… just doing things. Wearing light armor for a while (in combat) improves your Light Armor skill. Lockpicking improves your Security skill. Swinging a sword (in combat) improves your Bladse skill. Running (and swimming) improves your Athletics skill. As you improve your skills, you’ll occasionally see a progress bar in the upper right corner of your screen. When that’s full, you can level up. How to level up all skills in Oblivion Remastered The XP you earn to level up comes from improving your major and minor skills. You improve them by using them. But the seven skills you’ve selected as your major skills — whether through choosing a class or making a customized class — will level up more quickly, though it’s unclear in the game just how much more quickly. Here’s a list of all skills in Oblivion Remastered, with details about what they affect — and, thus, how to level them up: Acrobatics: jumping and falling Alchemy: Creating potions and using alchemical ingredients Alteration: casting spells that change abilities or reduce damage (spells that alter your abilities) Athletics: running, swimming, and sprinting Armorer: repairing weapons and armor (with a Repair Hammer) Blade: dealing damage with blade weapons (like katanas, shortswords, and daggers) Block: mitigating damage when blocking Blunt: dealing damage with blunt weapons (like hammers and, confusingly, axes) Conjuration: casting spells that summon creatures, weapons, and armor (and turn the undead) Destruction: casting spells that inflict elemental damage or weaken your opponents Illusion: casting spells that do things like charm, conceal, silence, paralyze, and command Hand-to-hand: dealing damage with your bare hands Heavy Armor: wearing heavy armor Light Armor: wearing light armor Marksman: dealing damage with bows Mercantile: buying and selling goods Mysticism: casting spells that absorb or reflect damage, dispel, move objects, and reveal paths Restoration: casting spells that restore, fortify, and absorb attributes as well as cure disease and improve resistances Security: using lockpicks Sneak: moving undetected and pickpoketing Speechcraft: persuading NPCs Your skills and attributes both affect your abilities, but they’re not directly related. For example, having high Strength and high Blades both increase your damage with longswords, but Strength doesn’t have any control over or influence on Blades. How to level up your character in Oblivion Remastered Once you’ve improved your various skills enough, you’ll get an icon in the upper right of your screen. In the pause menu, you’ll see that same icon on the Character tab next to your level. You can’t just level up from the menu, though. You’ll have to rest (and “meditate on what you’ve learned”) first. To do that, find a bed or a bedroll and take a nap. The length of time you sleep doesn’t seem to matter. When you wake up, you’ll get a new screen that says you’ve ascended to level whatever. Below that, you’ll see the level up options. Each time you gain a level, you’ll get 12 Virtues — think of these as attribute points — to assign to three of your attributes. You can raise any attributes by up to 5 per level (meaning you have to spread them across at least three attributes). Best attributes to level up in Oblivion Remastered You have eight attributes in Oblivion Remastered. They determine everything from the damage you deal to how fast you swim and how likable you are. Attributes and skills combine to affect a lot of your abilities, but they aren’t quite the same (see above). The attributes you’re working with are: Strength: Affects damage with longswords, claymores, maces, war-axes, battle-axes, warhammers, and barehanded. Also determines your carry capacity and has a slight influence on max Health Intelligence: Determines your max Magicka Willpower: Determines Magicka regeneration and greatly increases your max Fatigue (stamina) Agility: Affects damage with daggers, shortswords, and bows. Slightly increases max Fatigue and determines Fatigue regeneration Speed: Dictates how fast you move Endurance: Greatly increases your max Health and Health regeneration out of combat Personality: Affects how much people like you, and improves information-gathering and getting deals at shops Luck: Luck is a bit esoteric and is a blanket improvement to your skills when it is above 50 Which attribute you choose is really about your playstyle, and is also likely influenced by whatever race you chose when creating a new character, as your race affects the base score of your attributes. Early on, though, regardless of how you’ve built your character, you should focus on surviving — dealing damage and increasing your health and fatigue. Strength is the obvious choice if you focus on the more martial melee weapons, while Agility is better for up close and stabby. Intelligence is your go-to if you’re playing as a caster. And Endurance is always a good pick for the health regeneration. Willpower increases your stamina (with a bonus to Magicka regeneration if you’re magic-focused).

Nintendo’s Switch 2 will arrive on June 5. It will cost $449.99, and a bundle that includes Mario Kart World (which is only in production through the fall) will cost $499.99, saving you $30 versus buying the game separately. But should you buy the Switch 2? In early 2024, when I first published this article, many people wondered whether it was still a wise choice to buy a Switch, or if they should just wait for the Switch 2 instead. That was before we knew as much as we do now. Nintendo’s April 2 Direct, as well as Polygon’s own Switch 2 hands-on impressions, shined light on nearly everything we were curious about: namely, how powerful the Switch 2 will be, the ways in which it’s different from the original Switch, how much it’ll cost, and what games we can expect to play on launch day (and beyond). Considering the Switch 2’s high cost, it’s clearly not for everybody. Priced between $199.99 and $349.99, the original Switch model — whether that be a Switch OLED, the regular Switch, or the Switch Lite  — might still be the right fit for some people. With so many options and so much money at stake, it’s as confusing as ever to decide what the right move is. Perhaps we can help you. Have you played the Switch’s stellar game library? If you’re brand-new to the world of the Nintendo Switch, there are many good games to catch up on. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, its sequel Tears of the Kingdom, Metroid Dread, Super Mario Odyssey, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Pikmin 4 — I could go on, but I’ll let our roundup of the best Switch games do that for me. You don’t need a Switch 2 to play so much of the best that the Switch has to offer. It’s reassuring to know that nearly all original Switch games — both digital and physical — are compatible with the new console, and that some of them will boast performance increases thanks to the faster hardware. (Nintendo is selling Switch 2 Edition upgrades of some original Switch games that contain a multitude of upgrades, but you won’t have to pay for those upgrades to simply play the games you own.) If you do choose to buy the new console, all of your games will likely come with you. While Nintendo has announced release dates for its first Switch 2-exclusive games, Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, other upcoming Nintendo releases, like Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, are also coming to the original Switch. Unless you really love Mario Kart, the quantity of Switch 2 exclusives at this time doesn’t completely tip the scales in favor of the new console. And yet (this is dizzying, I know), I don’t suggest that most people buy a Switch at its full price just to catch up now. If you find one on a deal, that’s another story. But if you don’t want to wait for a deal that may never come (or that may not be as good as we wish for it to be), then you should consider pre-ordering the new console or waiting until more exclusive games are out to make the purchase. Do VRR, ALLM, 120 Hz mean anything to you? If so, you’ll want to wait for the Switch 2. If not, you might be perfectly content with the original Switch. The Switch 2 boasts surprisingly modern specs (no offense, Nintendo) with a screen that’s capable of running games at up to 120 frames per second in 1080p resolution. Its Nvidia G-Sync display utilizes a technology called variable refresh rate (VRR) to adapt the screen’s refresh rate to the GPU’s performance so that you don’t notice screen tearing. As for auto low-latency mode (ALLM), the Switch 2’s dock can automatically trigger your TV’s low-latency gaming mode to ensure the best possible visuals, and it can play games at up to 4K. The original Switch… can’t do any of that. Its 720p screen tops out at 60 frames per second, and many games make it apparent just how long in the tooth the original hardware was becoming. On the other hand, are you buying for someone who doesn’t care about tech specs? Does the Switch’s lackluster-at-times performance dampen the fun you can have with its games? The answer depends on who you ask. As for me? Not really, coming from the guy who happily explored Hyrule (as well as above and below it in Tears of the Kingdom) and played dozens of other games with a grin from ear to ear. But again, from a financial perspective, buying a Switch OLED for $349.99 right now — just $100 less than the Switch 2 — doesn’t make sense. Unless Nintendo drops the price of the original Switch consoles (personally, I don’t expect Nintendo to slash prices in half, but wouldn’t that be nice?), I’d consider buying the Switch 2. That said, the Switch OLED’s built-in screen is better in one major way compared to that of the Switch 2’s. As you might have gleaned from its name, the Switch OLED has an OLED screen that makes games look phenomenal. While it runs at a lower resolution and refresh rate than the Switch 2, the new console’s LCD screen will likely pale in comparison when it comes to presenting rich, accurate colors and perfect blacks. Do you love the GameCube? Ah, Nintendo got you there, right where it hurts. The company is introducing GameCube games to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership, but only if you have a Switch 2. Only with the new console will you be able to play The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Soulcalibur 2, F-Zero GX, and more coming in the future.

Practicing mindfulness is often an intimidating prospect. You’re tasked with being still, noticing things inside and outside of your body, and most challenging of all, not really thinking about anything. But what if you could practice that skill while also playing a little 15-minute solo board game? That’s what A Gentle Rain offers. Designed by Kevin Wilson (Arkham Horror, Descent: Journeys in the Dark, the Kinfire Chronicles series) and currently published by Incredible Dream Studios, A Gentle Rain is a tableau-building game where one or more players pull random squares and place them on the table, with the ultimate goal of growing lotus blossoms. Each square has four half-flowers, which you must match up with half-flowers of the same color that are already on the board. A yellow half-flower links up with another yellow half-flower, for instance, to make one full flower. If you match four tiles up in a square, you’ll reveal a circular pocket that perfectly fits one of eight plastic lotus blossoms. Technically, A Gentle Rain can be scored. But I don’t care about that. Instead, even after several rounds of the game solo and with friends, I care most about blossoming all eight lotuses in one game, which I’ve only accomplished once so far. And as I mentioned, it really functions as a way to practice mindfulness: You must take the time to notice each color on the square you pull, then take note of each square on the board. It is impossible to make the game go faster, because there are no extra steps. Instead, you just have to sit there, breathe, feel the soft matte square in your hand, and maybe turn it a few times to think about where it’ll fit. And look at that — suddenly you’re sitting still, noticing sensations, and not really thinking about anything. I picked up A Gentle Rain during a week where I really needed it. My family was dealing with something terrible, the last dregs of my winter depression were rearing their head, and the news was unavoidable and filled with atrocities. I didn’t want to avoid those things completely by immersing myself in some fantastical world or complicated game, but I didn’t want to face them head-on, either. After a few rounds of A Gentle Rain, I genuinely felt calmer, and I spent the next few days playing a round before work, after dinner, or before heading to bed. Is the game making me meditate? Not quite. But it is doing a great job of reminding my body what it feels like to slow down, look inward, and spend some time just being. Pretty good for a $20 board game you can grab at Target, right?

When Diablo 4’s eighth season launches on April 29, the battle pass will look completely different. Instead of a linear track, it will be split into categories, or Reliquaries, for you to chase after specific types of cosmetic tweaks for your demon slayer. Like a lot of popular live service games that have introduced more choices in their battle passes, Blizzard’s goal is to make it fit with how people actually play Diablo 4. There were three problems with the old battle passes, senior manager of game design Dan Tanguay told Polygon in a recent interview: The rewards “didn’t feel meaningful enough,” they were “intrinsically tied to seasons,” and they had a general “lack of agency.” In my experience, this is all true. I’d hop into a new Diablo 4 season, maybe take a peek at the battle pass page, then inevitably forget about it until I felt like clearing the notification telling me something new had unlocked. And a lot of times, the new cosmetic was for a class I wasn’t actively playing, which made me care about it even less. That seems to be the kind of experience Blizzard is trying to avoid with Reliquaries, a reinvention of the battle pass that lets you pick the rewards you want first. There’s still a price attached. Three of the four categories have an up-front cost before you can start unlocking their rewards, like mini premium battle passes. But if all you care about is the glowing tiger from the Beasts Reliquary instead of the fancy sword from the Weapons Reliquary, you can just skip it. And players who don’t bother starting a new character every season will now have access to the system on the game’s Eternal Realm, too. Tanguay said the team felt the old battle pass stuck out in an action RPG that’s all about satisfying decision-making. “You’re choosing basically all the choices that comprise your build, you’re choosing how you look, and we then have a battle pass that’s just highly, highly linear and very deterministic, and it’s like, ‘Wow, there’s just not a lot of choice here,’” he said. Each Reliquary reward costs Favor, a new currency you can only earn by mowing down monsters as you play. Everyone will be able to spend it on cosmetics from the free Reliquary for the duration of the season. Event Reliquaries, like the one launching with Diablo 4’s Berserk collab in May, will show up for a limited time and require a unique currency. Tanguay couldn’t confirm whether returning events will have their own Reliquaries, but said the team is still “talking through” those opportunities. The Reliquary system is another step in Blizzard’s ongoing approach to reworking parts of the game that have fallen behind. Tanguay added that by disconnecting battle passes from seasons, Blizzard can do more with the Season Journey, which is a free set of challenges, like killing bosses and completing dungeons, that reward loot and cosmetics. These were often so straightforward that you’d complete them accidentally. But Tanguay said the team is trying to get players to “stretch and do more aspirational type of content” to complete the later chapters. I spotted one for season 8 that asks you to defeat one of the endgame bosses using a specific seasonal power, which should be fun to figure out how to accomplish once the new season opens.

Lockpicking is one of the best ways to unlock chests and doors The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered — and to get loot. You will encounter loads of locked chests and doors while exploring the lands and dungeons of Oblivion Remastered. To bypass these locks as you encounter them, you will need to play a little lockpicking minigame. Our Oblivion Remastered guide will explain how to lockpick chests and doors and walk you through the tricky mechanics of this minigame. Where to find lockpicks in Oblivion Remastered First, you’ll need a lockpick, an item that allows you to attempt to pick a lock. The quickest, easiest, and cheapest way to get lockpicks is by exploring dungeons. You can get lockpicks by searching the corpses of some enemies and by checking chests, barrels, and crates in dungeons. You can also buy lockpicks from fences (characters who purchase illicit goods) after you join the Thieves Guild. Ongar, the fence located in Bruma, will sell you lockpicks for 6 gold a piece. What can you unlock with a lockpick in Oblivion Remastered? Lockpicks can be used to unlock doors and chests. While many doors and chests can be unlocked with a lockpick, some cannot be broken and require special keys. (The game will tell you can’t use a lockpick if this is the case.) If the door or chest can be unlocked with a lockpick, just walk up to either a chest or door (with a lockpick item in hand) and interact with it to start the lockpicking minigame. How to use a lockpick in Oblivion Remastered Lockpicking in Oblivion Remastered can get pretty frustrating pretty quickly. In short, it’s a timing minigame. When you start the lockpicking minigame, you’ll see a cross-section view of a lock with five different tumblers, each inside a tiny chamber. Tap the inner metal piece upward with the left control stick and then hit A (on Xbox) to “set” the tumbler. To pick a lock, you must set the tumbler just as it taps the top of the lock. If you get the timing right, the tumbler will “set” in place and go dark, as shown in the final image of the slider above. It is a deceptively tricky timing game. Some tumblers fall faster than others, and the speed at which they fall from tap to tap varies. If you mess up one tumbler, you need to start the entire lock over and set every single one (if you’re still ranked novice for Security). There are three difficulty levels of locks: easy, medium, and hard. An easier lock will have fewer tumblers you need to set, thus less room for error. Here are some tips to help you pick locks in Oblivion Remastered: Our best advice is to fudge the numbers a bit. If you think a lock will give you trouble, make sure you save before. That way, you can try the lock as many times as you need and can load the save file if you run out of lockpicks. Some other guides suggest you listen to the lock. This might just be us, but we couldn’t hear a difference. However, it can be hard to focus on the game if there is a lot else going on, so we found it helpful to turn off the game’s background music in the game settings. We can’t confirm this for sure, but there appears to be a pattern for each tumbler. Tap it a bunch of times to get a feel for each tumbler, and you can try to predict when the tumbler will stick at the top. Just keep at it. Eventually, you’ll level up your Security skill to the point where the minigame is less punitive. How lockpick auto attempts work in Oblivion Remastered The auto-attempt feature can let you bypass the minigame and lockpick automatically — in certain circumstances. For example, we used the auto-attempt after setting one tumbler on a medium lock, and it automatically set the final two tumblers, thus unlocking the door. We also used it to bypass an easy lock without doing anything. However, there are limits to the auto-lock. We tried to use it multiple times on another medium lock, and it broke a ton of lockpicks. At the time of writing, it’s unclear if any of the skills influence this feature.

While everyone was enjoying the massive deluge of Switch 2 news Nintendo uncorked on April 2, my broken brain couldn’t help but focus on something far less important: awkward marketing language. I’ve struggled to come up with a succinct and simplistic way to explain this to other people, so let’s instead use an example from last week’s presentation on Mario Kart World. Listen to how the narrator begins this video around the 21-second mark and see if you can spot what I’m talking about. “Drivers! Start… your… engines!” All good so far. Go-karts traditionally have both drivers and engines. “Welcome to the Mario Kart World game…” Hm. I’m noticing a few unnecessary words there, but maybe over a decade in writing has given me permanent editor brain. “…available exclusively on the Nintendo Switch 2 system!” Okay, yeah, he’s definitely using too many words. The phrases “the Mario Kart World game” and “the Nintendo Switch 2 system” are so awkward, and this isn’t the first time Nintendo’s referred to its products like this. Here’s another example from a Super Mario Bros. Wonder stream from August 2023. It starts around the 1:34 mark if my timestamp doesn’t work. “In this presentation, we’ll go over what’s new in Mario’s latest 2D, side-scrolling adventure, the Super Mario Bros. Wonder game!” My dude, just say “Super Mario Bros. Wonder.” When Sony and Microsoft put on these kinds of direct-to-consumer broadcasts, they don’t say “the Death Stranding 2: On the Beach game” or “the Xbox Series X system.” Why are you doing this? I hate it so much. I reached out to Nintendo asking for context on this odd marketing language, and while a rep acknowledged my request, no one got back to me for a week. Fortunately, former Nintendo public relations manager and host of the Kit & Krysta web show Krysta Yang was more than happy to fill me in. “Essentially, this is a legal requirement for Nintendo to properly refer to their products at all times,” Yang told me via email. “The legal and [intellectual property] teams at Nintendo are very strict with how products are referred to.” She went on to say it was also a matter of Nintendo not wanting its product names to weaken with overuse. “The legal team would use the example of the brand Bandaid and how that is actually a brand name but now the name has been diluted as people refer to any bandages as a bandaid,” Yang said. “They do not want this to happen to any Nintendo product hence the very stilted way they would refer to all products.” It’s official: Nintendo is weird. Then again, four out of five of the top-selling consoles are Nintendo products and the company continues to thrive despite mostly staying out of the resolution and frame rate arms races proliferated by its ostensible competition in the video game industry. Maybe those lawyers know what they’re doing after all, even if it still bugs the hell out of me.

The finale sequence of the third episode of Andor season 2 will stand among the already superlative show’s top moments. It repeats a pattern from the third episode of its first season, “Reckoning,” which cut between two moments in Cassian Andor’s life when he stood on a stranger’s ship, escaping certain Imperial death at the cost of leaving everything he knew behind — but this episode cuts between places, not time.  It should not be a spoiler to say that none of the various characters in the montage, in their various situations, are having a good time. The weight of the Empire bears down even on those most capable of resisting it. But what really made the moment sing for me, what had me slapping my hands to the side of my face and whisper-screaming as I experienced a kind of pure Star Wars joy, were the choices director Ariel Kleiman made that were the exact opposite of dramatic.  Genre films and TV that take themselves very seriously are not rare at the moment. But the remarkable thing about Andor is that the folks behind it never forget that it exists in a universe where the fantastical is as mundane as the fascism.  [Ed. note: This piece will contain some spoilers for Andor season 2 episodes 1-3.]  Andor works because it films its fantastical story of spaceships, and one-resource planets, and adorable robots who stutter, and silly foods as if it were a fabulously researched historical drama. Its world-building is cohesive to the most minute detail, from costumes to locations, to sets, props, and the design of buildings, and all aiming in the same directions as its overall story. Take an example from season 1, in which the workers of Ferrix, and the abandoned children of Cassian’s home planet, struck by some global workplace disaster, are costumed in the same shades of burnt orange, pale green, and dusty yellow. Andor doesn’t have to say out loud that the missing adult society of Cassian’s home was a similar kind of down-to-earth, community-minded laborer culture that lived with an Imperial boot hovering over it — until the moment it didn’t. It showed it.  Andor’s directors, and every level of craftsperson under them, make choices that hang together, creating some of the richest settings that the on-screen Star Wars universe has maybe ever had. It makes a setting feel like a place where people live, not just characters. It’s jarring when the inexplicable traditions of a Chandrilan wedding ceremony give way to a dance floor rave blasting house music, but it just serves to underscore: The bride and groom are literal children. The pomp allows everyone to pretend that they’re adults, when this is actually a life-altering middle school dance. I think one could look at Andor and see a Star Wars show that is disdainful of the franchise’s more fantastical elements. Dismissive of lightsabers, and interstellar dogfights, and of a magical force that categorically defines all good from all evil — in favor of a drier, perhaps even self-important, story of traumatized revolutionaries and fascistic bureaucrats.  But to me, the reason the best moments in Andor propel me out of my goddamn skin are precisely when its very real story effortlessly intersects with the full fantasy of the Star Wars galaxy. In season 1, it was Andor’s prison arc, in which fascism enslaves the main character into building the machine that kills him — but all wrapped up in a meticulously designed sci-fi labor prison and an electrifying story of jailbreak.  A similar moment in this first batch of three episodes is the foreshadowed but shocking appearance (and immediate disappearance) of a sort of jungle warthog monster who simply Pac-Man chomps two men in one gulp. See also: The random van-sized bovine munching on hay? I think? In the back of a space-farmhand lunch scene. Because this is Star Wars, and having at least one totally extraneous weird monster is a hallmark of the franchise.  But as much as I love my new large warthog son, nothing compares to when Andor applies its ability to present the dramatic and the fantastic simultaneously directly to its own characters.  In the finale sequence of Andor season 2’s third episode, the mother of the 15-year-old bride is Mon Mothma, a secretly leftist senator. She’s getting shitface drunk in a drop-dead gown and dancing like a wild woman to the equivalent of “Despacito.” This is the day she realized, once and for all, that she’s failed to raise her daughter in her own values, and watched her cage herself in a tradwife prison. She’s also just been told that her childhood best friend, the only person with whom she can be entirely candid, is having an emotional and financial rough patch, and so he must be immediately assassinated to eliminate even the possibility that he might reveal her treasons.  But for a bare second, as Mon Mothma is double-fisting a round of shots — and we must not let the longevity of this character blind us to the fact that she has one of Star Wars’ peak Star Wars names and used to be best known for the phrase “Many Bothans died” — director Ariel Kleiman’s camera makes sure to capture something else behind her. A bug-headed, sunglasses-wearing alien wedding guest, as they hit the Space Griddy to “Space Despacito,” which, by the way, is being played by a sentient, floating, middle school dance DJ droid shaped like a disco ball.  This is precisely when I yelled “I LOVE STAR WARS” out loud in my apartment.  I admit it: I’m a fantasist. I love something that makes me feel such intense feelings about something that’s fundamentally silly, that takes the trappings of the fantastic and does something with them that touches me right in my mundane life.  Andor isn’t good because it’s afraid of Star Wars, or because it’s trying to not be like Star Wars, or because it’s elevating Star Wars. It’s just that it’s a show with a crew that demonstrably tries to treat the Star Wars universe like a real and coherent place. And when you treat Star Wars like it’s real and coherent, it can support tremendously real ideas with devastating coherence.  The first three episodes of Andor season 2 are now streaming on Disney Plus. New batches of three episodes drop every Tuesday at 6 p.m. PDT/9 p.m. EDT.

As part of a weekly quest in Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 2, you’ll need to jam alone using all instruments at once. In the past, you’ve always needed other players for a jam session, but with the Fortnite Festival Season 8 update, players are now able to create a jam session all by themselves. You can now mix four different jam tracks into one, but figuring out how to do it can be a little tricky. Here’s how to jam alone using all instruments at once in Fortnite. How to jam alone using all instruments at once in Fortnite To complete the weekly quest “Jam alone, using all instruments at once” in Fortnite, follow these steps: Press the emote button (B on Windows PC or down on the D-Pad on console by default). Switch to the “Jam Loops” or “Locker Jam Loops” page. Look at the inner circle and make sure you’re set to “All.” Select a jam track to start jamming alone! Additionally, you can swap songs for other instruments by hovering your reticle over the instrument circle and pressing the emote button. This will open the jam loops wheel, and you’ll need to select another jam track to play. Completing the quest is not immediate, so you will need to jam for a short period of time. Because of that, we recommend landing in an uncontested area or waiting for a time where you’re alone to start jamming out.

The year is off to a great start, at least as far as horror movies are concerned. There are films about family secrets ranging from ridiculously silly to heartbreaking and tragic. There’s also a holiday-themed slasher, a good old-fashioned summer camp slasher, and a few more unconventional movies that might surprise you. To help you make sense of the wonderful year in horror so far, we’ve put together a list of all our favorite terrifying movies and ranked them by scariness. We’ll update the list as more movies come out, but for now, here’s a list of 2025’s best horror movies, ranked by scariness. How we picked and ranked the scariest horror movies of the year Polygon’s staff consistently keeps up with new horror movies, watching them as they are released and adding to this list with the best of the best of both theatrical and straight-to-streaming releases. To create this list, we took into account all of the horror films released so far this year and picked out our favorites. From that smaller list, we then ranked each movie’s scariness with a combined rating of the movie’s terror and gore. Terror takes into account everything from slow-built tension to ridiculous jump scares. Gore is based on how bloody a movie is and how realistic its violence gets. Presence Run time: 1h 25mDirector: Steven Soderbergh Cast: Lucy Liu, Callina Liang, Eddy MadayWhere to watch: Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video and YouTube Presence is a horror film in definition more than in practice. The movie is about a family that moves into a new house and is hiding all kinds of secrets from each other, but the whole thing is shot entirely from the perspective of the ghost that already resided there. That ghostliness certainly makes this a horror movie on paper, but it’s more of a family drama with some ghostly elements mixed in than anything else. More importantly, however, is the fact that it’s just a really excellent movie. Director Steven Soderbergh, ever a master of formal experimentation in film, turns the gimmicky premise of a movie from a ghost’s perspective into an excuse to shoot dramatic scenes with a flurry of wonderful, dynamic camera movements. The ghost zips from one speaker to the next, trying to make sense of conversations based on the secrets it knows. It follows people when they storm out of rooms and leaves the rest of the conversation to play out muffled through walls. It’s a truly terrific filmmaking tactic, even if it only really feels like a ghost when it has to. Presence isn’t really too tense, and it doesn’t have any gore at all, so this one ranks low on our scariness scale, but high in our hearts. How scary is Presence? Terror: 2/5 Gore: 0/5 Total scariness score: 2/10 Hell of a Summer Run time: 1h 28mDirectors: Finn Wolfhard, Billy BrykCast: Fred Hechinger, Finn Wolfhard, Billy BrykWhere to watch: Theaters Few things in the horror genre are as classic as teens at summer camp having a really bad time, and Hell of a Summer is a movie that’s well aware of that fact. The horror comedy tells the story of a group of camp counselors who show up for orientation at camp Pineway a few days before the season starts and the campers arrive. What they don’t know is that the camp owners have already been murdered, and they’re all the next victims in line. None of this is exactly reinventing the horror wheel: There’s teen drama, hookups, and camp implements used unsafely, all underscored by a few murders, exactly how you’d expect. One thing you might be surprised by is just how funny the movie is. While it’s a perfectly effective entry in the doomed summer camp canon, it’s funny enough to fit in nicely with more traditional summer camp comedies like Wet Hot American Summer too. All that being said, the movie doesn’t rank too highly on our scariness scale. Despite some brief glimpses of gore and a couple of jump scares, Hell of a Summer is a lot more funny than scary, and that’s no problem at all. How scary is Hell of a Summer? Terror: 2/5 Gore: 3/5 Total scariness score: 5/10 Sinners Run time: 2h 37mDirector: Ryan CooglerCast: Miles Caton, Michael B. Jordan, Hailee SteinfeldWhere to watch: Theaters Director Ryan Coogler’s vampire musical is one of the absolute best movies of the year so far, and conveniently for this list, it happens to fall nicely in the horror genre as well. Sinners centers on Sammy (Miles Caton), a preacher’s son in Mississippi with a talent for blues music, who one fateful day gets picked up by his cousins (Michael B. Jordan) who have recently returned from Chicago with a briefcase full of money and a dream of starting their own juke joint — where they want Sammy’s music to be the star attraction. Things go great until a wandering band of vampires catches wind of his music and find themselves suddenly entranced, and very hungry. The film isn’t quite as scary as others on this list, but it is nice and tense, particularly when Coogler finally unleashes the vampires and the more action-heavy elements kick in. And of course, since this is a vampire story, there’s plenty of blood to go around. How scary is Sinners? Terror: 3/5 Gore: 2/5 Total scariness score: 5/10 Opus Run time: 1h 44mDirector: Mark Anthony GreenCast: Ayo Edebiri, John Malkovich, Amber MidthunderWhere to watch: Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video and YouTube In the world of Opus, the 1990s’ greatest pop star, Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich), is releasing a new album, the first one since he mysteriously left the spotlight several decades ago. Ariel (Ayo Edebiri) is a young music journalist who gets one of the few invites to his communion for an early listening review party, but since everyone else has been working in the industry for years, she can’t quite figure out why she’s there. Of course, when she discovers the bizarre cult activity Moretti seems to be leading, she stops being curious and starts getting scared. Opus is a recognizable kind of movie to anyone who’s seen Midsommar or The Menu. But rather than trying to home in on cultlike activity or even obsession like those movies do, Opus focuses on the concept of information and narratives. It’s a sort of journalistic horror movie that’s interested in asking why reporters of any variety are shown the things they’re shown when they get access, and what exactly it means when the subject of your story tells you something themselves. This theme gives Opus a nice taste of lingering terror that’s likely to stick with you for a while after the credits roll. Then again, the movie’s one exceptionally gory scene is likely to do that too, ultimately putting this in the middle of our scariness rankings for the year so far. How scary is Opus? Terror: 3/5 Gore: 3/5 Total scariness score: 6/10 Heart Eyes Run time: 1h 37mDirector: Josh RubenCast: Olivia Holt, Mason Gooding, Jordana BrewsterWhere to watch: Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video and YouTube Every holiday deserves at least a few horror movies themed after it, but few of those movies will be as good or fun as Heart Eyes. A serial killer who murders couples on Valentine’s Day has been on the loose for years, and he’s come to Seattle just in time to mark a kissing couple for death this year. The only problem, of course, is that these two aren’t actually dating. It’s a hilarious setup that’s anchored by two great performances from the leads, Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding, who bring plenty of charm to balance out the movie’s goofiness. It was co-written by Happy Death Day writer and director Christopher Landon, so it should come as no surprise that Heart Eyes has an excellent balance of horror and comedy. The movie effortlessly bounces between hilarious physical comedy bits (which Gooding particularly excels at) and brutal murders, all broken up with hilarious one-off jokes to keep things fresh. With all that comedy, Heart Eyes never really tries to be truly terrifying, but its brief tension and heaping helping of gore earn it a spot in the middle of our list anyway. How scary is Heart Eyes? Terror: 2/5 Gore: 4/5 Total scariness score: 6/10 The Monkey Run time: 1h 38mDirector: Oz PerkinsCast: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Rohan CampbellWhere to watch: Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video and YouTube The Monkey is a Stephen King adaptation by way of Longlegs director Oz Perkins. While that may make the movie sound offbeat and strange, it’s actually a pretty straightforward and silly horror romp with buckets and buckets of blood. The film follows Hal (Theo James), a man whose family has been cursed by a monkey that kills people when the key in its back is turned. Perkins treats this premise with exactly the right mix of serious and silly, and mostly uses it as an excuse to find some of the most creative ways imaginable to kill people on screen. It’s Perkins’ most approachable movie by a mile, but it’s also a very fun horror movie in its own right. The result is likely the bloodiest movie on this list and one that, while funny, is also gory enough to earn it a pretty high spot on our scariness ranking so far. How scary is The Monkey? Terror: 2/5 Gore: 5/5 Total scariness score: 7/10 Warfare Run time: 1h 35mDirectors: Ray Mendoza, Alex GarlandCast: D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo JarvisWhere to watch: Theaters Warfare isn’t exactly your traditional horror film. In fact, it’s about as grounded and realistic as any war movie in recent memory, but that fact is exactly what gives it a spot on this list. If we’re calling scariness a mix of terror and gore, then Warfare is as scary as they come so far this year, clearing the competition by a country mile. The film follows a platoon of Navy SEALs who have been sent into a house to provide overwatch during the 2006 Battle of Ramadi in the war in Iraq. While they’re holed up inside, the SEALs get ambushed by enemy combatants and find themselves in a terrifying fight for their lives. The movie is absolutely harrowing, and its realistic gore is more unsettling than anything in a more traditional horror movie so far this year. So while it may not be the first thing that springs to mind when you think about horror movies, Warfare indubitably deserves a spot on this list. How scary is Warfare? Terror: 4/5 Gore: 5/5 Total scariness score: 9/10

We still don’t know when the second season of the amazing Fallout series will premiere on Prime Video, but if you’d like to revisit the wasteland and its cast of memorable misfits, the first season of Fallout is coming to 4K Blu-ray and is currently available to pre-order from Amazon for $39.99. While there isn’t currently a launch date for this physical collector’s edition, we’ll update this page as soon as we have more information. Fallout is still available for streaming, but the 4K Blu-ray version lets you watch the series ad-free without paying Prime’s $3 premium to ditch the commercial breaks. The three-disc Steelbook features some spectacular cover art and comes packaged with a collection of six lithograph prints of the cast. In addition to the eight-episode run of the series, the Collector’s Edition Steelbook also includes a dozen featurettes detailing the immense effort that went into bringing the wasteland to life, ranging from makeup and sound design to how the writers adapted iconic elements from the Fallout franchise.

Anyone who’s taken language lessons on the Duolingo app is certainly familiar with the Duolingo owl, Duo. If you skip out on lessons, Duo will ping you — crying! — to come back. Over the past few years, he’s gotten more aggressive with his approach: He died, and was brought back to life by people completing their daily lessons. Talk about guilt tripping. Now, he wants to teach you to play chess. Duolingo is testing out chess lessons on the app; they’re rolling out a limited beta that began Tuesday and will go wider “soon.” A Duolingo spokesperson said it’s the first new course subject to be added since it added math and music in 2023. Chess is more popular than ever, gaining traction with a younger generation of players. (Teens got absolutely obsessed with chess in 2023.) “As chess increases in popularity, we wanted to provide a fun, accessible way for people to learn,” a Duolingo spokesperson told Polygon. “We want to teach subjects that people can learn for a long time, like languages, math and music. Chess is a game you can play your whole life and continuously improve your skills.” Like its other courses, Duolingo breaks down learning into small parts that can be completed in short bursts, daily. It’ll teach everything from what the pieces are, how they can move, and go into patterns and strategy. “Most lessons focus on solving short puzzles to sharpen your thinking, and learners can apply what they’ve learned in fast-paced ‘mini-matches’ or full games against the in-app chess coach, Oscar, one of Duolingo’s beloved characters,” per the news release. Chess will come to all iOS Duolingo users “in the coming weeks.”

Andor has returned for its second season and it’s just as fantastic as ever. While the first three episodes of the show get us ever-closer to the Death Star-focused finale in Rogue One, scenes of characters hiding from visa-checking Imperial forces also make it clear in this first batch of episodes that Andor hasn’t lost the real-world grounding that made it great in the first place. And while it’s easy to map moments from these episodes onto our current political moment, perhaps its strongest real world comparison came from paralleling the Empire to the Nazis.  Star Wars’ Galactic Empire has never been far from Nazi Germany comparisons — if nothing else, the aesthetic inspiration is instantly obvious and totally inescapable. But rarely, if ever, has the connection between the two been drawn quite so clearly as Andor creator and showrunner Tony Gilroy draws it in the first episode of season 2, when Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) calls together a secret Imperial meeting to discuss Ghorman.  [Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for Andor season 2, episodes 1-3.] During the meeting, Krennic shows the table an informative video about the planet of Ghorman, and shows a video about the fabric it exports, which is widely renowned as some of the finest in the galaxy. He then lets everyone know that Ghorman also hosts a rare substance inside the planet that the Empire needs for completion of Emperor Palpatine’s “Energy Program” — and that mining it will mean destroying the planet completely. In order to take over the planet without fomenting negative fervor, Krennic details a series of propaganda campaigns the Empire has been running to make the Ghormans seem aloof and stuck up, in an attempt to foment negative sentiments from other planets against Ghorman itself.  It’s an absolutely harrowing scene on its face, but when coupled with Tony Gilroy’s inspiration, it becomes downright chilling to see the connections seep from surface-level signifiers into social and political tactics that were really used.  “I mean, look at the very first episode,” Gilroy told Polygon in an interview. “Krennic’s conference that he has, where he first brings up the topic of Ghorman. That’s very much modeled after the Wannsee Conference that the Nazis had when they, you know, had a PowerPoint luncheon to figure out the final solution.” Drawing an even deeper connection, it’s hard not to notice that the ornate and carefully hidden castle they’re meeting in looks an awful lot like Wewelsburg, a castle in Germany that served as one of the central bases for Heinrich Himmler and the SS. Of course, all these direct parallels shouldn’t be mistaken for clues that Andor season 2 will only parallel the Galactic Empire with the Nazis. Just like Gilroy has said that Andor isn’t simply a story solely about modern times or modern political issues, it’s also not a story of just one political past either. Instead, it weaves in various aspects of historical empires and rebellions across history. “I’m not psychic; we did not write this with a newspaper,” said Gilroy. “The show was supposed to come out a year ago, [but] for the strikes. So the opportunity of the show was to be given this gigantic canvas and to do a show about revolution. And the opportunity for me was to use all the debris that I’d accumulated in my brain from reading about history that I never thought I’d have a chance to use. So I’m catalogue shopping throughout 6,000 years for all kinds of things I can [use] all the way through the show.”  You can see this once you start to look for it: The real world rhetoric Nemik applies to the Imperial takeover of Aldhani, the rebellion’s use of tactics pioneered by T.E. Lawrence during the Arab Revolt, or the clear inspiration that Andor takes from The Battle of Algiers and its realistic portrayal of the National Liberation Front. The show might have given the Empire some heavier shades of Nazism during Krennic’s secret meeting, but the truth is that its cycle of resistance and oppression are more a mosaic of historical references than any one allegory. This, to Gilroy, is exactly what makes the show feel so prescient. “What’s sad about it is that it’s really the moments of peace and prosperity that are unique, and the rinse and repeat of history is the sorry truth. I think you could drop this show almost anywhere in history and and people would say, Oh, that’s where we’re at.”

Tatooine might be the inescapable center of the Skywalker Saga, but when it comes to the most influential planets in the Star Wars galaxy, Ghorman just hyperspace jumped to the top of the list.  In the season premiere of Andor season 2, the Earth-like planet lands in the crosshairs of Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), the cape-wearing Imperial crony last seen in Rogue One. In a secret meeting on the Maltheen Divide, Krennic and various representatives from across the Empire watch a 1950s-style PSA about the prosperous business of harvesting silk produced by Ghorman spiders, or ghorlectipods.  But Krennic’s interest in Ghorman goes beyond — or rather, deeper — than textiles: Underneath the planet is an ore, kalkite, that could completely reshape and empower the Empire. He intends to mine it at all costs. Ghorman has been on the periphery of Star Wars lore while never in complete focus. In the first season of Andor, Ghorman pushback against Imperial rule led to sanctions from their overlords and cries in the planet’s defense in the Galactic Senate, spearheaded by Mon Mothma. Mentions of the planet’s silk production pop up in other parts of Star Wars — mainly in the High Republic book Convergence, set nearly 380 years before the events of the show — but Ghorman’s real claim to fame in Star Wars history is a violent turn.  Ported from “Legends” EU material like Dark Apprentice into canon auxiliary material like 2023’s Star Wars Timelines, the “Ghorman Massacre” saw the Empire “slaughter peaceful protestors” (per Timelines) who stood against trade blockades. Compilations of the bits and pieces of lore about the attack suggest thousands were killed. The Andor season 2 premiere sets up the pieces to depict this horrific event, which, if things follow current canon, should be an inciting moment for Mon Mothma to go full rebel. Star Wars’ screen stories have their fair share of devastating Imperial action, but the way Krennic lights the fuse for the Ghorman Massacre is particularly ugly and despicable. If the established timeline holds, the Empire’s attack on Ghorman protestors will go down in BBY 2. We see Krennic’s meeting at the Maltheen Divide in BBY 4. What may have sounded like a moment of bubbled-over rage on the part of the Empire now looks like a diabolical plot. “Ghorman is of great interest to the Empire,” Krennic says to his goons. The reason is kalkite energy; instead of manufacturing synthetic alternatives, the Empire could mine the real thing from the planet and truly fulfill the “Emperor’s dream of energy independence,” which sounds like the most cheery presidential executive order hogwash imaginable. The Empire surely does seek “stable, unlimited power,” as Krennic puts it, but I have feeling that coating “reactor lenses” has less to do with sustainability than powering, I don’t know, a Death Star? We know where Krennic winds up in Rogue One. Krennic knows his pitch to frack Ghorman won’t even fly with all of his Imperial collaborators. So he brings in Dee Shambo and Nisus Osar from the absolutely evil-sounding Ministry of Enlightenment to lecture the group on the need to “weaponize the galactic opinion” over the Ghorman’s “arrogant” business affairs and the government’s general “secrecy.” Tony Gilroy’s metaphor for modern political chicanery feels so thinly veiled (in a forceful, satisfying way) that you almost expect someone to claim George Soros is fueling the Ghorman resistance effort. Only a few minutes later, one of Krennic’s goons wonders aloud if they should just unleash a plague on Ghorman to wipe out the population so they can swoop in with drills. It gets uglier. Krennic has the majority on his side, but doesn’t trust his own propaganda plan. He turns to Security Bureau lieutenant Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) for better ideas. “You need a radical insurgency you can count on,” she tells him. “You need Ghorman rebels to do the wrong thing.” Woof. The days of blowing up Alderaan in a single shot almost seem quaint. The stage is set for the Empire to get the best of the Ghorman people through their own slippery resistance. If the Empire can fuel enough rage, the protest movement will go over the line and give permission for them to enter, like militarized vampires. Like life, but unlike most Star Wars, it seems no one will show up at the perfect time to scream “It’s a trap!” The silk, the spiders, and the Ricola commercial of a planet will all be wiped out over something that has nothing to do with any of it. Most prequels tend to go back and shade in the familiar. Andor, on the other hand, plucks from Wookieepedia obscurity — then decimates accordingly. Good luck, Ghorman; we hardly knew you.

By halfway through the first episode of Andor’s second season, fledgling rebel Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) has run across a complication on his latest mission: a band of rebel soldiers who see him as a threat rather than an ally. In fact, they seem to see just about everything as a threat: the critters in the extensive jungle around them, any outsiders they run across, even the other members of their own group. From the first moment Cassian meets them — at gunpoint, in a mass confrontation — they’re already loudly arguing with each other about the right way to capture him. We’ve never seen this fractious, incompetent group before — but thanks to a few small references in Andor season 1, we know a few things about who they are, and possibly how they wound up stranded at Cassian’s drop point. Here’s how these loud, flailing goobers fit into Andor’s continuity — and how they fit into what seems to be this season’s overarching theme. [Ed. note: Minor spoilers ahead for episodes 1 and 2 of Andor season 2, and for a small subplot in season 1.] After capturing Cassian, the rebel group argue among themselves about where they could possibly go next, assuming they can either learn to use Cassian’s stolen experimental TIE Avenger or talk him into transporting them. It’s clear that in addition to not having any agreed-upon leader in the group, they don’t have any sort of headquarters or clear goal. From the arguments, we also know they’ve been stuck on the planet for two days, with minimal food and supplies. From one member, Cassian learns they’re members of the Maya Pei Brigade, one of the rebel groups his sponsor/handler Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) has been backing. Who is Maya Pei, the rebel leader? We’ve also never seen Maya Pei in Andor, but she’s been mentioned a few times by Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), who brings her up in a rant about various anti-Empire rebel factions he disdains as “lost” because they lack his “clarity of purpose.” In a scene in season 1’s “Narkina 5,” he sneers at Luthen that he wouldn’t work with Maya Pei because she’s a “neo-Republican.” (Luthen for his part describes Saw as an anarchist, though seemingly one he’s still willing to work with.) She gets another quick mention from Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) in an ISB meeting in season 1 — Luthen’s attempt to buy an Imperial Starpath Unit from Cassian in season 1 apparently happened “in a safehouse run by a rebel cell associated with Maya Pei.” While the ISB is aware of her existence, though, she never becomes a significant part of Andor’s story; she’s just a background detail, the head of one of many independently operating rebel groups Luthen is helping supply and sometimes coordinate. Curiously enough, the collapse of the Maya Pei Brigade seems to mirror what happens to another of Luthen’s splinter rebellion projects in season 1: the one run by Anto Kreegyr, who Luthen cold-bloodedly sells out in season 1 in order to keep one of his Empire informants protected. A particularly complicated bit of spycraft-versus-spycraft feinting and counterfeiting leads Luthen to sacrifice Kreegyr and his group, allowing them to carry out a guerilla attack on an Imperial power station without warning them that one of their pilots has been caught and interrogated, and the Empire has laid a trap for them. Maya Pei’s group says something similar happened to them — “We got ambushed! We lost six ships, 40 fighters!” one of them tells Cassian. Maya herself was apparently caught in the crossfire, though the group is divided on whether she’s dead, and on what exactly happened in the thick of battle.  How does the Maya Pei Brigade fit into Andor’s story? What’s more significant about the disintegrating remnants of the Maya Pei Brigade is how this squabbling group of survivors helps carry forward some of the biggest ideas at play throughout the show — the many, many fracture points in a factionalized rebellion, and how difficult it is to bring one to bear against unified totalitarian rule. That theme plays out in a wide variety of ways across Andor’s two seasons, from Mon Mothma’s genteel political rebellion in the Senate and secretive funding efforts outside of it to Luthen’s schemes, Cassian’s adventures, and the major ISB project in season 2. Here, though, the theme operates on a particularly small scale, and a particularly impassioned one. Maya’s surviving forces don’t agree about their goals or how to pursue them, about who should lead the group or what their organizer would have wanted. They don’t even agree about what just happened to them, or their leader. Their suspicions against each other and against everyone else make them a danger to themselves and to any other part of the rebellion that touches them. And as long as they maintain that suspicious, chaotic response to the collapse of their own faction, they’re incapable of seeing an ally when he appears. (It doesn’t help that Cassian is trying to maintain basic operational security by not explaining his mission to them, or admitting who he reports to.)  Their internal group squabbling mirrors the larger conflict we saw in season 1, as represented by Saw Gerrera’s contemptuous take on other rebel groups: In theory, all the organizations he mentions in his rant are on the same side, along with Luthen. They all want an end to the Empire, with its oppression and overreach. But they don’t agree philosophically about how to pursue their goals, or what might replace the Empire in their ideal galaxy. Saw dismisses them all as “separatists,” not acknowledging that he, too, is part of the problem — judging other factions of rebels as unworthy, and refusing to cooperate with them.  All of this points to a tension between different crucial aspects of the rebellion. It’s necessary for all these little splinter groups to operate independently of each other as much as possible, for information segregation and deniability. But there’s a limit to how much any of them can accomplish with a small band of people dedicated more to a specific leader and a narrow philosophy than to the cause that unites them. And all of this is building up to the rest of the action in season 2, as the scattered, splintered rebellion seen in patchy glimpses throughout season 1 becomes the more functional, dedicated organization seen in Rogue One and the original George Lucas Star Wars trilogy. Where the biggest-picture story in Andor season 1 was about Cassian’s transformation from head-in-the-sand cynic to dedicated freedom fighter, season 2 takes on some bigger ideas about how individual members of an insurrection having clarity of purpose isn’t enough to make a rebellion successful — not when it’s divided up among factions who have different clarities of purpose, like Saw, or no clarity at all.

Principal Magic: The Gathering designer Gavin Verhey announced that some cards are now legal to play once more in Commander, the trading card game’s most popular multiplayer format. Five cards in total were unbanned by publisher Wizards of the Coast. Conspicuously absent from that list, however, were the cards involved in last year’s controversial bans — Dockside Extortionist, Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt, and Nadu, Winged Wisdom. Those cards are still banned, and will almost assuredly remain so until at least 2026. The announcement was made in a blog post on the game’s official website. The newly unbanned cards are Gifts Ungiven; Sway of the Stars; Braids, Cabal Minion; Coalition Victory; and Panoptic Mirror. Verhey said that all of these cards will now be included on the Game Changers List, which is part of an ongoing beta test of the so-called Commander Brackets system. The newly unbanned cards are each emblematic of different strategies, techniques, and styles of play. He said it’s the team’s hope that these unbans will excite the community and lead to interesting adaptations in the beloved Commander format. He also acknowledged that not acting further on Dockside Extortionist, Jeweled Lotus, and Mana Crypt in particular are not going to make everyone happy. (Apparently it’s assumed that everyone still hates Nadu, though.) He also provided quite a lot of the reasoning given by members of the new Commander Format Panel for not acting on those cards at this time: Opinions from the Commander Format Panel varied. Some believe Commander is more fun without them, others would like more time to see how the Commander Bracket system is adopted before doing anything here, and others felt it’s too soon to do anything with these cards. There were a few people who were open to doing something with Jeweled Lotus now, but that was not the majority opinion. The overwhelming majority of the panel did not want to do anything with any of these cards at this time. I will be transparent and say that I believe if any of these are ever to return, the most likely one is Jeweled Lotus due to its one-shot nature, iconic feel, and ability to help support high-mana value commanders. I want to be clear, this is not me saying that will ever happen, but that was the one among the panel with the most traction. In closing Verhey said that, as a nod toward returning stability to the format, there would be “no further changes to the banned list for the rest of this year.” The one caveat being, of course, that “if a new or unbanned card begins to become generally reviled […] we can break that seal and act earlier.”