The new Fortnite Season 2 weapons have been revealed, and the loot pool this season looks primed to shake up last season’s SMG meta by re-establishing the shotgun as a viable close-quarters option. Along with that, a ton of weapons and items have been unvaulted, bringing back some fan favorites with some new mechanics in some cases. Here’s the full breakdown of Fortnite Season 2 weapons.

Fortnite Season 2 weapons

The loot pool has gone under heavy revisions this season, including a ton of unvaulted items especially. After the totally brand-new weapons we saw at the start of last season, this season’s weapons may be nostalgic for some players. On top of that, these returning weapons have been revised in some cases to suit the “Resistance” theme of the season.

Unvaulted weapons

Thermal Scoped Assault Rifle (semi-auto, fires faster, reduced damage, increased recoil)Drum Shotgun (fires slower, slightly increased damage, tighter spread, better falloff)Revolver (fires faster, reduced damage, higher accuracy)Remote Explosives (increased damage against vehicles)Thermal Scoped Revolver (Exotic weapon)Storm Scout Sniper Rifle (Exotic weapon)Shockwave Grenades

Returning Season 1 weapons

Ranger Assault RifleStriker Pump ShotgunAuto ShotgunSidearm PistolStinger SMGHunter Bolt-Action SniperShadow Tracker (Exotic weapon)Marksman Six Shooter (Exotic weapon)The Dub (Exotic weapon)Boom Sniper Rifle (Exotic weapon)

The Drum Shotgun should give shotty fans an old favorite when they want to pack a heavy punch up close and personal. Meanwhile, the Scoped AR has been given a first-person ADS camera much like last season’s MK-7 Rifle. The Thermal Scout Sniper Rifle returns after a season away and should fit right in with the militia-heavy season. What’s going to be your go-to weapon this season?

For more on the new season, here’s everything new in Fortnite Season 2.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

When Nintendo announced that it would be shutting down the eShop for both the 3DS and Wii U in 2023, my reaction was simple: of course it is. The development wasn’t a huge surprise–after all, it wasn’t that long ago that PlayStation announced its decision to close down the digital storefronts for the PS3 and PS Vita (though this decision was ultimately reversed). Companies do as companies want, and mostly what they want is to make money, and to avoid wasting it. So of course Nintendo is closing down two of its older eShops. There’s no money in them. But for the rest of us, it sucks, right? My initial reaction was one of resignation, but after a conversation with my partner, my feelings quickly turned to frustration because of what we’re about to lose.

My partner is on a Fire Emblem kick at the minute. In fact, they only just got into the series properly after starting with Three Houses, and they’re now delving into the 3DS games. But after the eShop closes next year, Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation, the conclusive resolution to both Birthright and Conquest, will essentially be unplayable unless you’re willing to fork out hundreds of dollars on eBay for the very tough-to-find physical edition. Our combined irritation led me to think of all the other digital-only games on the eShop, like Attack of the Friday Monsters or Pushmo. Hell, even Pokemon Yellow won’t be legally playable again without owning a physical copy.

And so because of Nintendo’s decision, a number of games are going to be potentially lost in a legal capacity, just because that’s business. It’s clear the company isn’t interested in making those games easily accessible, either, as in the initial Q&A it released regarding the closure, Nintendo addressed players’ concerns by essentially saying it wasn’t obligated to make these games available. And unfortunately, that’s true.

Speaking with GameSpot, Iain Simons, writer and part-time curator at the UK’s National Video Game Museum, said, “In terms of fiscal responsibility to their shareholders, they likely don’t have a responsibility to make the titles available. So why should they? As their statement says, this is part of a ‘natural life-cycle’–all things must pass, games die.”

It isn’t just money that acts as a barrier, as Simons pointed out to me. Games are in a weird position when it comes to cultural recognition, and haven’t really managed to convince those who don’t play games that they are an art form worth spending time on. Mediums like film have the Oscars, an institution which–while far from perfect–still do better at presenting the format as art, opposed to something like The Game Awards, which is unfortunately more like an E3 press conference than an awards-focused show.

The 3DS And Wii U Games You Should Buy Before Their eShops Shut Down

There are other complications when it comes to preserving games, too, such as the ways platforms are frequently changing; materials used to make games, like metal and plastic, are constantly degrading; and copyright issues. These all make understanding games from a cultural perspective incredibly difficult.

“From a preservation point of view, you dip your head into that for an hour and immediately realize that this is a huge problem that’s going to require vast resources and coordination to even begin to make it work,” said Simons.

There are people who are working to preserve as much video game history as they can, even if it is an immense amount of work, however. But in doing that work, there is also a huge amount of exasperation that comes with it. The Video Game History Foundation is one of the higher-profile organizations dedicated to preserving video game history. Its statement regarding the closure of the 3DS and Wii U eShops acknowledges the business side of things but criticizes Nintendo’s other actions.

“As a paying member of the Entertainment Software Association, Nintendo actively funds lobbying that prevents even libraries from being able to provide legal access to these games,” wrote the VGHF. “Not providing commercial access is understandable, but preventing institutional work to preserve these titles on top of that is actively destructive to video game history.”

What the VGHF is referring to is that the ESA (best known as the organizers of E3) has actively lobbied against games from being made available in public libraries. In 2017, Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (MADE) of Oakland asked the US copyright office for a Digital Millennium Copyright Act exemption for preserving MMOs that their publishers no longer supported. Then in 2018, the ESA filed for MADE’s request to be denied, saying that “video game publishers have strong economic incentives to preserve their own games.” Thankfully, MADE was successful and the copyright exemption was granted, but only if the assets are legally passed on by the intellectual property owner. So if a company discontinues an MMO, it can choose to pass the game’s assets to preservationists. But even that limited ability to save defunct games might not be possible, especially when we can’t even guarantee the safety of the source code of video games.

The source code for the original Kingdom Hearts was infamously lost, so it’s a blessing that the game is even playable on modern consoles. And “blessing” is an understatement. Assets had to be recreated for the purpose of the remastered version of the game, and if Square Enix decided it wasn’t worth it, then the only legal way to play the game would be through the PS2 version.

However, according to Damian Rogers of the Game Preservation Society, it’s likely that at least some of the source code for games on the Nintendo eShop will have been saved. “We can also be fairly certain that, thanks to modern development practices and more foresight on the part of the developers, the games are safe internally as well, though we do wish Nintendo and all game publishers would be more transparent with the details of those internal preservation efforts,” Rogers said.

Transparency is one of the biggest issues at play here, certainly with a company like Nintendo. With the renewed interest in Fire Emblem, Nintendo might be working on some kind of port or remake of at least one of the series’ 3DS games, so perhaps they won’t be out of circulation indefinitely. But that doesn’t make up for all the other games that aren’t enjoying a sudden, unexpected resurgence and will be lost because of the eShop closure.

Sure, there are ROM sites, but Nintendo is constantly filing takedowns of these sites, with legal cases ultimately ordering the owners of them to pay millions of dollars. But these sites are doing more work to preserve older titles than Nintendo in many cases–just think of Mother 3, a game only playable in English thanks to a fan localization. But if a company like Nintendo has no interest in making its older titles available for purchase on its digital storefronts, or for preservationists and historians, there’s nothing anyone can legally do about it. And so we have a situation in which these games are unavailable both publicly and commercially. “But, ultimately, these [eShops] are commercial stores rather than public archives,” James Newman said.

Newman also does work for the UK’s National Video Game Museum, in addition to serving as a research professor at Bath Spa University. And like me, he is cognizant of how digital sales and streaming media can act as a deterrent from preservation. “One of the important shifts to be mindful of here is that the shift to digital distribution, subscription, and streaming brings with it a change in how we, as consumers, have access to our media. We no longer buy a film, album, or game in quite the same way, but rather we pay for access to it while it is part of the catalog and for as long as we continue to subscribe.

“This has a potentially huge impact in terms of our ability to watch, listen to, and play, and also on our ability to pass on our collections of media to future generations, whether that be handing them on through families and friends, or donating to museums and archives.”

That point of handing media on is something that struck a chord with me. Being able to easily share a game with someone just by giving them a copy is a special act. There’s something welcomingly communal about loaning your friend a DVD, and the idea of playing one of my favorite games with a kid of my own one day feels like an opportunity to pass on something a little bit more fun than my genetics.

There isn’t much that an individual can do to combat this. But Newman did provide an explanation of what people can help preservation efforts, even if it isn’t direct preservation work–which is to simply document these works’ existence. Documentation and recordings that provide an understanding of a game’s place in the cultural conversation are an important part of the process. “There is a tendency to think of game preservation as a software project to do with extracting data and emulating old or obsolete systems,” he said. “But game preservation is also a documentary project.

“Being able to play a game like Super Mario Maker in the future will be revealing and show how Nintendo gamified game-making and focused on placing and arranging tiles, but to really understand the complex meanings of that game, we would also want to see the levels that were designed by players and all those videos of people building them and reacting to them as they attempted to complete the sometimes fiendishly complicated and intricate puzzles people had designed.”

Newman is right–documenting games through things like walkthroughs, let’s plays, streams, all of it is important. But it also isn’t enough. While it might be more likely that companies are better at keeping their source code safe, there’s no guarantee that they actually are. And if Nintendo continues to be successful in shutting ROM sites down, it won’t just affect its own library of games, but games from other platforms hosted on the same site.

Nintendo is rightfully beloved as the company that makes so many wonderful games. But as with a number of other publishers, it’s also the justifiable target of ire the company that doesn’t want you to be aware of its rich history. When companies like Nintendo and organizations like the ESA are often the ones to have a major say in how games should be made available, we are put into a position where we can’t win. So for now the main thing we can potentially do is follow Newman’s advice by documenting these games, or at best, look into the ways we can help groups like the Video Game History Foundation. Because for as long as the bottom line doesn’t provide an incentive to do so, it’s clear that publishers aren’t going to do the work.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Venturing to the scarlet rot-infested lands of Caelid, located east of Limgrave, is no easy feat for new Elden Ring players. It’s tough to reach at low levels, and even if you do somehow find yourself there by mistake, you’ll definitely struggle to defeat Caelid’s large assortment of horrific monsters and bosses–and that’s if you don’t succumb to the unsightly scarlet rot disease that’s stricken the land and turned the sky bright red.

Caelid is an optional zone, meaning that you don’t need to explore it or defeat Starscourge Radahn at Redmane Castle if you don’t want to, though you do need to beat at least two shardbearers to progress to the end of Elden Ring. It’s best to fully explore Caelid after completing the Academy of Raya Lucaria and defeating Rennala.

Arriving in Caelid

Entering Caelid means you have to deal with scarlet rot-infested enemies, which drain your health over time.

Caelid is located directly east of Limgrave, but it’s reasonably cordoned off from the main path if you’ve been steadily heading north through the Stormveil Castle region toward Godrick the Grafted. Even though it’s nearby where you began Elden Ring, don’t feel like you absolutely need to clear your way through Caelid before you’re ready.

There are a handful of ways to arrive in Caelid, but there are three main pathways into Caelid that you’ll find useful if you’re determined to uncover Caelid’s secrets.

Dragon-Burnt Ruins to Sellia Crystal Tunnel

The Dragon-Burnt Ruins are located east of The First Step and the Church of Elleh.

Located immediately east of The First Step grace point, sunken into the Agheel Lake, is a set of ruins called the Dragon-Burnt Ruins. Fight through the swarm of undead grunts, then descend into the first staircase you find out in the open. Underneath these ruins is a teleporter trapped-chest which sends you to a cavern in Caelid, the Sellia Crystal Tunnel, which is full of diggers and prawn miners.

Don’t worry if you can’t fight these enemies yet; simply turn right from the shack you spawn into, head down the ramp and through the cave until you come to a ladder. Jump down and you’ll be at a Site of Grace, and the entrance to the Sellia Crystal Tunnel, which leads out into the Aeonia swamp in the heart of Caelid.

Smoldering Church

The Rotview Balcony, located directly southeast of the Smoldering Church.

Cross through the Saintsbridge/Summonwater Village areas of Limgrave and then keep heading northeast, ascending upward, until you come across an area called the Smoldering Church. You’ll get invaded by an NPC at this point, but if you can beat them, you’ll get the ability to travel further east toward Rotview Balcony, which is where you get your first real taste of the desolation that underscores the “Caelid experience,” as some online have put it. Another way to reach the Smoldering Church is by visiting the Third Church of Marika, then by riding the wind currents up the cliffs while riding Torrent.

Hidden Bestial Sanctum Teleporter

The location of the Third Church of Marika.

Behind the Third Church of Marika in Limgrave is a small creek. If you search through the foliage nearby, you’ll uncover a teleporter nestled into the base of the cliff. Activating the teleporter sends you all the way to the Bestial Sanctum, which is a valuable hunting ground to get a lot of runes very quickly with little chance of losing them all and having to start over. Grab the nearby grace point; from here, you can head south down the road (if you’re comfortable passing one or two bosses that can one-shot you, plus a few dragons) and descend into Caelid from the Dragonbarrow subregion that you teleported into.

Major Caelid areas

A view of Greyoll’s Dragonbarrow.

Caelid is brimming with secrets. We won’t spoil them all, in fact, we very likely haven’t found all of them yet ourselves! That said, it’s good to note which major areas to make a point of visiting while you’re on your quest to dethrone Radahn (and get as much loot as you can while doing it, because why not?)

Fort Gael and surroundings

The approach to Fort Gael is guarded by fire-wielding soldiers.

Fort Gael and Rotview Balcony share the western side of Caelid that’s characterized by lots of Lordsworn soldiers and giant rotting animals contesting for dominance over the blighted land. As you head south, you’ll witness more and more of the carnage. Fort Gael is more or less insulated from this, surrounded by elite guard troops and sitting on a cliffside, upon which it solemnly faces west toward Limgrave. If you manage to enter Fort Gael, you can fight a lion guardian which drops the Ash of War: Lion’s Claw, but be wary, since this fight takes place in an enclosure that the lion guardian likes to thrash around in, and it can be difficult to kill early on.

Aeonia Swamp

The Swamp of Aeonia is located in the middle of Caelid.

Aeonia Swamp sits in the center of Caelid, and it features the highest concentration of scarlet rot that you will come across. Points of interest are sparse, and you certainly don’t want to rest in one spot too long–scarlet rot can slowly build up, and if it reaches a certain threshold, it’ll begin draining your health. The Street of Sages Ruins on the west side of the Aeonia Swamp area houses the powerful Meteorite Staff that can be highly useful to Astrologer builds. The east side of Aeonia features a boss battle with Commander O’Neil, who is incredibly difficult to beat alone at low levels but is necessary to defeat in order to progress the Millicent questline.

Sellia

Sellia is located on the northeastern shore of Aeonia.

Sellia houses several interesting treasures, such as the Nox Flowing Sword and Lusat’s Glintstone Staff, both of which can be unlocked by lighting the three signal fires throughout town (located in three different towers, which can be accessed via the town’s rooftops) and defeating the Nox Swordstress and Nox Priest located in the Chair-Crypt of Sellia. Once the seal to the Sellia Backstreets is unlocked, you can travel uphill to the Church of the Plague, where you can find Millicent and begin her questline.

Greyoll’s Dragonbarrow

The entrance to the Bestial Sanctum, which contains Gurranq, Beast Clergyman.

Greyoll’s Dragonbarrow comprises the northern half of Caelid and is named for its wide array of dead and undead dragons. Presumably, it’s also named for the Elder Dragon Greyoll which guards the region south of the Farum Greatbridge that links the Caelid mainland and the northern Bestial Sanctum together. The Farum Greatbridge is, unironically, also guarded by a separate dragon named Greyll. There are two Minor Erdtrees in this region, as well as a plethora of caves and minor dungeons. The best place to farm runes early on in Elden Ring is by stalking the plains outside of Farum Greatbridge (south of Bestial Sanctum) and hunting the Vulgar Militia that wander around and drop 1000+ runes per kill.

Redmane Castle and Eastern Caelid

Redmane Castle is located on the southeastern tip of Caelid, beyond the Impassable Bridge.

Redmane Castle is similar to Stormveil Castle in Limgrave; it is the toughest part of the zone to break into, and it hosts Caelid’s big fight with the zone boss, Radahn. Unlike Stormveil, there is only one way to get inside once you’ve reached the front gates. Beyond Redmane Castle is a coastal area that hosts a few additional areas.

Caelid map location

The Caelid map is located under a placard near the Nomadic Merchant.

The Caelid map is located on a fork in the road between the Southern Aeonia Swamp Bank point of grace to the northeast, and the Cathedral of Dragon Communion to the southwest. The location where you’ll find the map is also characterized by a nearby Nomadic Merchant who sells Nomadic Warrior’s Cookbook [15] among a few other things.

The Dragonbarrow map is located under a placard near a fork in the road, southwest of the Divine Tower of Caelid.

You’ll also want to nab the Dragonbarrow map, which is located east of the Minor Erdtree closest to the Smoldering Church, and southwest of the Divine Tower of Caelid. It’s also in a fork in the road, and you can find the other Caelid merchant in the Isolated Merchant’s Shack to the northwest of where you found the Dragonbarrow map.

Millicent and Gowry

Gowry’s Shack is located south of Sellia, Town of Sorcery.

On the road between Sellia, Town of Sorcery (to the north) and Sellia Gateway (to the south) is Gowry’s Shack. Speaking to Gowry inside, he tells you he’d like to cure a young girl who has become stricken with scarlet rot. The only problem is that he needs an Unalloyed Gold Needle to do so.

Finding one is simple, obtaining it for yourself is not. In order to get one, you need to defeat Commander O’Neil who is located immediately west of Gowry’s Shack behind a thick canopy of sickened trees. He’s a particularly tough boss who summons exile soldiers and uses sweeping wind-based attacks with his halberd, so it’s recommended you either invite cooperators or rely heavily on Torrent for the fight.

Commander O’Neil drops the Commander’s Standard halberd, Unalloyed Gold Needle, and 12,000 runes.

Once finished, return to Gowry, who tells you to wait for a bit. Return to any point of grace, then back to Gowry’s shake, where he gives you a note explaining that you need to light the fires in Sellia to unlock its secret. Simply double-jump over the rooftops in town using Torrent; each tower is pretty easy to see at any point in town, you simply need to clear a path to each one without falling down onto the streets below.

Once all three are lit, you can enter the Sellia Backstreets and head up to the Church of the Plague, where Millicent is. Offer the item Gowry gave you and rest at the nearby grace point. Once rested, speak to her again to finish the quest.

Millicent gives you this Prosthesis-Wearer Heirloom upon finishing her quest.

Finishing Millicent’s quest in Caelid rewards the Prosthesis-Wearer Heirloom, a talisman that raises Dexterity by five points. If you complete her quest and save her from the scarlet rot, she appears later on in a much longer questline that culminates with you being able to earn Millicent’s Prosthesis, a talisman that rewards five points of Dexterity and increases the attack power of your consecutive attacks.

Pushing forward to Redmane Castle

At the southern tip of Caelid is a point of grace called Impassable Greatbridge. It’s possible to travel across this bridge, but it did get its name for a good reason; you’ll need to dodge an onslaught of ballista bolts that can easily knock you off of Torrent–even when dashing at full speed–and pin you to the ground if they don’t immediately kill you.

That said, if you can make it past all of Redmane Castle’s frontal defenses, you’ll find that the front gate is closed indefinitely. Good news though: There is a side passage that you can follow by jumping across the siege tower and onto the crag leading around the castle to the right. You’ll run into some potentially tough fights with giant bats along the way, but you’ll eventually find a ladder that you can climb up. Once inside the castle, rush to the ground floor then move north and east until you find the grace point called Chamber Outside the Plaza. This’ll be your foothold for exploring the rest of Redmane Castle on your own time, and this is also where you’ll launch your assault on Starscourge Radahn from.

After unlocking the Radahn boss fight, this sequence takes place when traveling deeper into the Redmane Castle Plaza.

Alternate route across the bridge

If crossing the Impassable Greatbridge isn’t your style, then there’s a stealthier way to get to the Redmane front gates. Travel to Fort Gael, south of the Rotview Balcony, and sneak inside by climbing onto the tree branch that winds around the corner to the right (past the closed front door). Climb up the ladder, then either fight or ignore the foes on the rampart, including the knight. Don’t fall into the pit or engage the lion guardian if you don’t want to. Your goal is to climb to the top of the tower and open the treasure chest at the top, which is a trapped teleporter chest that ports you directly to the Redmane Castle front gates.

Acquiring Moonveil

The location of the Gael Tunnel entrance in Caelid, south of the Rotview Balcony.

Caelid is where you can find one of the most powerful katanas in Elden Ring, Moonveil, which deals magic damage and scales with strength, dexterity, and intelligence. If that’s your style, then you can easily find it by slaying the Magma Wyrm inside of the Gael Tunnel dungeon.

You can travel south from Rotview Balcony to get to the main Gael Tunnel entrance if you’d like to grab that point of grace, but there’s a much easier and simple path directly to the boss fight from Limgrave. You can sneak into Gael Tunnel by going to the Third Church of Marika and climbing up the cliffs to the northeast until you find the Rear Gael Tunnel Entrance point of grace, which conveniently places you right next to the entrance to the Magma Wyrm’s lair.

The secluded Rear Gael Tunnel Entrance.

The Magma Wyrm is pretty slow and predictable, only using the same few moves in a row. It’s also weak to piercing attacks. The main attack to watch out for is its magma breath attack where it slowly fills certain areas of the chamber with magma as it plows through. The rest of the Magma Wyrm’s attacks are large area of effect sweeps with its claws and tail which can be telegraphed and dodge-rolled through. It also has an attack where it slashes the ground for a moment, then pulls its claw back in a sort of “fake out” move that can catch you unaware if you reacted too quickly to (i.e. dodge-rolled in closer to strike after) the initial ground-slash.

Fighting the Magma Wyrm is a piece of cake when you bring friends.

Other than that, the Magma Wyrm fight is pretty straightforward. Don’t feel shy about inviting friends to help you beat it! Once finished, you’re rewarded with the Moonveil and a fresh new Dragon Heart.

There’s plenty else to see and do in Caelid, but don’t let us spoil all the fun of uncovering the rest of its myriad secrets for yourself. Happy hunting, Tarnished.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Hearthstone’s next expansion, Voyage to the Sunken City, launches on April 12. The new set will introduce an entirely new class, Naga, the undersea race of magical beings, which reward using spells while they sit in your hand. When you get a class-based legendary Naga, of course the spell-based synergy is huge.

Enter Hedra the Heretic, a Druid legendary minion and part of the new Naga class. The 7-Mana minion with 4/5 stats has a relatively low stat-line, but its Battlecry is huge. It summons a minion equal to the spell cost of each spell you’ve cast while Hedra was in your hand. Yikes.

The Druid legendary Hedra the Heretic

That ability makes Hedra a good late-game finisher for Druid decks that favor big spells. Some of those will be cycling out of Standard rotation this year, but last year Blizzard introduced the Core Set, which allows it to cycle in cards from any past expansion to lay the groundwork from upcoming expansions. It’s safe to say that we’ll either see some high-cost spells returning, or new ones added to the pool in the Sunken City expansion.

But Hedra is even viable as a mid-game option for decks that run some lower-cost spells. If you can pop off Hedra flanked by two random 4- or 6-cost minions, she becomes a good value play and difficult to answer that early in the game.

According to the official description, Hedra rejected the rule of Queen Azshara, which may have been a bad idea.

“While most will tell you otherwise, not all Naga choose to follow Queen Azshara. Those that don’t are cast out into the deep sea, with only a few able to survive on their own. Hedra is one of those few. She travels the ocean to either turn Queen Azshara’s followers against her or vanquish those that won’t.”

Aside from the new Naga class, Voyage to the Sunken City introduces two new keywords. Dredge lets you grab cards from the bottom of the deck, while Colossal minions come in multiple parts and are all summoned simultaneously regardless of where each piece happens to be in your deck. Blizzard will be updating with more details on the new year of content and Core Set changes shortly before launch. Two Voyage to the Sunken City bundles are available for preorder now.

Activision Blizzard has been facing accusations of harassment and unfair labor practices following lawsuits from the state of California, and prompting further investigations. Microsoft has since announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard, but it remains to be seen how this dynamic will impact the pending legal action.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News