With just a few weeks to go before Savathun causes all manner of chaos in Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, now might be a good time for Guardians to take a break and charge their batteries for what lies ahead. There’s a massive solar system out there that’s just waiting to be explored, and in an age where space travel is finally in the hands of cosmically-powered super-soldiers instead of billionaires, you can visit another planet in style.

And what gives off a more chill vibe, than a spaceship which has a wood finish on its hull? You’ll need to be quick to grab it from the Eververse store before the weekly reset kicks in at 9AM PT / 12PM ET on Tuesday, February 15, but the Obdurate Economy is more than worth its asking price. It can, fortunately, be acquired for Bright Dust, an in-game currency that can be earned through Seasonal Challenges, bounties, Season Pass ranks, and Ritual Vendor challenges.

Obdurate Economy

What’s better than cruising the galaxy in a vehicle inspired by the Chevrolets and Ford station wagons of the past? Making certain that your Ghost isn’t left out, because you can also gift your little buddy with the Vantastic Shell. Or imprison your companion in pure 1970s kitsch, depending on your view of automobile fashion from that era:

Vantastic Shell

This isn’t the first time that Destiny 2 has given players a chance to travel in silly style. The Dares of Eternity offer Xur’s own spaceship–a really big rock–as a purchasable spaceship, and every so often there’s a new Sparrow that’ll turn heads with its ostentatious design.

Time is running out before Savathun makes her move, but the next era of Destiny 2 is one that you can start preparing for. In addition to our checklist on all the activities being vaulted soon, you can also get a sneak peek at some new Exotic weapons, see how Void 3.0 will transform Guardians, and some temptation to tackle the new campaign on Legendary difficulty.

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Smilegate’s recently released PC MMO Lost Ark continues to soar on Steam, recently surpassing 1 million concurrent players on its way to becoming the fourth most-played game in Steam’s history.

Lost Ark is also only the fifth game ever to pass 1 million concurrent players on Steam, the others being Cyberpunk 2077, Dota 2, CS: Go, and PUBG, according to SteamDB.

Following its early access launch for people who bought the founder’s pack, Lost Ark released officially for everyone as a free-to-play game on February 11 with some notable fixes at launch. The release was delayed slightly, but did eventually release that day.

Lost Ark has also seen huge numbers of viewers on Twitch(which is owned by Lost Ark’s publisher Amazon). The game saw more than 1.3 million viewers watching Lost Ark related streams during the game’s head start launch. Watching certain streams for the game grants players in-game rewards in the form of Twitch Drops as part of the Legends of Lost Ark launch event.

Lost Ark is the second success story for Amazon Games in recent months, following the big release of the MMO New World in 2021. Lost Ark was originally released in South Korea years ago.

For more on Lost Ark, check out GameSpot’s recent guides below.

Lost Ark Tips For Beginners: Trade Skills, Mokoko Seeds, Pets, And MoreLost Ark Powerpass Guide: How To Get Two Free Character BoostsLost Ark Class Guide: Gunlancer, Paladin, Berserker, And MoreRead MoreGameSpot – Game News

A Fortnite movie is coming. No, that’s not an announcement, though there have been rumors of a Fortnite movie for some time now. But it’s practically a foregone conclusion that one of the biggest names in entertainment, a brand with its hand in basically every intellectual property money pit right now, from Star Wars to Marvel and much more, is going to get a movie. It’s merely a matter of time.

One could argue that a movie is an old-fashioned way of doing things. Fortnite already features some incredible cinematic live events that players can live through themselves, which ends up feeling quite like being in a Fortnite movie already. But I do think, even in this weird era for movie theaters, that a Fortnite movie would be massive. It’s important to capitalize on the game’s still sky-high popularity, lest Epic Games and partners risk launching it when the game is losing steam, like the Angry Birds Movie.

With so many crossovers and characters constantly coming to Fortnite, no doubt a Fortnite movie would be packed full of more collaborations than Ready Player One, but for this exercise, I’m going to focus just on Fortnite’s homegrown heroes and largely pull from the most important characters in Fortnite lore, such as Jonesy, Doctor Slone, and Midas. Whether it’s a live-action adaptation or an animated feature with a star-studded voice cast, here’s who I envision as the stars of the inevitable Fortnite movie.

Jonesy – Tom Holland

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Holland is already the famous face of Spider-Man and Nathan Drake on the big screen, but if you think he can’t also play the main character of the Fortnite movie, I’d have to guess you haven’t heard what Chris Pratt’s been up to. Holland suits Jonesy’s mix of a young everyman with some jokey reluctant hero tropes that he’s already doing well in his other movies. As with his role as Drake, he’s also young enough to play Jonesy for the years of sequels to come.

The Foundation – The Rock

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No need to get cute here. The Rock is already playing the muscular leader of The Seven in Fortnite, and there’s every reason to think he’d fulfill that role in the movie version too. The Rock has star power like few others, appealing to both kids and adults dating back to his WWF days. It’s a shine he’s never really lost, and he’d play off of Holland perfectly in the same buddy-cop way that The Foundation and Jonesy already do in the game.

Doctor Slone – Jasmin Savoy Brown

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Jasmine Savoy Brown’s last half-decade has seen her catapulted into the upper echelon of young stars, and hers is a star still rising. She’s already flexed her ability to play complicated morally dubious characters in projects like The Leftovers, Scream, and Yellowjackets, so she’d fit right in as the probably evil, but maybe misunderstood Doctor Slone.

The Cube Queen – Carrie-Anne Moss

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Coming off back-to-back high-profile roles in The Matrix Resurrections and Horizon Forbidden West, Carrie Ann Moss makes a lot of sense as the formidable Cube Queen. This is a character who may not appear in the first Fortnite movie, assuming it rehashes the story to a predictable degree, but Moss would make for a big name attached to the sequel in the way studios love to do, and she’s got the commanding energy the Cube Queen demands.

Midas – Oscar Isaac

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One thing Epic got wrong about Midas, in my opinion, is that he’s meant to be Jules’ dad, but the two characters look nearly the same age. If the movie was live-action, that could be fixed by casting an older actor, but still someone who feels dripping with style and dangerous allure. Of course, I’m speaking of Oscar Isaac. He’s the perfect age and would bring his soon-to-be-earned Marvel fandom with him.

Jules – Ariana Grande

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This would be fun for a few reasons. For one, Grande is starting to try acting, as seen in Netflix’s Don’t Look Up recently. But more than that, Grande is already a big name in Fortnite thanks to her Rift Tour concert in the summer of 2021. For Grande to show up in the Fortnite movie as a character created by Epic would be a fun nod to the game’s own internal history, not to mention Grande is a few fake tattoos away from resembling Jules pretty closely.

The Paradigm – Mackenzie Davis

At the time of writing this, Epic is still drip-feeding us story about why The Paradigm was cast out of The Seven (and why the group may now be considering bringing her back). It seems like the writers have big, big plans for this mysterious hero, and if that translates to the movie, you’ll need a rising star to fill the role. After nailing it in things like Black Mirror and Station Eleven, I love Mackenzie Davis for this role. She’s believable as a hero with a checkered past, which seems to be who Epic is telling us The Paradigm is.

The Scientist – Joel McHale

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Like The Foundation, The Scientist’s in-game voice actor could comfortably slide into the movie role just as well. Joel McHale has done a great job as The Scientist, bringing a comic relief character to the story that, while colorful and silly in general, tends to be about the universe collapsing in on itself when you really get down to the details. He’s basically playing Jeff Winger from Community–but isn’t he always? As sardonic as ever, McHale has the right amount of star power to fill out this cast.

Peely – Donald Glover

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Look, if we’re not gonna get the Community movie, then I’m using this as my own personal wishing well to reunite at least some of the cast in something. Glover has incredible comedic chops and would obviously kill it as the Fortnite world’s anthropomorphic banana. Plus he’d do wonders with the eventual dancing banana segment that you’ve gotta know makes the final cut of any Fortnite movie. While we’re at it, let’s get Danny Pudi on the fitness fast-track to play Meowscles, Midas’ buff cat, too.

The Fortnite universe is massive, so this is only a main cast, more or less. Who else would you like to see in an eventual Fortnite movie? If you like this sort of thing, join me every week for my weekly column dedicated to the Fortnite storyline, Friday ‘Nite.

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Triangle Strategy has a free demo that encompasses the first three chapters of the upcoming tactical HD-2D turn-based JRPG. Those three chapters take about four hours to complete, which sounds like a fairly decent chunk of the game if you’re looking to check it out prior to deciding whether to buy it–and since your progress from the demo carries over, you don’t have to worry about playing those four hours over again. But a huge portion of that four hours is scene after scene of story exposition. There’s a potentially good game here with Triangle Strategy, but it takes way too long to set-up its fantastical world and get to its most promising feature.

In Triangle Strategy, you play as Serenoa Wolffort, a young man who has recently taken control of House Wolffort. Serenoa lives in the continent of Norzelia, a land that has entered a strained peace as its three countries–Glenbrook, Aesfrost, and Hyzante–agree to a truce in order to avoid all-out war. Glenbrook is most well-known for its military might and managing trade routes, while Aesfrost and Hyzante control the continent’s most valuable resources, iron and salt, respectively.

Alongside becoming the new lord of House Wolffort, Serenoa must prepare for his arranged wedding with Frederica Aesfrost, a union designed to unite Glenbrook and Aesfrost, pressuring Hyzante to remain in the proposed alliance or risk becoming the weakest country. It is a fragile peace at best–the first few hours of Triangle Strategy constantly imply that the continent is a powder keg, and everyone is warily eyeing each other while holding lit matches.

Triangle Strategy endeavors to impart all of Norzelia’s backstory prior to actually putting the plot in motion, making for one of the slowest opening arcs I’ve ever seen. It certainly doesn’t help that so much of the setup involves tired tropes that aren’t all that interesting. Like, Serenoa is a good-natured man in a cynical world, whose desire for peace and cooperation attracts a large number of followers and allies. And despite her noble birth, Frederica faces discrimination for her pink hair (a physical signifier of her Rosellan heritage–Triangle Strategy’s stand-in fantasy race for “marginalized people”). And who could have possibly foreseen that the religious country that preaches freedom for all and is also supposedly devoid of any and all crime is actually *gasp* not all that of a great place to live if you don’t buy into the teachings of the ruling faith? Everyone who’s ever played a fantasy JRPG before, that’s who. It’s all stuff that’s been done before (and better) in other fantasy games.

Granted, these are all storylines and tropes explored in many recent HD-2D JRPGs, like the Bravely Default series and Octopath Traveler. And given the fact that Tomoya Asano–producer for the Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler games–is leading the team on Triangle Strategy, it’s not a huge surprise that Triangle Strategy is exploring themes and tropes we’ve seen in those games. I just wish Triangle Strategy would have broken free of those storylines (and it very well could since I’ve only played the first four hours). It’s disheartening to see Triangle Strategy seemingly just retread old ground as opposed to doing something new.

All that said, Triangle Strategy’s opening three chapters have two saving graces: combat and character relationships. The game’s tactical turn-based battles play out like something seen in Fire Emblem, with different characters taking on specific roles, encouraging some semblance of planning and purposeful consideration to every fight. It’s fairly straightforward and approachable in the game’s opening chapters–you don’t have to be a strategic wizard to win fights.

Triangle Strategy shows the most promise in how it tackles the evolving relationships between its characters. House Wolffort isn’t like the other houses–it doesn’t follow the direction of its one lord; instead, the leader of the house picks their seven closest and trusted companions and they in turn vote to decide the best course of action. It is the lord’s job to listen to their advisors’ words, potentially trying to sway them if need be but always following their lead.

This means that your direction in the campaign is not entirely your own. All of your companions have their own goals and dreams, each of which evolves depending on how the story develops. Their relationship to Serenoa can also change depending on his convictions and ideals, which are defined by the choices you make in conversations and the decisions you make in battle.

Triangle Strategy’s demo only offers a taste of how this can play out, presenting the opportunity mid-way through the preview to visit Aesfrost or Hyzante as a representative of the king. You don’t have enough time to visit both, and you’ll get different stories and companions depending on where you end up. But you can’t just pick which to go to–your party picks for you. Prior to the choice being made, you can see where everyone stands and then try to convince people to change their position if you so desire. The dialogue options you have at your disposal in those moments are determined based on what information you learned from previous conversations, and your ability to sway others to your cause will depend on how they think of you. So while some folks may be easy to convince, others may prove significantly more difficult.

In my playthrough, I did my best to convince my seven companions to visit Hyzante, and though I did manage to secure enough votes in my favor, I didn’t talk everyone into agreeing with me. It made what would have been an already harrowing RPG choice–it’s implied that your decision to go to one country over the other may impact Glenbrook’s relations with the other two nations–even more stressful. After thinking it over and making my choice, I had to accept the realization that it was completely possible that my party members would decide to do something else. As they one-by-one cast their votes, I waited with bated breath to see where my companions were choosing to take me.

It’s an intriguing enough feature that I will probably give Triangle Strategy the benefit of the doubt and see how the game’s story unfolds past its slow opening chapters. I’m running under the assumption that the alliance uniting Glenbrook, Aesfrost, and Hyzante isn’t going to last very long–the game has utilized numerous fantasy tropes already, so what’s one more? And in a typical RPG, where I alone decide the fate of the story, I’d probably aim for a return to peace. But Triangle Strategy doesn’t leave it up to me–this is a story where my companions’ decisions carry more agency than the protagonist–and that opens up the potential for my fate to be an interesting surprise.

Triangle Strategy is set to launch for Switch on March 4.

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Sequels to both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone have been revealed, but Activision has also highlighted its plans to fix the broken state of the current Warzone experience. In a February 11 blog post, Activision addressed some of Warzone’s biggest issues since the new Caldera map dropped with Season 1, which include console performance issues, graphical bugs, and invisible skins.

“The number one priority for our developers is quality of life,” Activision said. “Making changes that allow Warzone to be more accessible and less frustrating for our community.” The publisher then revealed that over 30 improvements would be arriving with the launch of Season 2 on February 14.

Among these updates will be improvements to all forms of movement, which include vehicle handling, parachutes deploying at a lower vertical height, increased player mantle height, and collision fixes for both vehicles and players. The update will also make changes to Warzone’s frustrating gas mask animation, which currently interrupts players while they aiming down sights. Players can also expect a change to refilling armor plates, as it will be updated to refill a full plate of armor before filling damaged ones.

Changes to movement in Warzone come alongside plans to squash more bugs and issues, as Activision said Season 2 will address several major issues. These updates will focus on performance and streaming issues, which include Buy Station freezes, voice chat connectivity, and distorted graphics across all platforms. Invisible operator skins have been a real nuisance in Warzone since Season 1, but fixes are also coming to correct these specific operator skins from going invisible at certain distances.

For those still wanting to play 2019’s Modern Warfare yet unable to access the game, Activision said a fix is on the way for those unable to play the game. The noted cause for blockages to Modern Warfare’s multiplayer were issues tied to Warzone’s launcher.

Activision said that the main priority is still providing the community with a positive and fun gameplay experience. “The team’s focus is strictly on the Warzone experience we are all playing today, addressing current frustrations, and tackling several important requests from our community.”

In an Activision-hosted call with Charlieintel and other press and content creators, Infinity Ward Co-Studio Head Pat Kelly, Activision Game Director Josh Bridge, and Raven Software’s Eric Biesmann discussed Warzone’s problems, and as Charlieintel described, bluntly admitted to messing stuff up.

The developers also told CharlieIntel that Warzone was originally built solely as an addition to 2019’s Modern Warfare, but after its incredible success, they wanted to incorporate it into future titles. This decision caused “significant development challenges,” which the developers said left the game feeling “bloated” with all the additional Black Ops Cold War and Vanguard. However, they also said that these issues would be addressed throughout the rest of the year.

Hopefully, Warzone will feel a bit smoother when the new content drops for Season 2. This second season of Vanguard-related content is set to bring WWII bomber planes and chemical warfare to Caldera. Attack on Titan is also getting another Call of Duty crossover with an Armored Titan skin.

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