Xbox controllers come in a wide variety of colors these days, and for fans of a color that’s more ostentatious and in your face, good news: Deep Pink is finally on the menu.

Not to be confused with a barely-legal imitation of legendary rock band Deep Purple, this Xbox wireless controller sports a shade of pink that’s bright and tastefully offset by a black D-pad, face buttons, and triggers. A white rear panel finishes off the look of a vibrant and funky peripheral.

Also worth mentioning is the battery life of the controller, as it’s capable of lasting through any marathon gaming session, whether you’re using AA batteries or a rechargeable pack that’s sold separately. The triggers are also great and feature a wonderfully nuanced sensation of haptic feedback.

If you’re a big Marvel fan, you can also check out the official Captain America Xbox controller from Razer. Recently revealed, it’s a star-spangled piece of hardware that’s inspired by the latest hero to wield the shield, former Falcon Sam Wilson.

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Spotify is entering the gaming market. The company has announced Spotify Island, a new location inside Roblox where fans can meet up, take on missions, buy band merch, and celebrate music together in the metaverse. Spotify has described the island as as a “paradise of sound” that aims to bring fans and artists closer together.

This is Spotify’s first big push into gaming (and they are the first streaming music platform to have a live destination inside Roblox) but Spotify and gaming are already connected. Spotify has 2.2 million gaming-related playlists, the company said in a presentation attended by GameSpot. The arrival of Spotify Island in Roblox today, May 3, is Spotify’s attempt to reach the next generation of fans (and subscribers), executives Alia Calhoun (global head of partner marketing) and Abby Stewart (director of business development) said.

Spotify Island launches today

An interactive experience, Spotify Island is a “reimagining” of the Spotify brand as a video game via Roblox. Players will immediately notice the island’s green color scheme, which is meant to match Spotify’s official branding. Spotify Island itself is described as a meeting place for players to play, explore, and connect, with the aim of bringing artists and fans closer together. The gameplay involves platforming and parkour; players can collect items spread throughout the island and track their progress on a leaderboard.

One of the key components to Spotify Island–and the appeal for artists, in particular–is merch sales. Spotify is partnering with artists to sell virtual merch that Roblox users can use on Spotify Island and throughout Roblox. Similar to how Spotify pays artists for streams of music, artists will also receive a cut of virtual merch sales via Roblox.

The success of Spotify Island will likely come down to the caliber of artist that Spotify can partner with, and the company is starting with some big global names. Korean pop stars Sunmi and the K-pop band Stray Kids will sell merch on Spotify Island through Roblox, with more artist partners to be announced later. There will also be four free items available to players for completing missions on the island.

In addition to the main Spotify Island, there will be off-shoots. The first of these is “K-Park,” a land themed around K-pop music. This will launch in the coming weeks, and there will be additional partnerships of this nature announced in the future for Spotify Island on Roblox.

Stewart said fans should think of Spotify Island like a “constellation” or an “archipelago,” in that it will expand with new experiences over time. K-Park is just the first.

Spotify Island has support for its Soundtrap music offering of royalty-free tracks, so players can listen to tunes inside the game as they play. In the future, Spotify teased that additional elements of the Spotify service will be baked into Spotify Island, though whether or not genuine licensed music offerings are made available remains to be seen (there could be copyright issues).

Roblox has hosted in-game concerts before, and that would seem like a natural fit for a company like Spotify, but Calhoun said Spotify’s aim is to do something different. Spotify Island isn’t just for the “broadcast moment,” Calhoun said–instead, it’s a place for fans to engage with artists and fans together.

Also during the presentation, Spotify confirmed that Spotify Island will have no third-party ads. Additionally, Stewart spoke about how it aims to provide a “low-lift” option for artists and bands who want to engage with fans and reach new audiences by offloading this to Spotify to help do the work.

Bands are already stretched thin, Stewart said, due in part to pressures related to COVID and the impact on tour dates. Spotify Island could be a way for artists to help engage with existing fans, find new ones, and montetize through the sale of in-game merch–or at least that’s the plan for how this all could work.

Stewart said artists briefed on Spotify Island have been “super excited,” but no one beyond Sunmi and Stray Kids has been announced for Spotify Island thus far.

Spotify is just the latest massive brand to partner with Roblox. Earlier this year, Sega announced a new Sonic experience inside Roblox, while Chipotle teamed up with Roblox for free burritos.

In other news about music and video games, Billie Eilish is rumored to have an in-game concert inside Fortnite coming up, though Epic Games has yet to confirm this.

While Roblox has had a strong year, having passed a number of big milestones for its platform as well as increasing revenue, its share price recently took a dip, disappointing investors. Roblox founder and CEO David Baszucki’s base salary is dropping to $0, but the executive is poised to receive a “Long-Term Performance Award” worth up to $233 million.

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Currently in GTA Online, one of the best money-making methods is by doing the Cayo Perico heists. This particular heist came with the Cayo Perico update, which is considered to be one of the biggest and most impactful in GTA Online’s near-decade-long history. Aside from all of the new content, players can partake in the various missions that come with the heist. The most appealing aspect of these missions, excluding the potential earnings, is that players can choose any method to complete them. However, the basis of completing these missions is through unlocking the Kosatka submarine.

The Kosatka was the first submarine introduced in GTA Online and it remains the only one that players can purchase. It’s utilized as a base of operations for Cayo Perico missions but can also be used as players see fit. That means when players aren’t planning heists, they can take the submarine across the waters surrounding Los Santos.

Below, we’ll go over what players need to do to unlock and purchase the Kosatka submarine in GTA Online.

Buying the Kosatka submarine

To first unlock the ability to purchase the submarine, players need to speak with Miguel Madrazo. This is the main NPC associated with the Cayo Perico heists. Players can find him at the new Music Locker location found underneath the Diamond Casino. Once they speak to him, they’ll begin preparation for their first Cayo Perico heist.

The Cayo Perico update has been out for years in GTA Online

In order to help Madrazo pull off this heist, players need to purchase the Kosatka submarine. After speaking to Madrazo, Warstock Carry and Cache will now have the submarine for sale. Players can go to their Eyefind browser and then navigate to Warstock’s website. From there, it’s pretty easy to find the submarine, as it’s the only one listed on the website.

As players will see, the Kosatka costs a whopping $2.2 million. While this is by no means the most expensive vehicle in GTA Online, it is quite a bit of cash for a vehicle that won’t get seen. Of course, that’s also part of the allure that comes with buying a submarine. Players are able to glide across the seafloor to reach a destination, utilize the submarine to help with searching the ocean for treasure, and use it as a base of operations for Cayo Perico heists.

Kosatka submarine in GTA Online

Once players purchase the Kosatka, they will also be able to upgrade it. These upgrades can range from separate vehicles to onboard weapons. One of the most useful upgrades is to purchase the Sparrow helicopter. This made our list of the best helicopters to buy in GTA Online thanks to its association with the submarine. Players can buy both vehicles separately but use them together. The Sparrow will further help players with completing Cayo Perico heists, as they can take off and land it directly on the submarine.

As for other upgrades, the guided missiles are somewhat useful if players need to take out any enemies underwater and the sonar detection is also useful to players who use it correctly. Out of any upgrade, though, we recommend prioritizing the Sparrow over others, as it’s the most useful right away. Players will need to shell out another couple of million in cash if they want to fully upgrade the Kosatka in GTA Online.

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You’ve probably heard of some of the biggest third-party game publishers such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and Capcom, but there is another company that has been expanding rapidly through a series of acquisitions: Embracer Group, which just bought a number of studios and IP from Square Enix (including Tomb Raider maker Crystal Dynamics and Deus Ex’s Eidos Montreal). The video game company, by market value, is now the largest in all of Europe. But just what is Embracer Group, what studios and franchises does it own, and how did it get to be such a massive company with so little name recognition?

What is Embracer Group?

Embracer Group

Let’s get this out of the way first: The reason you may not recognize the Embracer Group name is that it operates several other publishers and developers with names you do recognize. At this time, Embracer Group is the parent company of major publishers like Deep Silver, THQ Nordic, and Gearbox, to name a few, as well over 100 game studios. The company was previously known as THQ Nordic but adopted its current name to avoid confusion following its many acquisitions.

Embracer Group, when it was known as Nordic Games, was a very small operation that focused primarily on finding holes in the market it could capitalize on, such as a lack of karaoke games on Nintendo’s systems in the late 2000s. After acquiring smaller properties and slowly growing while keeping costs low, it entered something of a “phase 2.”

Embracer Group has grown enormously over the last several years, often by purchasing studios and franchise rights from other companies that are either letting them stay dormant or are liquidating because of bankruptcy. This is how the company came to own much of the original THQ’s catalog, including the Metro and Darksiders series. It also eventually acquired the THQ name itself, with the Nordic publishing brand becoming THQ Nordic.

Following its most recent transactions, Embracer will have more than 14,000 employees–the majority of whom are game developers–and 124 different studios. Below, we’ve listed some of the prominent studios from across Embracer, broken down the publisher they’re aligned with inside the company.

Embracer Group studios

Metro Exodus

Embracer Group operates well over 100 different game studios across several publishing brands. Embracer doesn’t appear to have an overarching directive for the different brands, seemingly allowing them to operate with relative autonomy after they’ve been acquired. Additionally, companies with existing relationships with other publishers still maintain them, such as Gearbox continuing to work with Take-Two on the Borderlands series. Crystal Dynamics will also continue co-developing the Perfect Dark reboot for Microsoft, which it began working on while a subsidiary of Square Enix.

THQ Nordic

Experiment 101 (Biomutant)Piranha Bytes (Elex)Gunfire Games (Darksiders, Remnant: From The Ashes)Black Forest Games (Destroy All Humans)Grimlore Games (Spellforce)Rainbow Studios (MX vs. ATV)

Deep Silver

Volition (Saints Row)Deep Silver Dambuster Studios (Homefront: The Revolution)Free Radical Design (TimeSplitters)Deep Silver Fishlabs (Chorus)

Saber Interactive

4A Games (Metro)Aspyr (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake)3D Realms (Duke Nukem)Slipgate Ironworks (Ghostrunner)Snapshot Games (Phoenix Point)Zen Studios (Pinball FX)

Gearbox Entertainment

Gearbox Software (Borderlands, Brothers in Arms)Cryptic Studios (Star Trek Online, Neverwinter)

Tentative Embracer Group studios

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

In addition to the aforementioned group of studios, Embracer Group has also agreed to purchase several other studios and franchises from Square Enix. That deal has yet to officially close, but the below studios will be part of Embracer in the event that it does. The deal will also include several IP, including big-name franchises like Tomb Raider and Deus Ex.

Crystal Dynamics (Tomb Raider, Marvel’s Avengers)Eidos-Montreal (Deus Ex, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy)Square Enix Montreal (Deus Ex, Lara Croft, and Hitman mobile games)

Embracer Group’s future

Embracer group shows no signs of slowing its growth, with plans to, well, “embrace” even more companies in the future. The company has said as much, with CEO Lars Wingefords telling the Financial Times (via VGC) that Embracer wants to invest in US-, UK-, and Poland-based companies alongside Chinese and French companies. Not all of its purchases have been strictly video game-related, either, as Asmodee makes tabletop and board games and Dark Horse Media produces comic books, television shows, and films.

The company has already released sequels to series that were once dead, such as Darksiders III and Darksiders Genesis. It has also focused heavily on remastered versions of games it now owns IP rights to, including Red Faction, Destroy All Humans, and Kingdoms of Amalur, with plans for several more of these remastered games in the future. Based on its IP catalog, potential future games could include Second Sight or Deus Ex.

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If you’re looking to round up every spell in Elden Ring, you’ll want to stop by and say hello to Sorceress Sellen. Her stock can be improved quite a lot by handing in scrolls you find, but in the case of the sorcery Crystal Barrage, you can snag it as soon as you leave the tutorial and save up the runes for it. In this guide, we’ll tell you where to find Sorceress Sellen and add that spell to your collection.

Crystal Barrage explained

Crystal Barrage is a sorcery that requires 23 Intelligence to cast. It fires a volley of glintstone shards in a visually cool spectacle. However, it’s not one of the game’s most efficient spells and likely won’t serve as a high-end source of damage for most players.

Crystal Barrage’s item description reads:

One of the glintstone sorceries of the Academy of Raya Lucaria. Fires a volley of glintstone crystal shards. Charging increases potency. A sorcery of the Crystal Cadre, a group of sorcerers who pursue the wisdom of stone – the secrets locked in the faint cogitation of the Crystalians.

Where to find Crystal Barrage

Crystal Barrage can be purchased from Sorceress Sellen, who is located within Waypoint Ruins in Limgrave. She sells the spell for 1,500 runes, and she will sell it upon your first meeting–meaning you’re not required to offer her any of the game’s many scrolls to unlock it.

Waypoint Ruins

You can access Waypoint Ruins as soon as you finish the tutorial by heading east across Agheel Lake. Because it’s meant for low-level players, you should have no problems with the enemies around the area.

The ruins house a set of steps that lead down into a cellar. Inside, you’ll face off against the Mad Pumpkin Head boss. This fellow is slow and pretty easy to take down, but keep in mind that his head is immune to damage, so focus on hitting him on his backside or stomach. When he dies, you can walk through the door and access Sorceress Sellen, who can now sell you Crystal Barrage.

This NPC will eventually move from this spot if you follow her long and winding questline. However, she will still sell her spells at her new location. If you want to know more about how to do this, follow our Sorceress Sellen Quest Guide.

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