Games Workshop retail staff have a rough job, from low pay to consistent unreasonable targets from upper management, so it’s with all the love and respect that I tell you about the animated lad that my 14-year-old friends and I used to make fun of for liberal use of the phrase “If a Space Marine walked in here right now…” It was always accompanied by wildly enthusiastic gesticulation meant to convey the absolute unit-tude of said Space Marines (8 feet tall in Warhammer 40,000’s lore). I bring this up because it perfectly sums up the thorny issue behind marketing these yoked stormtroopers: Space Marines are very expensive for something so small, forcing Games Workshop to make the legend of these tiny plastic soldiers tower over the reality.
And what a legend it is. The Horus Heresy book series currently consists of over 60 fat paperbacks worth of lore. There’s far too much nuance to unpack here, but it’s fair to say that when writers spend that long exploring something, they have to take it quite seriously, especially if they want to keep their readers hooked. To be clear, 40K is a fascinating, fun, creative, vast, and often extremely clever setting. But it’s also — at least as recently as 2021, according to its parent company — explicitly, intentionally satirizing the very faction that the vast majority of its lore seems so fascinated with. “Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be,” wrote the novelist Dawn Powell. As 40K grows and grows, it’s becoming more difficult to deny that the portrayal of the Imperium is at least somewhat aspirational.
Image: Owlcat Games via Polygon
A quick primer: Humanity’s overwhelming presence in the 40K setting takes the shape of the Imperium of Man, where staunch xenophobia, mindless zealotry, and outright hostility toward social or technological progress are among the highest virtues — a literal “cult of tradition”. Ordinary folk live in cramped “Hives,” toiling away until death, at which point they’re repurposed as tasty, nutritious “corpse starch.” The Imperial Guard, humanity’s most numerous military force, is best known for employing the Zapp Brannigan maneuver, i.e., throwing endless bodies at a problem until it sorts itself out. As such, individual human life is less than worthless. Terra’s more elite military are the Space Marines. As 2000 AD’s Judge Dredd is to law enforcement, so are the Space Marines to the concept of the Ubermensch — a grimly satirical warning about the pursuit of perceived physical perfection and ultimate strength.
Of the 36 playable factions in 40K, around half (17) are of the Imperium in some capacity, with a further nine being their direct foil in Chaos, leaving just 10 to split between the multiple nonhuman species that populate this mind-bogglingly huge universe. Sci-fi can vary wildly in flavor, but a unifying thread is that great science fiction is almost insatiably curious. 40K absolutely shines when it mocks the staunch anti-curiosity of its human protagonists. But as the company has gradually grown to value sales over artistic intent, that lack of curiosity too often seems to be adopted by Games Workshop itself.
Image: Owlcat Games via Polygon
This fantastic look at the timeline of 40K, and how it moved from satire to something almost resembling celebration, puts it like this: “As the setting grew more mainstream, Space Marines’ [portrayal] as noble warrior monks became more and more prominent, resulting in a world where these abused, intolerant, mass-murdering child soldiers are only ever portrayed from the Imperium’s point of view,” and, in the vast majority of official artwork, “as genuine heroes.” Even the official website categorizes nonhuman armies as “the Xenos threat.” Look a little closer, and it’s easy to see the inherent satire in images of Primarch Roboute Guilliman with a Christ-like halo of light shining from the background. But unless you know what you’re looking for, this stuff looks suspiciously like the very propaganda that it’s making fun of.
This isn’t to say, of course, that modern-day Games Workshop has lost its sense of satire, and most certainly not its sense of humor. As we’ve seen time and time again in the games industry, shareholders misunderstanding or just straight-up not valuing the creative process is a depressingly prevailing theme — it’s easy for nuance to get crushed under the pursuit of easy profitability. The rule of cool sells plastic, not difficult themes. Plus, 40K is a wargame. In a setting that requires constant conflict, factions that think in absolutes become necessary. But that’s where video games like the recent, excellent CRPG Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader come in. It’d be a massive anticlimax to end a game of 40K with a conversation before it even starts, but as the setting is allowed to spread its wings in a new genre, some of that classic satire begins to flourish again.
Image: Owlcat Games via Polygon
40K is, above all else, ridiculous, and Rogue Trader hasfun with it without losing any of the campy grindhouse stuff that grimdark excels at. Characters speak in rich, baroque prose, at once excellently written and almost indecipherable to anyone not already indoctrinated into their bizarre religious neo-feudalism. You don’t even have to leave your own ship to encounter dehumanizing class structure, and each of your erstwhile associates is comically nefarious enough to be the main villain in any other setting. In Baldur’s Gate 3, for example, the evil path requires a deliberate, long attempt to stray into monstrous territory. Here, you can have several crew members executed in the first few hours without breaking character.
Rogue Trader isn’t even the first game to pull this off recently. Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, despite a rocky launch, is shaping up as an excellent successor to the Vermintide series, and portrays the horrific satire of existence in 40K’s horrendous hive cities masterfully. Loading screen quotes are such pointed satire you’d have to have accidentally super-glued your eyes shut building models to miss them, with lines like “A small mind is a tidy mind,” “Blessed are the intolerant,” and “Duty is vital, understanding is not.” It seemed only a few short years ago that the glut of Warhammer games felt like a punchline. Now, the scope and breadth these games offer are starting to feel like a better medium to portray the most complete version of 40K than the tabletop game itself.
Welcome to the busiest moviegoing season of the year, when films in theaters are actually worth trekking out to see and everything hitting VOD and streaming is… the movies that came out a few months ago that are also super worth checking out. Ack!
Work at your own pace. But yeah, this weekend at home has everything from Leave the World Behind, a new Netflix film from the creator of Mr. Robot, to an animated Batman Christmas special and Martin Scorsese’s latest three-hour epic, Killers of the Flower Moon, which is hitting digital rental before eventually landing on Apple at an unspecified date in 2024.
Or you and the family could just watch The Super Mario Bros. Movie again — it’s on Netflix now. But if you need alternatives, there are many, many more. Let’s dig in.
New on Netflix
Leave the World Behind
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Photo: Jojo Whilden/Netflix
Genre: Psychological thriller Run time: 2h 21m Director: Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot) Cast: Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke
Adapted from Rumaan Alam’s 2020 novel, Sam Esmail’s directorial feature debut is an Airbnb story from hell. Mid-vacation in Long Island, a Manhattan couple hears a knock at the door. It’s the owners of their rented home, who are escaping the apocalypse. What follows promises to be a cerebral, prickly thriller that may not entirely work, but gives its all-star cast plenty to chew on. From our review:
Racial, sexual, generational, and class fault-lines are drawn but then rapidly scuffed over, almost in embarrassment, as the characters sink reflexively into a shared worldview that they can’t seem to let go of […but the] movie is brilliantly cast, at least. Hawke embodies the blinkered insouciance of progressive intellectuals, Ali has the polish and confidence that money breeds, and Roberts, as a secretly insecure striver trapped between these two worlds, flashes with a brittle testiness.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Nintendo, Illumination/Universal Pictures
Genre: Animated adventure Run time: 1h 32m Director: Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic (Teen Titans Go! To the Movies) Cast: Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black
While the combined power of Barbie and Oppenheimer may have eclipsed Nintendo’s foray into animated film, let’s not forget that Mario made a mega impact earlier this year at the worldwide box office, gave its parent company the confidence to announce a live-action Zelda movie, and could very easily get nominated for an Oscar in the year 2024. The Mario movie is, if not good, important — and now it’s streaming on Netflix, ready for kids and their nostalgic parents to watch a zillion times.
New on Hulu
The Mission
Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu
Genre: Documentary Run time: 1h 44m Directors: Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss (Boys State)
Heralded as one of the great documentaries of 2023, The Mission chronicles the repeated attempts by John Allen Chau, an American missionary, to bring Christianity to the Indigenous peoples of the remote North Sentinel Island. Law forbade outsiders from setting foot on the island, but that didn’t stop Chau, who was ultimately killed by arrows during his final attempt to sail ashore. From documentarians Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss (who previously directed the searing political doc Boys State), the National Geographic film promises to get the blood pumping and ask a few big questions as it unravels Chau’s life.
New on Prime Video
Merry Little Batman
Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime Video
Image: Prime Video
Genre: Animated comedy Run time: 1h 36m Director: Mike Roth (Regular Show) Cast: Luke Wilson, Yonas Kibreab, James Cromwell, David Hornsby
You think you know the story: Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin lays an egg, Batmobile lost a wheel, and Joker got away. But Batman’s first animated Christmas movie presents an entirely new perspective. When Bruce Wayne’s son Damian is left home alone onChristmas Eve, Gotham’s supervillains come out to play and a new hero of the holiday season must rise up. David Hornsby from It’s Always Sunny as the Joker? How could this be anything less than good?
Your Christmas or Mine 2
Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime Video
Photo: Colin Hutton/Prime Video
Genre: Romantic comedy Run time: 1h 34m Director: Jim O’Hanlon (Your Christmas or Mine?) Cast: Asa Butterfield, Cora Kirk, Alex Jennings, Jane Krakowski
Uh oh, new couple James (Asa Butterfield) and Hayley (Cora Kirk) hoped to meet each other’s families during a Christmas vacation in the Alps, but someone messed up the lodging arrangements! Now James’ rich family is staying in a “rustic” lodge and Hayley’s penny-pinching dad is holed up in a five-star hotel! Whoops!
New on Paramount Plus
Showing Up
Where to watch: Available to stream on Paramount Plus
Photo: Allyson Riggs/A24
Genre: Comedy Run time: 1h 48m Director: Kelly Reichardt (First Cow) Cast: Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, John Magaro
Drama or comedy, never-miss filmmaker Kelly Reichardt aims for the intimate. Which means she may never make a film that causes enough splash for the Oscars or big-time top 10 lists. But here’s no surprise to anyone familiar with her work: Showing Up, which reteams her with regular collaborator Michelle Williams, cuts deep to the heart of art and the artist’s life, affirming Reichardt to being in league of her own. From our recent list of the top 50 movies of 2023, where Showing Up ranks 10th:
Reichardt’s genius is getting the audience giggling at the artists but never the art. For example, it’s funny to think that an artist dedicated a year of her life to crocheting a jumpsuit. Except then, in Showing Up, you see the outfit and it’s beautiful — an intentional undermining of the punchline. A teacher smugly opines on ceramics, but each piece he holds up is so lovingly crafted that they confidently speak for themselves.
This decision (rib artists, celebrate art) sets the tone. We humans are artifice, a bunch of contradictory masks that we put on to match the situation and the crowd. But our creations — when we commit to a craft, whatever medium it may be — are an expression of our most vulnerable selves.
New on Shudder
The Sacrifice Game
Where to watch: Available to stream on Shudder and AMC Plus
Image: Shudder
Genre: Horror Run time: 1h 30m Director: Jenn Wexler (The Ranger) Cast: Mena Massoud, Olivia Scott Welch, Gus Kenworthy, Madison Baines
After premiering at the weirdo-approved Fantastic Fest earlier this year, Jenn Wexler’s latest horror joint lands on Shudder in time for the holidays. Our editor Tasha Robinson caught this one at the fest, so I am ceding the floor. Here’s her micro-take (watch out for more on this one soon):
Jenn Wexler’s Christmas-set horror movie The Sacrifice Game takes most of its runtime to reveal what it’s really about, and that reveal is a doozy. But the wait to get there is never dull: Along the way, there’s a “sad Christmas with the left-behinds at a boarding school” story that meshes perfectly with The Holdovers, and a “dangerous cultists on the road” story that meshes equally well with Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It’s no surprise that these two stories collide, it’s just a surprise exactly how and why they collide.
New to rent
Killers of the Flower Moon
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Apple
Genre: Drama Run time: 3h 26m Director: Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver) Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons
Some call it Martin Scorsese’s magnum opus. Others wonder if adapting David Grann’s acclaimed nonfiction book was an impossible task, even for a legend. But everyone seems to agree: You have to find a big chunk of time and watch Killers of the Flower Moon, one of the year’s most ambitious dramatic ventures. And Scorsese threw his entire self into it. From our review:
As Scorsese gets deeper into his old-master phase, it feels as though he’s running out of patience with the Catholic agonies and fire-and-brimstone filmmaking he’s known for. Killers of the Flower Moon is mostly plainspoken, sorrowful, and wise. At the very end, Scorsese makes a personal intervention on behalf of what really matters in this story. It’s a moving gesture from an artist who knows he only has time to say so much more, and who can see clearly what needs to be said.
In Lego Fortnite, you’ll need marble to both upgrade your village and build better structures and tools.
Below we detail where to find marble in Lego Fortnite and what tools you’ll need to harvest it.
Where to find marble in Lego Fortnite
You can grab marble in caves, which are scattered about everywhere. Notably, they’re the same caves that have knotroot. As you walk around, you’ll see huge rocky cavern entrances popping out of the ground, which you can enter. Inside, you can see the marble jutting out of the walls, like in the image at the top of this post.
Note that you do need an uncommon pickaxe in order to harvest marble. To make an uncommon pickaxe, you’ll need to upgrade your workbench and grab bone and knotroot, the latter which you can harvest with a normal axe. Once you have knotroot, you’ll need to use a lumber mill to turn it into rods to make an uncommon pickaxe.
Some of the marble may be on the ceilings, so you’ll want to bring some regular wood into the cave with you. This way, you can build some easy stairs to reach all that marble.
Image: Epic Games via Polygon
Remember to be ready for potential battles when you enter the cave, too. Caves are teeming with skeletons and spiders and you don’t want to die while you’re in there.
Once you have marble, you can use it to build bigger chests and upgrade your Village Square.
The Finals, one of the buzziest new shooters of 2023 despite only existing in beta, finally has a release date. It’s out… right now! Developer Embark Studios announced the news at the 2023 Game Awards.
Created by ex-Battlefield devs, The Finals is a free-to-play first-person shooter in which various teams of three shoot each other a bunch to see which team is the best at shooting the other teams. Embark Studios ran a closed beta in the spring and an open beta spanning from late October through early November that racked up 7.5 million players.
One of the huge draws of The Finals is that it’s not a battle royale. There’s no circle or storm or slowly encroaching safe zone. You also don’t really get punished when you get eliminated, save for a brief 20-second respawn timer. Matches last no longer than 15 minutes. It feels like a throwback to the deathmatch modes that dominated the mid-2000s, except it’s as gorgeous and technically impressive as any other modern shooter. Nostalgia for an earlier, arguably simpler era of gaming is no doubt a factor in The Finals’ popularity.
The other huge draw is that every single building can explode.
Last week, I got a chance to play The Finals during a closed media session meant to illustrate The Finals’ final state before its launch. I cannot express how frequently the thing I was standing on exploded.
Image: Embark Studios
For the most part, that tracks with Polygon’s more extensive preview of The Finals from earlier this year. The general concept is that you’re a contestant in some sort of shiny, violent, futuristic game show. Matches take place on maps like Monaco and Las Vegas. (Get it? Because gambling!) When you’re eliminated, you turn into a pile of coins. (Also because gambling.) Buildings, however, don’t suffer such a cartoonish fate. Shooting a wall or floor with an RPG causes it to collapse into a pile of rubble. When a building takes enough structural damage, the whole thing comes crashing down — even if you’re meticulously perched on the eaves, trying to get the drop on an opposing team.
You can choose from three classes, simply named “light,” “medium,” and “heavy,” each replete with all the gear and movement speed (or lack thereof) you’d expect from those barebones classifications. For the session, Embark paired attendees off into squads of three. We played two different quick-play modes: Quick Cash and Bank It. Both modes tally your score not by how many eliminations you have but by how much cash you can steal from opponents and deliver to various drop points. But I’ll be honest: The shooting in The Finals is so distractingly solid — so emblematic of the golden age of Battlefield — I couldn’t help but spend my time prioritizing spraying and praying over learning “rules” and “objectives.” You’re welcome, teammates!
Image: Embark Studios
The Finals also features a tournament component with higher stakes than the quick-play modes. If your squad doesn’t finish in the top two for your existing round, you’re eliminated from the bracket. (I’m not sure what happens after the first round, because our squad finished last. Twice.)
I’d be remiss not to mention our experience playing The Finals was marred by technical difficulties. Such things are generally excusable for a beta; that is, after all, the whole point of betas. Still, for roughly half the games we played, one or two players of our three-person squad would inexplicably fail to load in. When we’d successfully get into a match, for about half of those matches, one player would get dropped. Since The Finals does not have an option to rejoin an existing match, one party member getting kicked out meant we all had to quit. (Let the record reflect that we totally would’ve won all of those matches otherwise.)
Aside from those hiccups, which may very well not be present at all in today’s full release, The Finals is an energetic and competent multiplayer shooter I could see myself dipping into for a few rounds when Halo Infinite gets too frustrating. Players have by and large moved on from the sort of arena-style gameplay on display here, so sure, like the contest that defines this game’s minimalist lore, The Finals is ultimately a gamble. But it’s one I hope pays off.
The Finals is out now on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.
Weapons are the most important tools in your Monster Hunter Now arsenal.
This mobile version of the series stripped back the usual roster of weapons down to six choices at launch, locking them behind story quest progression or Hunter Rank progress, with more being introduced with seasonal updates over time.
Despite the limited number of weapons in Monster Hunter Now, there are a couple of ranged options and series staples, such as the Great Sword, giving you some variety to play around with.
Monster Hunter Now weapons list: How many weapons are there?
To date, the roster of weapons in Monster Hunter Now is as follows:
Sword and Shield
Great Sword
Bow
Hammer
Light Bowgun
Long Sword
Dual Blades (added in Dec. 2023’s “Fulminations in the Frost” update)
Lance (added in Dec. 2023’s “Fulminations in the Frost” update)
Developers Niantic and Capcom have confirmed new weapon types will continue to be added to the game as part of a “season system,” so for those familiar with the main series, hopefully your favorites will roll out before too long.
How to unlock new weapon types in Monster Hunter Now
Image: Niantic / Capcom via Polygon
To begin with, you’ll only have access to the Sword and Shield, albeit with multiple variations by forging together parts from slaying large monsters.
To unlock new weapon types in Monster Hunter Now, you must progress through the main story quest. Specifically, you need to reach Chapter 2, where you’ll first unlock the Great Sword, and just a few steps later, the remaining roster of weapons.
Specifically, you need to reach the following points in the story:
To unlock the Great Sword, complete the first stage of “Chapter 2: Shimmering Swamp” in the main story.
To unlock the Bow, Hammer, Light Bowgun, and Long Sword, reach Hunter Rank 15.
To unlock the Dual Blades and Lance, they appear to unlock for all players from Hunter Rank 15 as part of Dec. 2023’s “Fulminations in the Frost” update.
These pre-requisites aren’t too far into your Monster Hunter Now journey — requiring just a few hours of play. Of course, that might be staggered out depending on how much you’re able to explore, with many story steps based on collecting resources, which will be limited if you are playing in just a single spot.
Meanwhile, though large monsters do spawn frequently on your stationary position, making use of paintballs for when you need to complete large monster steps quickly is advised.
When will new weapon types arrive in Monster Hunter Now?
New weapon types — alongside new monsters and story updates — will be coming to Monster Hunter Now as part of major quarterly updates.
The first of these was “Fulminations in the Frost”, arriving Dec. 2023, which introduced the Dual Blades and Lance.
From here, developers Niantic and Capcom have confirmed “additional weapon types” from March 2023.
Image: Niantic / Capcom
It’s possible there’s more to come in this update — and if not, expect more weapons to be rolled out in subsequent ones to come.
Gone are the days of scrounging up loot at dilapidated taco joints and rusty playgrounds in Fortnite. Epic Games released a massive new update to the battle royale game this week as part of Chapter 5 Season 1. The patch literally blew up the OG map with a meteor, replacing it with an entirely new, much fancier map. Instead of rough locales like Greasy Groves or Tomato Temple, players now explore palatial manors like Lavish Lair or the manicured vineyards of Pleasant Piazza. Fortnite is basically a fancy European vacation now, and it feels a bit outside my personal budget.
Developers stuffed the new map with luxurious points of interest. Another example: Grand Glacier, a hotel nestled on a snow-capped mountain that looks like it’s straight out of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. If the mountains aren’t your thing, you can head over to the Ritzy Riviera, a picturesque shore-side town with villas nestled into a sloped hillside. At places like Classy Courts, decrypted playgrounds with broken concrete have been replaced with manicured hedges.
Image: Epic Games
Call me a traditionalist, but I like to do dumb shit in Fortnite. I personally play as Kakashi from Naruto, and style him with an Among Us backpack as I regale other players with emotes like the Gangnam Style dance. Part of what made me fall in love with Fortnite was the garishness of it all. It’s a bright, cartoony game where you can go fishing with Ariana Grande, then turn around and scuffle with Goku. In the new season, a lot of that whimsy is still there: Peter Griffin is now a skin, and appears as an NPC you can fight. But that tone doesn’t seem to be reflected in the map, which forms a central part of the game.
It isn’t that previous maps were lacking in high-end locations. Prior to the return of the OG map, Chapter 4 Season 4 added the cyberpunk-inspired Mega City and the sweeping Japanese estates of Kenjutsu Crossing. While Kenjutsu resembles the more elaborate locales in the current iteration of the game, some of those additions still evoked a sort of surrealism: Mega City’s sci-fi elements felt true to the less realistic elements of Fortnite.
All that said, locations are subject to change with each update. So it’s possible that further meteors or other ill fates might befall some of these fancy locales and bring back some of the good old Fortnite charm — rough hedges and all.
“In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.” That’s the tagline of Warhammer 40,000, one of the most over-the-top and brutal sci-fi settings around. But even in a merciless, brutal dystopia that grinds its people into dust, some get to enjoy being on the top of the food chain. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is about the perils and pleasures of being atop that particular hierarchy.
Rogue Traders in 40K are freelance explorers, scouting the far frontiers of the Imperium of Man. It’s a risky career, but it comes with luxurious rewards: agency, freedom, power, and a giant flagship. As the player, I explore a system of the Imperium with a loyal crew of companions, making impactful choices and determining the fate of those around me.
Rogue Trader is a computer role-playing game in the vein of Baldur’s Gate 3 or Pillars of Eternity. I create my custom protagonist, determining stats and bonuses based on my backstory, home world, and so on. I’m then thrust into a high-pressure job interview as a potential heir to a Rogue Trader aboard her flagship. Little do we know that there’s a coup in the works, and traitors aboard the ship. After a deadly struggle against heretics and demons, I ascend to the position of Rogue Trader. I’m the captain now, and I get to decide how to run my ship.
Image: Owlcat Games
This is a vast game, with tons of features you’d expect from a CRPG — companions (each with their own narrative paths and conversation trees), top-down strategic combat, and branching choices that impact the world around you. I get to make choices all day — in fact, that’s part of the gig of a Rogue Trader. Some are more important than others; whenever I get to specific points in the story, I can choose from one of three major paths. Dogmatic choices exult the God-Emperor and loathe the mutant and the witch, the Heretical options pursue corruptive power, and the Ionoclast path is the closest thing we have to modern-day “good guy” morality.
After the events of the tutorial, my beautiful voidship is run down and my staff is struggling. As the newly anointed Rogue Trader, I have to trek around the various planets of the Koronus Expanse to get a new Navigator, fix my ship up, and avoid any major diplomatic incidents with the locals. My voidship is the size of a modern city; I’m as much a governor as a captain, and I have to manage the ship, its cargo, and its many occupants.
In the process of getting back on my feet, I uncover a nefarious cult and a deep conspiracy. It’s not an easy job, but I’m blessed with a handful of companions from the Imperium to help me out. I can call on them to unlock doors or perform other environmental checks, but they come most in handy in combat.
When I meet opposition, it’s deeply satisfying to control my troops in a turn-based battle. Each fight takes place on a grid; it’s very similar to Baldur’s Gate 3 or even XCOM 2. Some positions provide cover, while others are out in the open. Friendly fire is also a very real concern. An arc of auto-fire from a bolter, or a Navigator’s third eye opening, can harm friend as well as foe. My Rogue Trader is a sniper, and she would be lost without her Senechal taking the front lines. There’s a lot of firepower at my disposal, and it’s mostly quite satisfying to use — even if I occasionally shred my poor Senechal with a devastating AOE.
Image: Owlcat Games
I can chat with the companions between battles, learning more about their pasts. Most of them have deep and dark secrets I can uncover with a little time or patience, and they have fascinating stories to tell. Abelard, my Senechal, is a guy who sucks morally but will back me to the absolute hilt. I grew to love hearing about his days in the Imperial Navy, and he was the one guy I felt like I could trust. Augusta, a Sister of Battle, starts as a one-note zealot, but cracks form in that facade when I learn about her past and doubts. Cassia and Pasqal both represent two sub-factions in 40K, and they have lots to share about the Navigators and Tech-Priests.
My absolute favorite companion is Marazhai Aezyrraesh, a dark space elf who feeds off the suffering of sentient beings. He’s cruel, depraved, and an absolute hoot. Yes, he may flay a few too many people for my tastes, but he’s the best companion to bring to a party.
In the grand scheme of things, this is one of the most complete and detailed explorations of the 40K universe you can find. The game is an homage to the Warhammer 40K RPGs from Fantasy Flight Games, including Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy. I spent years as a teenager and young adult poring over these sourcebooks (which Rogue Trader isinspired by), learning more about the tiny details of life in the Imperium. Developer Owlcat Games has paid the same attention to every detail of the Koronus Expanse. I delve into ancient facilities staffed by tech-priests of the Machine God, the hostile xenos city of Commorragh, or massive cities built to honor the God-Emperor of Mankind.
I love the characters, the environments, the writing, the lore, and the flow of battles. But I have concerns with the game’s pacing. By the end of the first chapter, I had leveled up 16 times. Each level offered marginal rewards, like being able to move slightly farther during the character’s turn in combat or having a higher parry chance when being attacked. A slow drip-feed system means each level feels less important, and even though I’m growing stronger, I don’t get that sense of long-term satisfaction.
Image: Owlcat Games
It’s especially frustrating to hit a roadblock like the one at the end of Act 1, where an incredibly tough boss rolls out of nowhere and spanks my crew — and I can’t leave to go grind experience somewhere else. I eventually found out a way to cheese the fight by focusing on my melee fighters’ positioning, but it took far too long banging my head against the wall. The victory tasted like ash in my mouth after all that frustration.
Voidship combat is another aspect that feels clunky and frustrating. Like the squad-based skirmishes, naval encounters are also turn-based, where positioning is ultra important. Space naval battles should feel tense, but instead, I’m mostly annoyed at having to continually rotate my ship and set up my zones of attack. I wish I could delegate these annoyances to my Senechal — to delegate the duties of character leveling and ship combat, the better to appreciate all of the things Rogue Trader is doing so well.
Rogue Trader is a dense, vast game, and much of it has clearly been crafted with love for the expansive lore of the 40K canon. While there are small annoyances and clunky features along the way, the political intrigue, cast of characters, and moral choices have me hooked. For 40K fans, this is a rare treat — a game that digs past the heroic facade of bolters and battles and taps into the grimdark dystopia that makes this particular sci-fi setting so damn compelling.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader will be released on Dec. 7 on Windows PC. The game was reviewed using a pre-release download code provided by Owlcat Games. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.
With just over 24 hours left before Rockstar Games was set to debut its first Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer, a grainy video started circulating online: The GTA 6 trailer, but marked with a massive bitcoin watermark. About 30 minutes later Rockstar did the corporate equivalent of saying “Fuck it,” uploading the trailer and pointing to it in a terse post on X: “Our trailer has leaked so please watch the real thing on YouTube.”
It’s unusual for a company like Rockstar to disregard its original, announced schedule and just post the thing, but it’s not the first time it’s happened. When The Last of Us Part 2’s PlayStation 5 remaster was leaked early on the PlayStation Store by data miners looking for new information, hours later, an official trailer popped up on YouTube, with several prominent Naughty Dog developers declaring that “leaks really suck.” (In Naughty Dog’s case, however, timing for The Last of Us Part 2’s remaster wasn’t announced, and it’s possible the YouTube release was its planned time.)
Typically, in the event of a leak, a company starts issuing takedown requests as quickly as possible — which Rockstar did, of course — and waits it out until the planned debut. (We’ve seen this plenty of times when Pokémon games leak early; Nintendo and The Pokémon Company try to take things down, but don’t acknowledge leaks head-on.) In the case of GTA 6, the early launch of the trailer hasn’t diluted the hype, with the GTA 6 trailer reaching more than 85 million views by Tuesday morning. It’s quickly gaining on Rockstar’s debut Grand Theft Auto 5 trailer, which was published on Nov. 2, 2011, and has more than 99 million views.
Image: Rockstar Studios/Rockstar Games
Several Rockstar employees have expressed their upset feelings about the leak: “This fucking sucks,” one developer posted to X. (The post, and the developer’s X account, have since been deleted.) The GTA 6 trailer wasn’t the first video game trailer to be leaked, and it definitely won’t be the last in an internet landscape where everyone from fans to brands is always fighting for eyeballs.
For better or worse, leaks have already become a part of GTA 6’s journey to its release — something that’s relatively on theme, as Rockstar’s upcoming game seemingly takes on the struggle for internet fame.
Grand Theft Auto is one of the video game industry’s most successful properties, which makes it a hot target for hackers and potential leaks. GTA 5 was released 10 years ago, and people have been salivating ever since at the prospect of the sixth entry in the series. Rockstar has been quiet about GTA 6 for most of the past 10 years; the studio didn’t acknowledge the game was in development until February 2022. Later that year, GTA 6 made history as Rockstar’s developers were subject to one of the largest leaks in modern video game history.
On Sept. 18, 2022, a hacker published more than 90 videos — roughly an hour’s worth of footage — from the in-development game. The leak was, and still is, unprecedented because of its sheer scope, the level of anticipation for the game in question, and because of how rare it is for fans to see huge parts of a AAA video game in a visibly unfinished state. The leaked footage depicted a GTA 6 that was clearly in development, with debug tools, blocked-out environments, and all.
Image: Rockstar Studios/Rockstar Games
The hacker claimed to have accessed Rockstar’s internal Slack, which is an application workplaces use to communicate and share files. A United Kingdom court found that a U.K.-based 18-year-old, Arion Kurtaj, was largely responsible for the hack. Kurtaj had been previously arrested for other hacking incidents performed in association with notorious group Lapsus$, and he was out on bail when he went after Rockstar, Uber, and Revolut. Kurtaj’s hack of Rockstar was the last one he managed before he was caught again in a Travelodge hotel that he had been put up in following concerns for his safety (he was previously doxxed by “rival hackers,” according to the BBC). Kurtaj and a second 17-year-old hacker were found guilty in August. The BBC reported that the prosecution’s lead barrister on the case, Kevin Barry, said the hackers were motivated by “notoriety,” “financial gain,” and “amusement.”
The damage had been done; many fans couldn’t resist the peek behind the curtain before the real show began. The hourlong clips in the leak gave eager GTA 6 fans a lot of material to work through, and by September of this year, the community had put together a 60-page document outlining every single detail from the leak.
Rockstar announced in November that it would post a trailer in December, news that was first reported by Bloomberg and quickly confirmed by Rockstar. Last week, Rockstar finally announced a date for the trailer: Dec. 5. In the lead-up to the trailer drop date, several quick videos were uploaded to TikTok purporting to show parts of the GTA 6 Vice City map; the video clips, which quickly spread, appeared to be recordings of a computer screen. The source and credibility of these uploads remains unconfirmed, but they do seem to match the cityscapes we’ve now seen in the legitimate trailer. Somewhere along the way, rumors started circulating that the leak came from a Rockstar employee’s son, but Polygon is unable to verify those claims. It’s impossible to tell, of course, whether the TikTok leaks came from the same source as Dec. 4’s trailer leak.
GTA 6’s legacy of leaks not only has an impact on how the community sees the game, but it’s something that affects developers, too. Rockstar is famously secretive — or perhaps notoriously so — and leaks are sometimes considered a rare look behind the curtain for fans, or even a triumph for transparency. Unfortunately, though, leaks can often have the opposite effect. Speaking to Wired in 2022, a AAA developer said leaking can tighten things up even more, making the industry more opaque — even within studios themselves. Sometimes, a “trust vacuum” forms between departments as studios investigate leaks internally, Wired reported. The player experience will rarely, if ever, be significantly altered by a leaked trailer or gameplay video, but the same can’t be said for the people making a leaked game.
Feebas, the fish Pokémon from Hoenn, can be found in the wild in Pokémon Go. Yes, Feebas can be shiny in Pokémon Go!
Graphic: Julia Lee/Polygon | Source images: Niantic
To evolve Feebas into Milotic, you’ll need to your Feebas as your buddy and walk 20 km with it. After that, you can use 100 Feebas Candy to evolve it. It may seem like a lot, but since Pokémon Go has no beauty stat (or contest stats in general) nor does it have Prism Scales, this is what we get. :’(
What is the shiny rate for Feebas in Pokémon Go?
As per old research by the now-defunct website The Silph Road (via Wayback Machine), the shiny rate for Pokémon on a regular day is approximately one in 500. Feebas is not a confirmed Pokémon that gets a “permaboost” (meaning that it’s a rare spawn and thus gets a boosted shiny rate).
What can I do to attract more shiny Pokémon?
Not much, unfortunately. It appears to be random chance. Shiny Pokémon catch rates are set by developer Niantic, and they are typically only boosted during special events like Community Days or Safari Zones, or in Legendary Raids. There are no consumable items that boost shiny Pokémon rates.
Where can I find a list of available shiny Pokémon?
Ahamkara Bones are the collectible for the Warlord’s Ruin dungeon in Destiny 2, and are an essential part of the “In the Shadow of the Mountain” quest.
In this Destiny 2 guide, we’ll go over how to find all of the sets of bones so you can complete the “In the Shadow of the Mountain” quest and the “Heed the Whispers, O Vengeance Mine” triumph, and boost the drop rate for your Buried Bloodlines Exotic sidearm.
If you’re having any trouble getting to the locations described herein, check out our guide on how to complete the Warlord’s Ruin dungeon in Destiny 2.
‘In the Shadow of the Mountain’ quest steps
Unlike previous dungeons, where you can get all of the collectibles in one run, the collectibles in Warlord’s Ruin must be collected across three different runs. Once you beat the dungeon for the first time, you’ll receive the “In the Shadow of the Mountain” quest, which will require you to get 30 Dark Ether Tinctures, 3 Blighted Wishing Glass, and four Ahamkara Bones.
How to get Dark Ether Tinctures in Destiny 2
You get Dark Ether Tinctures by killing special Screeb-like enemies called Thieving Wretches, which will spawn in three locations:
The first is on the bridge before the first encounter.
The second is found in the maze after defeating the first boss.
The third is found on the mountain side after defeating the second boss.
These enemies can respawn, so you can farm them to get enough Dark Ether Tinctures.
How to get Blighted Wishing Glass in Destiny 2
You get one Blighted Wishing Glass per encounter completion from the loot chest. Once you complete that quest step, you’ll have to collect the next 3 bones and more Dark Ether Tinctures and Blighted Wishing Glass. Once you complete that step, you’ll have to do it again until you collect all ten bones.
Ahamkara Bones 1 location
Across the bridge inside the first fort, before an arresting Knight assails you.
Image: Bungie via Polygon
The first set of Ahamkara Bones is found directly before the first boss. Once you enter the fort, continue forward. You’ll see a door where you must remove a corruption level one. Directly behind this door is the first set of bones.
Ahamkara Bones 2 location
Image: Bungie via Polygon
Across from imprisonment, after ascending through the ceiling.
After you escape the prison, continue forward until you jump through the ceiling into an orangely lit area. Walk forward, and the door blocked by corruption level one will be on your right. Remove the corruption and collect the second set of Ahamkara Bones.
Ahamkara Bones 3 location
Image: Bungie via Polygon
At the top of the summit, face back from the cliff and find shelter.
After the second encounter, make your way until you reach the outside again and see this view. Continue to the left, and instead of jumping down to the left to make your way to the room with the large Taken orb, continue straight.
Image: Bungie via Polygon
Climb up until you see a small hallway in the left wall of the mountain. The third corruption level one door will be in the small hallway, and behind that door will be the third set of Ahamkara Bones.
Ahamkara Bones 4 location
Image: Bungie via Polygon
In the snowfallen maze, through the broken wall, seek the banner of Kings.
After you break out of the prison, make your way through until you reach a hole in the wall that you must walk through to progress.
Image: Bungie via Polygon
Make a right (where you’ll have to jump over a stacked spike trap), then a left. The corruption level two door will be directly in front of you.
Image: Bungie via Polygon
Remove the corruption and collect the fourth set of Ahamkara Bones.
Ahamkara Bones 5 location
Image: Bungie via Polygon
Cross into the Tempest, through the portcullis, at the sewer’s mouth.
Before the second encounter, get to the doorway where you find the first secret chest.
Image: Bungie via Polygon
Turn to the right and follow the snowy path until you reach a sewer entrance. Right through the sewer grate is the next corruption level two door. Remove the corruption and collect the fifth set of Ahamkara Bones.
Ahamkara Bones 6 location
Image: Bungie via Polygon
At summits base, find shelter off the beaten path. Too far, and the Taken will descend upon you.
After defeating the second boss, progress forward until you reach a group of enemies as you start to head outside. It’ll look like the area pictured above.
Image: Bungie via Polygon
After you defeat the enemies, head into the cubby pictured above. There is where you’ll find the corruption level 2 door and the sixth set of Ahamkara Bones.
Ahamkara Bones 7 location
Image: Bungie via Polygon
Within the maze, stride panning a pitfall, light calls through the window.
After the prison section, get to the point where you see a pile of barrels below the hole that you must jump up through.
Image: Bungie via Polygon
Jump up through the hole, exit the circle room, and take the left.
Image: Bungie via Polygon
Head down to the end of the hall and dispel the corruption level three door to collect the seventh set of Ahamkara Bones.
Ahamkara Bones 8 location
Image: Bungie via Polygon
The Taken roil at cave’s bottom sends you to scurry over boulders into a ruined alcove.
Once you get to the room with the large Taken Blight, make your way through until you can look up and see the end. Below will be a platform that you’ll have to jump down to.
Image: Bungie via Polygon
Once you jump down, dispel the corruption level three door and collect the eighth set of Ahamkara Bones.
Ahamkara Bones 9 location
Image: Bungie via Polygon
Within a tunnel on the broken cliffs, brace the Taken storm.
After the Taken Blight room, there will be a section where you’ll have to jump around a smaller Taken Blight. Make your way to the room highlighted in the image above. The final level three corruption door is in that hallway; dispel it and collect the ninth set of Ahamkara Bones.
Ahamkara Bones 10 location
Image: Bungie via Polygon
After defeating the final boss, this set of Ahamkara Bones is found directly beside the loot chest.
Saltburn has shaped up as one of 2023’s most divisive love-it-or-hate-it movies. Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to her 2020 writer-director debut, Promising Young Woman, is radically different from that movie in look and tone, but her talent for pushing boundaries and demanding a response is still front and center, and Saltburn is the kind of button-pusher that generally either thrills people or makes them angry. Critics have responded both ways: “Superficially smart and deeply stupid,” Mick LaSalle grumps in the San Francisco Chronicle, while Entertainment Weekly’s Maureen Lee Lenker calls it “a triumph of the cinema of excess, in all its orgiastic, unapologetic glory.”
And one of the most divisive elements is the ending, which can be read equally as sly art or rank titillation, depending on how you feel about full-frontal male nudity. Polygon dug into it in an interview with Fennell shortly before the movie’s release.
[Ed. note: End spoilers for Saltburn follow.]
Image: Prime
In the movie, hungry social climber Oliver (Barry Keoghan) gradually becomes close to his rich, popular Oxford classmate Felix Catton (Priscillaco-star Jacob Elordi), who brings Oliver to his immense family estate, Saltburn, and introduces him to his family. Felix’s elitist, removed parents, Sir James Catton (Richard E. Grant) and Elspeth Catton (Rosamund Pike), make a hollow show of welcoming Oliver. But Felix’s jaded sister, Venetia (Alison Oliver), clearly sees him as a new toy, and Felix’s vicious, jealous cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe) sees him as a rival and an unwelcome upstart.
As it happens, Farleigh is right — Oliver is lying about virtually everything that brought him together with Felix. He invented a family tragedy to make himself a tragic and dramatic figure. A series of flashbacks shows how Oliver engineered their early relationship by pretending to be penniless when he had plenty of money, and by sabotaging Felix’s bike in order to “help” when it broke down.
The later parts of their relationship are even darker: Felix appears to die in an unclear accident, and Venetia appears to kill herself out of grief. But further flashbacks show that Oliver murdered both of them, out of fear of being ejected from Saltburn, and resentment for the way they’ve both rejected him. It’s also clear that he sets Farleigh up to be disinherited, then poisons Elspeth after James dies, all in order to inherit Saltburn himself.
And in the final scene, Keoghan dances through the estate, stark naked and triumphant, waggling his ass to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor,” and presiding over a sad little row of memorial stones with the family members’ names on them, dredged up from the estate’s waterways to form a kind of ritual audience for his dance.
“The movie always ended with Oliver walking naked through the house,” Fennell tells Polygon. “It’s an act of desecration. It’s also an act of territory, taking on ownership, but it’s solitary.”
Photo: Chiabella James/Prime Video
As viewers watch the scene, Fennell wants them to notice Oliver’s path through the house, which is a reversal of his entry to the house earlier in the film. When Felix introduces Oliver to Saltburn with a small tour, it’s an invitation to a place that doesn’t belong to him. And when he does his dance, he’s following that same path in reverse, this time boldly claiming the space instead of shyly tiptoeing into it.
“The nudity is an act of ownership,” she says. “It wouldn’t be the same if he’s just walking through the house in his pajamas. It’s that he’s walking through his house. It’s his fucking house, and he can do whatever he wants to with it. And that’s what makes it thrilling and beautiful.”
The original script had Oliver symbolically claiming the house by walking through it, but Fennell says something about the scene as she’d planned it didn’t sit well with her. “It just became apparent as we were filming it that the naked walk was not really going to have the feeling of triumph and joy, elation and post-coital success [I wanted]. It felt lonely and sort of empty. It speaks to Barry that when I said to him, ‘I don’t think it can be a walk, I think it needs to be a dance,’ — that’s the thing about Barry as a performer. He profoundly understood and completely agreed, and knew it had to be that way. There really wasn’t another way we could do it, given the film we’d just seen. To me, it feels like the ultimate sympathy for the devil.”
Fennell has already talked about how Saltburn simultaneously has sympathy for everyone in the film, and for no one — there are no outright villains in the story, in her opinion, just people with understandably flawed ways of looking at the world. That perspective helped her sympathize with Oliver at the end, which she hopes the audience will do as well, even though he’s an unrepentant murderer.
“We have to be on his side at the end,” she says. “It’s crucial that the more violent he is, the more cruel, the more he plays them at their own game, the more we love him, even though we loved them, too. We have to feel at the end, like, ‘Yeah, yeah, get it.’ The way Oliver gets it is the way the Cattons would have got it in the first place. How do people build these houses? How do they make these houses? They’re built by violent means and got by violent means. So that’s where it ends as well.”
Whether 2023 is one of the best years for video games is up for debate. But it is certainly one of the best years for Christmas video games, thanks to a surprising number of festive, holiday-themed releases. That includes a video game sequel to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, starring Ebenezer Scrooge and made in the Metroidvania style.
While many live service games will drench themselves in Christmas and Hanukkah-themed cosmetics and map makeovers this month, not since Sega’s Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams… has there been such an eclectic mix of festive fare. Some are naughty, and some are nice. And at least one, a gory slasher that will appeal to fans of Rockstar Games’ murderous Manhunt, is definitely not for kids.
Here’s a look at 2023’s Christmas games.
Ebenezer and the Invisible World
Set after the events of Ebenezer Scrooge’s encounter with Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come, Ebenezer and the Invisible World sees the once-miserly grump setting off on a new adventure. Invigorated by Christmas cheer, Ebenezer is enlisted by another ghost to help alter the destiny of evil industrialist and population-principle-believer Caspar Malthus. Aiding Ebenezer in his mission are many more ghosts — which are basically summonable familiars and power-ups that are heavily inspired by Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. (Ebenezer even has Alucard’s back dash.)
Ebenezer and the Invisible World is an enjoyable action-adventure game with greater depth than you might think. The game’s hand-drawn graphics and wide array of characters and quests keep the whole thing moving along pleasantly; plus it’s just fun to see old Ebenezer wielding a giant ax or spinning a flaming spear. He’s very spry for his age!
Ebenezer and the Invisible World is available now on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Lake: Seasons Greetings
The video game Lake is a cozy, narrative adventure set in the sleepy village of Providence Oaks, Oregon. Set in the year 1986, players stepped into the shoes of Meredith Weiss, a metropolitan, career-driven woman who returns home to temporarily take over her father’s postal route. Lake: Season’s Greetings delivers similar smalltown vibes, but this time, players tour the town as Thomas Weiss, Meredith’s father, as Christmastime approaches.
Lake: Season’s Greetings is a prequel to the original Lake, available as DLC for that game. These cozy, wintry vibes are available on PS4, PS5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Christmas Massacre
Make it a silent night, make it a deadly night with the stealth-slasher Christmas Massacre, which made its debut on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in November. (It’s been on PC since 2021.) Inspired by snuff game Manhunt, top-down shoot-’em-up Hotline Miami, and PlayStation 1-era aesthetics, Christmas Massacre lets you slay as Larry, a man who is clearly not well, because his Christmas tree is commanding him to kill.
Obviously, Christmas Massacre is probably not something you should play with the whole family, but if over-the-top violence and gore done super lo-fi is your thing, it’s a fun romp, as murder rampages go. You will be flamethrowing roomfuls of children and nuns, just as a heads up.
Christmas Massacre is available on PS4, PS5, and Windows PC via Steam.
The Grinch: Christmas Adventures
Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch stars in a 2D side-scrolling platform adventure game that may or may not be any good — I haven’t played it! But The Grinch: Christmas Adventures gives players control of The Grinch himself (and his dog Max, in two-player local co-op) on another Christmas-ruining mission. Like Ebenezer and the Invisible World, this is a one-year-later sequel to the original source material. And like The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Grinch’s Christmas Adventures promise to teach him a “valuable lesson about the true spirit of the holiday.” Hopefully he learns for good this time!!
The Grinch: Christmas Adventures is out now on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Final Fantasy 7 Ever Crisis: The Holy Flame’s Gift
Image: Square Enix
Square Enix’s mobile remake of the expanded Final Fantasy 7 franchise has a new holiday event, which isn’t a stand-alone game, but a new story that features two important elements.
One is a Christmasy new Tifa costume that is currently riling up Tifa fans worldwide. You can see that above.
The other is that the chief antagonist of Final Fantasy 7 Ever Crisis’ new holiday-themed story is a gingerbread Cactuar. Amazing!
Final Fantasy 7 Ever Crisis is currently available on Android and iOS devices, and is coming to PC via Steam on Dec. 7, Square Enix just announced. The game’s The Holy Flame’s Gift story is available now.
Polygon (MATIC) is one of Ethereum’s premier scaling solutions. This article addresses critical questions such as “What is Polygon?”, “What is Polygon crypto?” and the specifics of “What is MATIC crypto?”. We look at Polygon’s unique blockchain architecture and its role in the evolution of the Ethereum blockchain.
In addition, we take an in-depth look at MATIC, the blockchains’ native token, and its transformation into Polygon 2.0. Last but not least, we also examine key partnerships and try to make a MATIC price prediction.
What Is Polygon MATIC?
Polygon, birthed as the Matic Network in 2017, stands as a revolutionary “Layer 2” scaling solution for Ethereum’s blockchain. It’s designed to provide a faster, more efficient parallel to Ethereum’s main blockchain, addressing critical issues like high gas fees and network congestion.
MATIC, the network’s native cryptocurrency, is pivotal for network operations, serving multiple functions including transaction fees, staking, and governance decisions. The rebranding to Polygon in early 2021 marked a significant evolution, broadening its scope from just a scaling solution to a multi-layered ecosystem.
Polygon Explained: A Comprehensive Overview
Polygon operates akin to an express lane, paralleling Ethereum’s main blockchain. It’s a complex system utilizing a variety of technologies to establish this high-speed blockchain. By “bridging” assets onto the layer-2, users can interact with popular crypto applications with greater speed and lower costs compared to Ethereum’s mainnet. The network’s construction is particularly ingenious, featuring:
Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Consensus Mechanism: Validators on the network verify transactions and maintain the blockchain’s integrity. They receive rewards in the form of transaction fees and newly created MATIC. Delegators, who stake their MATIC indirectly, also play a critical role, albeit with less commitment than validators.
Layered Architecture: This includes the Ethereum layer for executing critical components, a security layer offering validator services, a network layer of sovereign blockchains, and an execution layer for processing transactions.
Definition And Core Concepts Of Polygon
At its core, Polygon is not just about enhancing transaction speeds but about creating an interconnected ecosystem of Layer 2 sidechains, which it ambitiously names the “Internet of Ethereum Blockchains.” This ecosystem is realized through:
Scalability Solutions: Technologies like Plasma, zkRollups, and Optimistic Rollups are employed, each tailored for different scalability requirements. Plasma focuses on off-chain transaction processing, while zkRollups and Optimistic Rollups offer solutions for bundling numerous transactions into single Ethereum blocks, thus enhancing throughput.
Software Development Kit (SDK): A crucial element in Polygon’s infrastructure, the SDK facilitates the development of compatible decentralized applications. It enables the creation of varied sidechains, each customizable to specific project needs.
Interoperable Protocol: This framework allows seamless interaction among Ethereum-compatible blockchains, leveraging Ethereum’s robust ecosystem while overcoming its inherent limitations.
The networks approach is holistic, targeting not just individual transaction efficiency but a comprehensive upgrade to Ethereum’s network capabilities. It’s a bid to create a unified, interoperable blockchain environment, a leap forward in the blockchain and cryptocurrency landscape.
What Is MATIC?
MATIC, the native cryptocurrency of Polygon, serves as the linchpin in the network’s functioning. Originating from Polygon’s earlier incarnation as the Matic Network, MATIC has evolved beyond a mere transactional currency. It’s utilized for paying transaction fees on the network, for staking, and significantly, in the governance of Polygon, granting MATIC holders a say in the network’s future developments.
MATIC’s Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism is central to its operation. Validators and delegators, who stake their MATIC, are crucial to the network’s security and integrity. They verify transactions, add them to the blockchain, and in return, earn MATIC rewards. This staking mechanism not only ensures network security but also incentivizes participation and investment in the ecosystem.
How Polygon Stands Out In The Crypto Space
Polygon distinguishes itself in the crowded crypto space through its unique multi-layered architecture and a comprehensive suite of scaling solutions. Unlike many blockchain solutions that focus on a single aspect of performance enhancement, Polygon provides a modular framework. This framework allows developers to create Ethereum-compatible networks with varied features, including but not limited to:
Scalability: Polygon effectively addresses Ethereum’s scalability issues, offering faster transaction speeds and lower fees through its Layer 2 solutions.
Interoperability: By promoting the interconnection of Ethereum-compatible blockchains, Polygon facilitates a more integrated and efficient network.
Developer-Friendly Platform: The Polygon SDK empowers developers to build diverse decentralized applications with ease, without needing to depart from Ethereum’s well-established environment.
FlexibilityAnd Customization: Projects can choose from different scaling solutions like Plasma, zkRollups, and Optimistic Rollups, tailoring their blockchain to their specific needs.
Security: Polygon’s optional ‘security as a service’ layer provides added protection, enhancing the trustworthiness of the network.
Polygon Partnerships
Polygon’s vast array of partnerships across diverse industries highlights its significant impact and utility in the real world. These collaborations showcase how Polygon is integrating blockchain technology into various sectors, ranging from finance and social media to fashion and sports.
Polygon partners | Image credit: Coinware
Finance
Mastercard: Launched an Artist Accelerator Program to mentor emerging musical talents using Web3 technologies.
Bank of Italy: Partnered with Polygon and Fireblocks to experiment with tokenized assets, as part of an initiative to explore this technology.
Nubank: Brazil-based Nubank has partnered with Polygon to expand its Nucoin loyalty program, benefiting approximately 70 million customers.
Social Media
Instagram: Empowering users to mint, showcase, and sell NFTs directly on Instagram.
Reddit: Launched a limited edition NFT collection called CryptoSnoos, minted on the Polygon blockchain. Polygon Partnerships in Automobile
Bentley Motors: Collaborated for Bentley’s Genesis NFT collection, minted on Polygon’s blockchain. Mercedes: Developed Acentrik, a blockchain-based data-sharing platform, facilitating data tokenization on Polygon.
Food And Beverages
Starbucks: Partnered for the Starbucks Odessey Web3 initiative, introducing NFT offerings on the network.
7-Eleven: The American convenience store chain partnered with the network to introduce Slurpee NFTs, which are digital collectibles.
Coca-Cola: Launched an NFT collection on International Friendship Day, minted on the network.
Fashion And Beauty
Nike, Adidas, And Prada: Supported various Web3-focused initiatives and digital fashion projects.
Casio: Another notable partnership was with Casio electronics manufacturer to launch a G-Shock watch-related initiative, contributing to Polygon’s growth.
E-commerce
Flipkart: Established the Blockchain eCommerce Centre of Excellence for integrating blockchain in commerce.
Venly & Shopify: Enabled minting and selling of NFTs for Shopify merchants on the network.
Sports
DraftKings: Developed the DraftKings NFT Marketplace, built on Polygon.
SPORTFIVE: Collaborated to create Web3 experiences in sports, including Metaverse and NFT initiatives.
Partnerships In Technology
Nothing: Launched an NFT loyalty program with tech company Nothing.
Stripe: Integrated with Stripe for cryptocurrency payouts using Polygon’s blockchain.
Deutsche Telekom: The telecommunications giant partnered with the project to enhance its blockchain infrastructure and capabilities.
Exploring MATIC Crypto: The Building Block of Polygon
MATIC crypto, the native token of the network, is a fundamental component that fuels and stabilizes the Polygon ecosystem. It plays a multifaceted role, encapsulating both utility and governance aspects. As project evolves and expands its reach, the significance of MATIC continues to grow, underpinning the network’s operational efficacy and user engagement.
What Is MATIC Crypto?
MATIC token, originally central to the Matic Network and now integral to Polygon, serves several key functions within the ecosystem. It is an ERC-20 token, compatible with the Ethereum blockchain, which facilitates seamless integration and interoperability. Key characteristics and uses of MATIC include:
Transaction Fees: MATIC is used to pay for transaction fees on the network, compensating validators for their computational resources.
Staking: As part of Polygon’s Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, MATIC tokens are staked by validators and delegators. This staking process secures the network and ensures its integrity.
Governance: Holding MATIC tokens grants users governance rights within the ecosystem, allowing them to participate in decision-making processes and vote on proposals regarding network upgrades and changes.
Role Of MATIC
MATIC’s role extends beyond its utility as a cryptocurrency. It is the cornerstone of the network, with its functions intricately woven into the network’s architecture:
Network Security: Through staking, MATIC plays a crucial role in maintaining the security and stability of the network. Validators, who stake MATIC tokens, are responsible for processing transactions and adding them to the blockchain. Their commitment is incentivized through rewards paid in MATIC.
User Incentivization: The staking mechanism also serves to incentivize users to participate in the network. By staking MATIC, users can earn rewards, contributing to the network’s health and fostering a robust user community.
Scalability And Efficiency: The use of MATIC for transaction fees underpins Polygon’s ability to offer low transaction costs and high throughput, crucial for scaling the Ethereum network effectively.
Empowering Decentralized Applications (dApps): MATIC’s compatibility with Ethereum and its role in transaction fee management make it an attractive option for dApp developers seeking an efficient, scalable platform.
Facilitating Governance: As a governance token, MATIC empowers its holders to shape the future of the network, ensuring a decentralized and user-centric development approach.
Polygon 2.0: What The Future Will Look Like
Polygon 2.0 marks a transformative phase in the evolution of the network, aiming to scale Ethereum to the size of the internet using advanced Zero-Knowledge (ZK) technology.
History Of Polygon
Polygon, initially launched as Matic Network in 2017, was developed to address critical blockchain scaling and usability issues. In May 2020, the Matic Network debuted its mainnet on Ethereum. During this phase, the network was predominantly managed by the Matic Foundation, which gradually began to onboard third-party validators for decentralized control.
The network underwent a significant transformation in February 2021, rebranding to Polygon. This change marked an expansion of its capabilities, including the integration of ZK-rollup technologies and various other scalability solutions. Following this, the project continued its momentum by acquiring technologies like Hermez and Mir Protocol, and launching initiatives such as Polygon ID in June 2022 and Polygon Supernets in October 2022. The introduction of Polygon zkEVM in March 2023 further cemented its commitment to enhancing scalability and privacy.
What Is Polygon 2.0?
Polygon 2.0, announced on June 12, 2023, represents a series of proposed upgrades aimed at unifying all Polygon protocols under the Zero-Knowledge (ZK) technology umbrella. This ambitious plan includes upgrading the PoS network to a zkEVM Validium network, which uniquely stores transaction data off-chain, maintained by the network’s validators.
The initiation of Polygon 2.0’s “Phase 0” on September 14, 2023, marked the beginning of implementing these upgrades. This phase was driven by the release of several critical Polygon Improvement Proposals (PIPs) that laid out the foundational changes for the network’s transformation. These proposals aimed to ensure that existing users and developers on the network would not be immediately affected, ensuring a smooth transition.
What is Polygon 2.0 | Image credit: Polygon Labs
MATIC Becomes POL
A cornerstone of the Polygon 2.0 upgrade is the transition from the existing MATIC token to the new POL token. This transition was officially set in motion with the POL token contract going live on the Goerli testnet on October 4, 2023. The POL token is designed to serve as the native token of the upgraded ecosystem, supporting a variety of roles across the ZK-based L2 chains.
The POL token starts with a supply of 10 billion, allowing for a one-to-one migration from MATIC, and features an annual emission rate of 2%. This emission is strategically planned to support validator staking rewards and contribute to a community treasury, emphasizing a balanced and sustainable network growth.
Market Insights: What Is The Price Of MATIC?
The price of MATIC, Polygon’s native cryptocurrency, is subject to fluctuations driven by various factors in the cryptocurrency market. The token’s value is influenced by general market trends, investor sentiment, network upgrades, and broader economic conditions.
Several key factors can impact the price of MATIC:
Network Upgrades: Significant developments such as the transition to Polygon 2.0 and the change from MATIC to POL can have a profound effect on the token’s price as they reflect the network’s growth and scalability prospects.
Adoption And Partnerships: As Polygon forms partnerships with major brands and companies, the increased usage and visibility can positively influence MATIC’s value.
Market Sentiment: Investor perceptions and sentiment, often swayed by news and social media, can lead to price volatility.
Regulatory Environment: Changes in the regulatory landscape for cryptocurrencies in key markets can affect the price as they alter the operational framework for crypto assets like MATIC.
Technical Developments: Innovations in blockchain technology and integrations with other platforms can affect the perceived value of MATIC.
Economic Indicators: Broader economic factors, such as inflation rates, interest rates, and the performance of major fiat currencies like the US dollar (DXY), can also play a role.
Polygon Price Prediction
The 1-week chart of MATIC/USD depicts the most crucial levels in the medium to long term. For the analysis of these price levels, we use Fibonacci retracement levels and Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs) to identify potential support and resistance levels.
0.236 Level (Approximately $0.92): This level, derived from the Fibonacci retracement, is a potential resistance zone. If the price of MATIC approaches this level, traders might expect some selling pressure, as it’s a common retracement level where price reversals can occur.
0.382 Level (Approximately $1.29): This is another key resistance level. A break above this could signal strong bullish momentum, possibly leading to higher price levels.
0.5 Level (Approximately $1.59): The halfway point of the Fibonacci retracement levels is considered a psychological level of market sentiment. It may serve as a strong resistance level where the price could face considerable challenges.
0.618 Level (Approximately $1.89): Often referred to as the ‘golden ratio,’ this level is crucial. If the price were to move past this point, it might indicate a potential trend reversal from previous declines.
0.786 Level (Approximately $2.32): Approaching this higher retracement level typically indicates a substantial recovery from past downtrends, signifying that the price is nearing the previous highs from which it retraced.
Exponential Moving Averages:
20-Week EMA: MATIC has recently breached the 20-week EMA at $0.65, which it had been trailing below since mid-April 2023. This move indicates a potential shift in short-term sentiment from bearish to bullish.
50-Week EMA: The price is currently approaching the 50-week EMA at $0.77, a crucial resistance level that traders often watch. If MATIC can sustain above this level, it might confirm a stronger bullish trend over the medium term.
100 and 200-Week EMAs: These longer-term EMAs represent more substantial levels of support and resistance and could indicate the overall health of the market. A breach above the 100-week EMA (approximately $0.95) would be a strong bullish signal, while the 200-week EMA would be indicative of a long-term bullish reversal.
Current Status
As of November 7, MATIC is trading around $0.7087, having recently conquered the 20-week EMA. The next critical level for MATIC to test is the 50-week EMA. If it successfully breaks and holds above this level, the next significant resistance would be at the 0.236 Fibonacci level of $0.92. These levels, coupled with market sentiment and fundamental developments within the ecosystem, will be pivotal in determining MATIC’s price trajectory in the coming weeks and months.
FAQ
What Is Polygon?
Polygon is a layer two blockchain scaling solution and framework to the Ethereum blockchain, enabling fast transactions with reduced costs.
What Is Polygon Crypto?
“Polygon crypto” refers to the cryptocurrency ecosystem that is built on the network, including its native token, MATIC (soon to be POL), and the various decentralized applications (dApps) it supports.
What is MATIC Crypto?
“MATIC crypto” is the native utility token of the Polygon network, used for transaction fees, staking, and participating in network governance.
What Is Polygon Matic?
Polygon (MATIC) refers to the ecosystem and the suite of solutions provided by the Polygon network, which was initially known as the Matic Network before rebranding.
What Is The Price Of MATIC?
You can check the varying price of MATIC on any major cryptocurrency exchange or financial market data provider.
What Is MATIC Polygon?
MATIC Polygon refers to the native token (MATIC) and the underlying network (Polygon) on which it operates.
What Is Polygon Blockchain?
The Polygon blockchain is a scalable network that provides a framework for building and connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks.
What Is The Polygon Network?
The Polygon network is the overarching ecosystem that includes the Polygon blockchain, its native MATIC token, and all connected services and dApps.
What Can You Do With Polygon MATIC?
With Polygon Matic, you can engage in a variety of blockchain-related activities such as trading, staking, governance, and interacting with dApps for gaming, finance, and other services.
What Does Polygon MATIC Do?
Polygon Matic provides a platform for creating scalable and interconnected blockchain networks with lower transaction fees and faster speeds compared to Ethereum.
What Is Going On With Polygon Matic?
Polygon MATIC is continuously evolving, with upgrades like Polygon 2.0 aimed at expanding its capabilities and improving its infrastructure for better scalability and interoperability.
What Is MATIC Coin Used For?
Users can employ the MATIC coin to pay transaction fees on the Polygon network, stake for network security, and participate in governance voting.
What Is The MATIC Network?
The MATIC network refers to the initial name of the Polygon network (rebranded in February 2021).
What Is The MATIC Token?
The MATIC token is the native cryptocurrency of the Polygon network, used to facilitate transactions, secure the network through staking, and enable community governance through voting.
What Is Polygon Chain?
The Polygon chain is a blockchain that operates in parallel to the Ethereum main chain. It aims to provide faster and cheaper transactions while still maintaining a high degree of security and interoperability with Ethereum.
What Is Polygon Coin Used For?
Users utilize the Polygon coin, or MATIC, to pay transaction fees on the network, participate in the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, and engage in governance through voting on network upgrades and proposals.
What is Polygon Web3?
Polygon Web3 refers to the third generation of internet services for websites and applications built on the Polygon blockchain, focusing on decentralized protocols and providing a distributed environment for Web3 applications.
What Is Polygon Worth?
The worth of Polygon, in the context of market capitalization, is the total value of all the MATIC tokens in circulation. This value fluctuates based on the current market price of MATIC.
What Is The Current Price Of MATIC?
You can check the current price of MATIC, which varies, in real-time on various cryptocurrency exchanges or financial data platforms.
What Network Does MATIC Use? What Network Is Polygon On?
MATIC operates on the Polygon network, a layer two scaling solution built atop the Ethereum blockchain. This network aims to support scalable blockchain infrastructure and operates in tandem with Ethereum.
What Type Of Coin Is MATIC?
MATIC, a type of digital currency known as a cryptocurrency, serves as a utility token specifically designed for the Polygon network. Within its ecosystem, it facilitates transactions, staking, and governance.
Featured image from Moonstats, chart from TradingView.com
“The Big Bang” is Fortnite’s first live event that’s teased to bring about a “new beginning” for the game, according to developer Epic Games.
The event is the end to Fortnite OG’s schedule of rotating maps from Chapter 1, which itself ended with a “black hole” event that introduced a new Chapter and series of major additions.
“The Big Bang” appears to be a nod to this finale, and is rumored to introduce some similarly game-changing features — all ushered in by a musical appearance by Eminem. Here’s everything we know, and what time the live event begins in your time zone.
Fortnite live event start time: When does the ‘The Big Bang’ event begin?
Update (Dec. 2, 2:10 p.m. ET): “The Big Bang” event is technically happening now (from 2 p.m. ET), but for those still queuing to enter the game, don’t fret; developer Epic Games is running two more shows today to meet demand. The timings of these are unknown, but we’d recommend waiting until you’ve gained access to the lobby, then holding tight for the performance to begin.
Well that escalated quickly. Whether you’re in the lobby or in a queue, fear not!
We’ll be adding two more showings of The Big Bang after the 2pm ET show.
Original story: Fortnite’s “The Big Bang” live event starts on Saturday, Dec. 2, at the following times:
11 a.m. PST for the West Coast of North America
2 p.m. EST for the East Coast of North America
7 p.m. GMT for the U.K.
8 p.m. CEST for west mainland Europe
4 a.m. JST in Japan (Dec. 3)
Matchmaking for modes made by Epic — including Battle Royale and Zero Build — will go offline two hours before the prior times, paving the way for the live event to take center stage.
You can join the “The Big Bang” event itself 30 minutes before it begins — at 1:30 p.m. EST, or your local equivalent — which we’d recommend doing in case capacity is limited, as has been the case with Fortnite events in the past. In other words, it’s best to arrive early to avoid disappointment!
The live event can be accessed from all versions of the game, including streamed versions via services such as Xbox Cloud Gaming, if you don’t happen to be at your console or PC at the time.
What can we expect from Fortnite’s ‘The Big Bang’ event?
Teasers and leaks for “The Big Bang” suggests hybrid of a Fortnite seasonal finale — which feature an interactive experience which concludes the season and tees up a new storyline — and Fortnite’s concerts, which Eminem is confirmed to feature. As such, those attending the event will receive an exclusive Loading Screen for taking part to commemorate the performance:
Image: Epic Games
Beyond that, details are thin on the ground. Fortnite leakers such as ShiinaBR on Twitter / X are being respectful of spoilers and are keeping specifics to themselves, with the tease that it’s “NOT just a concert.” So what else can we expect?
People are freaking out, so here’s my first and final event leak:
This live event is NOT just a concert, not at all.
For one, the teaser image for the event features a llama, a creature that’s been a Fortnite staple since the Battle Royale mode’s debut. However, this is thought to be linked to a crafting mode in collaboration with LEGO, which has been teased on social media in the weeks leading to the event.
The microphone and guitar in the teaser image, meanwhile, is believed to be tied to a new “Festival” mode. These new modes, plus a Rocket League-inspired “Rocket Racing” mode, are suggested to be rolled out within the first week of Chapter 5, which will go live in the day or two of the live event. This also lines up with the cryptic mention of “new rules” in an official teaser:
A galaxy is a container of worlds that abide by its own set of rules. Galaxies unknown leave opportunity for new rules.
How exactly these modes will appear as part of the event is unknown, but with a huge number of eyeballs watching this season finale, it’s the perfect place to promote them.
Fortnite will release THREE new modes a few days after Chapter 5 drops!
– LEGO Fortnite: December 7 – Rocket Racing: December 8 – Fortnite Festival: December 9
Either way, when the “The Big Bang” concludes, expect a period of downtime. With these rumored new modes and possible other features on the way, we won’t be playing again until sometime on Sunday, or even Monday.
In the meantime, if you’re looking to unlock this season’s Battle Pass skins before they disappear for good, we recommend finding gnome locations for some easy bonus XP.
Happy December, Polygon readers! The winter holidays are only a few short weeks away, but don’t fret: There’s plenty of presents in the form of movies new to streaming to enjoy in the meantime. With November now behind us, we’ve combed through the latest movies to stream on Netflix, Hulu, Max, and more to bring you the best of what December has to offer.
This month, we’ve got a bunch of DC Comics films arriving this weekend on Netflix, including Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel starring Henry Cavill and Matt Reeves’ explosive take on Batman starring Robert Pattinson and Zoë Kravitz. Hustlers, the comedy crime drama starring Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu, comes to Hulu this week, while the modern slasher movie The Strangers: Prey at Night comes stalking its way onto Max.
Let’s dive in and see what this month has in store!
Editor’s pick
The Batman
Photo: Jonathan Olley/Warner Bros.
Genre: Superhero action Director: Matt Reeves Cast: Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano
It’s a daunting task, creating a new incarnation of Batman. Since the character’s first appearance in 1939, the Dark Knight has become one of the most iconic characters in the entirety of popular culture, with several feature adaptations having taken their own unique crack at what makes Bruce Wayne, the man beneath the cowl, tick.
Matt Reeves’ 2022 reboot starring Robert Pattinson shows audiences a Batman younger and angrier than any they’ve seen before — a costumed vigilante who’s only two years deep into his campaign as a caped crusader for justice. This shift affords Reeves the opportunity to devote more time to Batman as a crime fighter and detective, piecing together clues and surveilling suspects as he attempts to uncover the truth behind a conspiracy at the heart of Gotham City and apprehend a vengeful serial killer, the Riddler (Paul Dano). From the film’s gothic modernist version of Gotham City to the ferocity of the film’s close-quarters fight sequences, The Batman feels like a brilliant distillation of all the qualities that have made the character such an enduring pop culture icon while carving its own niche in the broader universe of Bat-media. We’re still two years out from the highly anticipated sequel, but if it’s been a while since you last saw it in theaters, The Batman’s arrival on Netflix is the perfect opportunity to revisit it. —Toussaint Egan
New on Netflix
Man of Steel
Image: Warner Bros.
Genre: Superhero action Director: Zack Snyder Cast: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon
Stay with me as I share my journey with this movie. Like many others, when I first saw it, I hated it. I thought the violence and destruction were excessive and without thought, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. With the passing of time and the completion of the trilogy of movies, I have done a complete 180, and Man of Steel is now a movie I unexpectedly and unabashedly adore.
This is a deeply personal movie about feeling alienated from the world around you and wanting to be accepted, and about the failures of our parents while they try to look out for us. (Man of Steel could also be referred to as “Inside You There Are Two Dads: The Movie.”) All the elements that left me cold the first time around have since been contextualized thoughtfully in the movies that follow, especially in the opening scene of Batman v Superman.
Henry Cavill seems born to play Superman, bringing his natural charisma and good looks to the role in addition to an undercurrent of melancholy as he tries to navigate a world that seems to have no clear place for him. Michael Shannon is menacing as Zod, as is Antje Traue as his lieutenant Faora-Ul. With incredible fight scenes, a roaring score from Hans Zimmer, and thoughtful meditations on where our parents’ vision of our path in life differs from our own, Man of Steel deserves your reconsideration (or a rewatch, if you’re already in the “this rules, actually” camp). Now that it’s on Netflix (and with a new Superman on the way), that’s doubly true. —PV
New on Hulu
Hustlers
Image: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Genre: Crime comedy-drama Director: Lorene Scafaria Cast: Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Stiles
Based on an article from fellow Vox Media publication New York Magazine (hello, my colleagues), Hustlers is a colorful, exciting crime thriller about a group of strippers in New York City who scam wealthy clients. The movie features one of Jennifer Lopez’s best performances as the group’s ringleader and mother figure, and Constance Wu, Riverdale’sLili Reinhart, Keke Palmer, Lizzo, and Cardi B fill out the lovable group of women just trying to make it on their own terms. From our review when the movie was first released:
If anything, the film, based on a true story, feels more like the female reboot of a franchise than any of the actual remakes and reboots in that vein that we’ve gotten (Ocean’s 8, Ghostbusters, Men in Black: International, etc.) in that it tells the kind of story usually reserved for men with a cast full of women. Unlike those attempts, Hustlers never once feels like it’s just “a heist movie but with women;” it’s a full-fledged epic, made by and about women, and proof positive that female-centered films can flourish without being based on a pre-existing male-based IP.
Lopez recently announced a new album and short film due this February, which makes it a great time to revisit one of her best roles. —PV
New on Max
The Strangers: Prey at Night
Image: Aviron Pictures
Genre: Slasher horror Director: Johannes Roberts Cast: Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson, Bailee Madison
Director Renny Harlin is taking a page out of the Fear Street playbook by spearheading a new trilogy of stand-alone sequels to 2008’s The Strangers, all scheduled to be released throughout 2024. What better occasion could there be to revisit the last time the series’ sinister trio of masked murderers last stalked their way across screens?
Bryan Bertino’s original 2008 movie was a hit: a lean, mean psychological horror film that felt like a much-needed back-to-basics serial killer thriller for audiences fatigued with special effects-reliant spectacles and the “torture porn” traps of the Saw franchise. The Strangers became a sleeper hit among fans and saw significant success at the box office, so it’s a wonder why it took over a decade for the sequel, The Strangers: Prey at Night, to finally come out.
Set 10 years after the original, the movie follows a family vacationing at a trailer park in Ohio who unexpectedly cross paths with three masked killers intent on adding them to their body count. With no other recourse and desperate to survive, the family must band together to fight back and escape with their lives. The sequel leans more into the tropes of slasher horror, and the sedate barebones aesthetic of the original gives way to a more neon-infused contemporary grunge, but overall, The Strangers: Prey at Night is still a wickedly fun and terrifying horror movie. Here’s hoping that Harlin’s trilogy is able to push the carnage even further. —TE
New on Prime Video
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Image: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Genre: Action comedy Director: Doug Liman Cast: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Adam Brody
Every once in a while, you’ll see people complaining about how there’s too much sex in movies and TV. The truth is very much the opposite — our mainstream entertainment has never been less sexy (even filmmakers during the Hays Code era worked around those restrictive standards to imbue sexiness into their work). Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a wonderful antidote to these times, a sexy movie about sexy people doing sexy things.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play a husband-and-wife assassin duo who are in the midst of marital problems — turns out, it’s hard to keep your home life spicy when your work life is as dangerous as it comes. When they’re both assigned to kill the same person, things go very wrong.
It’s a very fun time at the movies, but there’s another reason to watch Mr. & Mrs. Smith right now — Prime Video is working on a TV adaptation starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine (Blue Eye Samurai), which will premiere next February. —PV
Happy December, Polygon readers. Christmas movie season is here, and there are tons of new Christmas movies slated to come out over the next month.
This week, there are four in that category: the critically acclaimed The Holdovers, Eddie Murphy’s Candy Cane Lane, Netflix’s Family Switch, and the horror movie It’s a Wonderful Knife. But that’s not all that’s new this week: Carol director Todd Haynes has a buzzy new movie out on Netflix, there’s a second movie with musical numbers named Leo dropping on Netflix in as many weeks, and big franchise reboots Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and The Exorcist: Believer make their streaming platform debuts.
That’s only touching the surface — December is usually a busy time for new movies to watch at home, and this year is no different. Let’s dig into it.
New on Netflix
May December
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Photo: Francois Duhamel/Netflix
Genre: Drama Run time: 1h 57m Director: Todd Haynes Cast: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton
One of our great modern filmmakers is back with another thorny story — this about an actor (Natalie Portman) studying a woman (Julianne Moore) she is going to play in a film. The woman (based loosely on convicted sex offender Mary Kay Letourneau) is known for her scandalous relationship with her husband (Charles Melton), who she first met when he was a minor. Melton has already won multiple awards for his portrayal of the husband, and as it’s a Todd Haynes movie, you can expect a sumptuous, at times uncomfortable watch led by fantastic performances.
No, you are not seeing double. Yes, last week, Netflix premiered its “Adam Sandler as a talking lizard” animated musical Leo. This week, the Tamil box-office hit Leo, a remake of David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, lands on the platform.
Both Leos on Netflix prominently feature musical numbers, but they couldn’t be more different movies. In this one, a coffee shop owner and family man (Vijay) dispatches a group of killers at his business, making him an overnight sensation. This raises the interest of a gangster, who believes the man is his long-lost son.
Leo is the third movie in director Lokesh Kanagaraj’s LCU, after Kaithi and Vikram. There are a few repeat characters in this one, but neither of the previous movies are necessary to understand it (but they are both better, so I’d say they’re worth checking out).
Family Switch
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Photo: Elizabeth Morris/Netflix
Genre: Sci-fi family comedy Run time: 1h 41m Director: McG Cast: Jennifer Garner, Ed Helms, Emma Myers
It’s Freaky Friday, squared! From McG (Charlie’s Angels), this spin on the body-swap trope adds a dash of Christmas to the formula and has all four members of the principal family swap bodies.
American Symphony
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Netflix
Genre: Documentary Run time: 1h 44m Director: Matthew Heineman Cast: Jon Batiste, Suleika Jaouad
This documentary follows two artists in love facing a difficult situation: One, award-winning musician Jon Batiste, is writing a symphony, while his partner, bestselling author Suleika Jaouad, is being treated for cancer.
New on Disney Plus
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Where to watch: Available to stream on Disney Plus
Image: Lucasfilm
Genre: Action-adventure Run time: 2h 34m Director: James Mangold Cast: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen
Harrison Ford’s final outing as Indiana Jones sees the whip-wielding archaeologist adventurer embark on one last intrepid expedition with his estranged goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) as they race across the world in search of an ancient artifact before a Nazi rocket scientist (Mads Mikkelsen) gets his nefarious hands on it.
Mangold is a very fine director capable of helming solid crowd-pleasers (Ford v Ferrari, Walk the Line) and even breathing new life into the dying X-Men franchise with Logan. But Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny looks anonymous. Its visual style is drab in a way that drains the film of any personality. When Indiana Jones makes his way through boobytrapped caves in torchlight in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the contrast between the outside world and this creepy tomb evokes a singular wonder. But virtually every scene in darkness here is scantily lit and hard to see. And like many a modern blockbuster, Dial of Destiny leans on rapid cuts that heighten the pace of Indiana’s brawls with the Nazis, but the choreography is barely discernible.
Genre: Documentary Run time: 1h 41m Director: Steve James Cast: Tom Goodwin, Mickey O’Sullivan
Legendary documentarian Steve James (Hoop Dreams) turns his camera toward the story of Theodore Hall, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and gave information to the Soviets about the development of The Bomb. The documentary uses interview footage with Hall and his wife, as well as reenactments and archival footage.
New on Prime Video
Candy Cane Lane
Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime Video
Image: Prime Video
Genre: Christmas Run time: 1h 57m Director: Reginald Hudlin Cast: Eddie Murphy, Tracee Ellis Ross, Jillian Bell
It’s a very Eddie Murphy Christmas on Prime Video. He’s a man determined to win a Christmas home decoration contest, and he makes a deal with an elf (Jillian Bell) that has unforeseen consequences on his town.
Genre: Thriller Run time: 1h 43m Director: Alice Troughton Cast: Daryl McCormack, Richard E. Grant, Julie Delpy
A young writer (Daryl McCormack) agrees to tutor the son of his idol (Richard E. Grant). But all is not as it seems, as dark secrets threaten to tangle the writer in this family’s web.
Genre: Drama Run time: 1h 37m Director: Savanah Leaf Cast: Tia Nomore, Erika Alexander, Doechii
A pregnant single mother in the Bay Area hopes to reclaim her two children from foster care in this moving drama from first-time feature director Savanah Leaf. It’s one of the best movies of the year.
Genre: Horror Run time: 1h 51m Director: David Gordon Green Cast: Leslie Odom Jr., Ellen Burstyn, Ann Dowd
After a short theatrical run, David Gordon Green’s new entry in the Exorcist franchise arrives at home. It’s a bizarre twist on the franchise, per our review:
Up until this most recent movie, the title The Exorcist carried some weight. While its role as a representation of quality was up for debate, its mark as a sign of ambition was not. Since the original Exorcist, the series has provided some of American cinema’s best and most interesting artists with space to ruminate on faith and evil. Believer lacks the ambition that’s meant to define an Exorcist movie. This is the most profound statement the movie has to offer, seemingly by accident: If the result of moving past God is that everything in the world will feel as empty and pointless as The Exorcist: Believer, we should cling to faith forever.
New on Shudder
It’s a Wonderful Knife
Where to watch: Available to stream on Shudder
Image: RLJE Films
Genre: Horror Run time: 1h 27m Director: Tyler MacIntyre Cast: Jane Widdop, Justin Long, Joel McHale
It’s a Wonderful Life meets the slasher genre in this Christmas movie about a girl who wishes she’d never been born, only to discover how many lives that would truly cost.
Genre: Comedy Run time: 1h 35m Director: Adele Lim Cast: Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu
What if someone took the 2017 comedy Girls Trip and combined it with the soul-searching drama of Return to Seoul? You might get something like Joy Ride, the new comedy about a four Chinese American friends who bond through their shared adventure to track down their birth mothers.
Genre: Comedy Run time: 1h 31m Director: Emma Seligman Cast: Rachel Sennott, Ayo Edebiri, Marshawn Lynch
Teen girl comedies are back in a big way, and Bottoms is a standout of this year’s crop. A trio of comedic powerhouses star in this movie about high school girls who start a fight club to try and impress the popular girls at school they have crushes on. Chaos ensues.
Bottoms is strongest when it fully indulges that satire. Part of the high school’s hype strategy for the big football game involves plastering the halls with heavily sexualized shirtless posters of the star quarterback. A classroom scene inexplicably involves one of the students standing in a cage. After a particularly climatic moment, a sad montage plays out, set to none other than Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated,” a needle drop so ridiculously 2000s that it transcends time and space.
Genre: Neo-noir crime thriller Run time: 1h 49m Director: Neil Jordan Cast: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, Jessica Lange
Liam Neeson (Taken) plays Raymond Chandler’s iconic down-on-his-luck detective in a feature length adaptation of the 2014 Philip Marlowe novel The Black-Eyed Blonde by John Banville. Hired by a glamorous heiress (Diane Kruger) to ascertain the whereabouts of her ex-lover and bring them back, Marlowe quickly finds himself entrenched in an investigation that goes far deeper (and potentially far deadlier) than a lover’s quarrel.
New to rent
The Holdovers
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Focus Features
Genre: Comedy drama Run time: 2h 13m Director: Alexander Payne Cast: Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Dominic Sessa
A strong late awards-season contender, The Holdovers has been beloved by every single person I’ve seen watch it. It’s about three people left at a New England boarding school for Christmas in 1970 — an uptight teacher (Paul Giamatti), the school’s head cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), and a sulking student (Dominic Sessa).
Freelance
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Relativity Media
Genre: Action comedy Run time: 1h 48m Director: Pierre Morel Cast: John Cena, Alison Brie, Juan Pablo Raba
Taken director Pierre Morel moves to a more comedic mode here, in this movie about a former Special Forces officer (John Cena) and a journalist (Alison Brie) who travel to a fictional country together to interview the nation’s dictator.
Genre: Supernatural horror thriller Run time: 1h 50m Director: Emma Tammi Cast: Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio
The massive hit video game series finally gets a horror movie adaptation, and Universal is going with the 2021 release model of simultaneous home and theatrical releases. Will it work for them? Only time will tell, but what it means for you is that you can watch a movie about the infamous, creepy pizza restaurant and its cursed animatronic animals either at home or in theaters.
The movie’s funniest line is unintentional, when Mike earnestly explains, “I’m having a hard time just processing everything that’s happened,” as if he’s working through a tough breakup rather than a series of increasingly bizarre animatronic attacks. He’s right, though. For a movie with such a simple, appealing premise, Five Nights at Freddy’s is a lot to process.
American gambling giant DraftKings served as a member of Polygon Labs’ validator community. What the latter company did not disclose, though, is that the operator was not truly an “equal member” of the community.
As outlined in a report by CoinDesk, a crypto news outlet, Polygon had signed a deal that was incredibly lucrative to DraftKings. For reference, DraftKings became one of Polygon Labs’ validators in early 2022, marking the first time a big publicly traded firm has taken a role in blockchain governance.
CoinDesk reviewed dozens of on-chain records related to the company’s validator program to better understand the situation.
The reviewed data showed that Polygon provided DraftKings with millions of dollars of crypto back in 2021. While the news outlet could not confirm whether DraftKings had purchased these tokens, it added that the operator also earned millions through its special validator deal.
CoinDesk added that this deal provides a “rare window” into an arrangement that was not publicly disclosed.
Polygon Treated DraftKings Differently
As mentioned, DraftKings was not an equal member of Polygon’s validator community and was compensated much better than other members. Despite that, DraftKings’ validator eventually shut down.
As one of Polygon’s validators, DraftKings was supposed to lend computing power to its network and verify transactions on the platform. Validators a rewarded by automatically getting sent Polygon’s crypto token, MATIC, in a process known as staking.
Validators can stake MATIC tokens to earn more tokens. In the meantime, MATIC owners who do not have their own validators can delegate their tokens to others for a commission of 5%-10% of the rewards earned from those tokens.
However, DraftKings instead charged a 100% commission, depriving small delegators of MATIC tokens. In addition, the gambling company grew as one of Polygon’s largest validators. Needless to say, this deal was very unusual even within the Web3 sector.
CoinDesk learned that DraftKings’ validator benefitted from MATIC tokens delegated by Polygon and took a 100% commission on a very big tranche. Over the last year, DraftKings’ validator was staking 65.5 million MATIC tokens, 91% of which had been delegated to it by Polygon.
CoinDesk also discovered that DraftKings had staked the initial 2.5 million MATIC tokens it received from Polygon. The operator received these tokens in October 2021 and, soon after that, opened a Polygo-based NFT marketplace and agreed to run a validator. When DraftKings officially became a validator, it announced that it would stake “assets it holds in its treasury,” without specifying that it received those tokens from Polygon.
DraftKings Amassed Huge Rewards Thanks to the Treatment
As mentioned previously, the special treatment of DraftKings was not something Polygon disclosed and it actively contradicted its claim that DraftKings would be an equal member of the validator community.
By the end of the partnership, DraftKings had been delegated 60 million MATIC to help it earn more rewards. Prior to the validator’s fall from grace in October this year, DraftKings withdrew a total of 3.2 million MATIC, worth approximately $2 million and, thanks to Polygon’s special treatment, had amassed more in personal rewards than any other member of the validator community.
Evidently, DraftKings’ gain was another validator’s loss since the network issues only a finite number of MATIC tokens a year.
On November 7, the FTX scandal led to a wave of distrust in the crypto sector. Coincidentally, this date also marked the last time DraftKings staked its new MATIC rewards and opted to withdraw them from that point on.
In September, DraftKings’ validator began to underperform. After three notices, it was shut down for failing to meet its requirements. Polygon then moved its 60 million delegated MATIC tokens to a different validator with zero fees.
It’s time to return to the Fury Road in search of Valhalla in the new Mad Max spinoff, Furiosa. The prequel got its first trailer on Thursday that showed off the early tribulations of the future-Imperator. Furiosa is set for release on May 24, 2024.
As the name implies, Furiosa focuses on Imperator Furiosa, the main character from Mad Max: Fury Road originally played by Charlize Theron. This movie takes us back to her younger days and puts Anya Taylor-Joy (The Queen’s Gambit, The Menu) in the role instead.
Along with Taylor-Joy, the movie stars Chris Hemsworth as some kind of villainous master of ceremonies in the wasteland, and a Young Immortan Joe. The story appears to give us a full origin of Furiosa, from when she was taken from her family to when she joined up with Joe to lead the War Boys.
Returning to the franchise for the fifth time is also director and Mad Max creator George Miller, who is now 78 years old but clearly still kicking it. Miller co-wrote Furiosa with Nick Lathouris, who has been involved with Mad Max since the first movie in 1979 and also co-wrote Fury Road.
Altered, a novel new trading card game from startup Equinox Studio, will compete with Disney Lorcana, Magic: The Gatheringand Pokémon Trading Card Game when it launches on Aug. 26, 2024. Distributor Asmodee, which was purchased by Embracer Group in 2021 for $3.1 billion, announced Thursday that it will fund the game via a Kickstarter campaign. And while an early demo shown to Polygon at this year’s Gen Con proved that the mechanics are engaging, the unique technology layer and business model could change the entire TCG industry.
Anyone who has tried to pick up booster packs for Disney Lorcana lately is well aware that cards are extremely hard to come by, with unopened boxes selling for more than twice the manufacturer’s suggested retail price. But that scarcity is only partially organic. It has also been artificially inflated by speculators, who snatch up large quantities of product to flip for a profit, or to cellar in the hopes that they’ll rise in price over time. Entire websites, subreddits, and YouTube channels are dedicated to the hobby of profiting from, not playing with, these cards, and it’s clear to see how TCG trading has evolved from a side hustle into an elaborate get-rich-quick scheme — much the same way that day trading and, later, cryptocurrency have done the same.
Intelligence on the price of these trading cards, as well as the marketplace through which to trade these unique goods, has become so valuable that eBay acquired industry leader TCGPlayer in 2022 for nearly $300 million. (Its employees have since organized, and their union is negotiating its first contract.) eBay even offers a secure, environmentally-controlled warehouse to store the cards in. Like gold speculators, now Magic card traders need never take possession of the items that they own.
Meanwhile, my 13-year-old would just like to get that fourth Tinker Bell card to complete her Steel decks, thanks.
But what if a card game could box out marketplaces like eBay’s TCGPlayer entirely?
What Equinox is proposing with its design for Altered is that every card pulled from a pack is, in reality, a kind of proxy for the digital token which actually represents the value of the card. While developers assured Polygon in August that its technology does not involve blockchain tech, a kind of token is created and locked to a player’s digital account using a QR-style code. The value to consumers, Equinox says on its website, is that if they lose that card they can order a new one to be printed on demand and mailed to them anywhere in the world, even in a different language. But the unstated value for Equinox and Asmodee is absolute visibility, and control, of the marketplace for their cards.
From its website:
Download our app and scan an entire booster in seconds. Your cards are secure, and now you can enjoy a host of features that will enhance your Altered experience. Explore the story behind each card and delve into a deeply positive, inspiring, and inclusive universe. […]
Trade, sell, or buy from collectors worldwide using your smartphone. At any time, select cards from your collection and have them printed and delivered to your doorstep, brand new and in your preferred language. Print decks for yourself and your friends. Stolen or lost cards, proxies — the possibilities are endless.
The value to Asmodee of this partnership with Equinox is that by creating its own centralized, digital marketplace for its “cards” it is therefore able to profit from secondary and tertiary sales of those same cards. They will be able to achieve a profit both at the initial point of sale — when consumers purchase that blind pack off the store shelf — and also in perpetuity, each time the card moves from player to player.
As an example: Rapper Post Malone recently purchased The One Ring — a singular card created for Magic: The Gathering’s The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth — for $2 million. The owner of that card walked away with all of that money, less a hefty sum paid in taxes. Publisher Wizards of the Coast earned nothing. If it had been a card for Altered, publisher Equinox would have been able to profit from that transaction as well.
If Equinox is successful, it’s possible that other TCG publishers would be compelled to follow suit with similar digital platforms. How this will play out in independently owned gaming shops around the world, however, which depend on the sale of individual cards as a profit center, is currently unclear.
A Kickstarter campaign for the game will begin on Jan. 30, 2024. Equinox currently offers six full decks on its website to print and play at home for free.
While Rockstar hasn’t given the next GTA game a proper name yet, it’s almost assuredly going to be titled Grand Theft Auto 6 (or Grand Theft Auto VI). And we know some details about GTA 6, after an unprecedented leak of the game in 2022. But thanks to Rockstar’s secrecy and the enormous task of following up one of the biggest games of all time, much about GTA 6 is still shrouded in mystery.
Here’s everything we do know about Grand Theft Auto 6 so far.
When does GTA 6 come out?
Rockstar hasn’t announced a release date yet for GTA 6, but parent company Take-Two Interactive might have revealed a release window for the next Grand Theft Auto game. In August, Take-Two told investors the company plans to see a “significant inflection point” during its 2025 fiscal year, which has been interpreted by analysts to mean that GTA 6 will be released sometime between April 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025. Obviously, that’s a pretty big window, but it could point to a 2024 release for GTA 6.
While GTA 6 may be targeting a 2024 launch, Rockstar is famous for delaying its biggest games in the name of polish. Its last major release, Red Dead Redemption 2, was publicly delayedthree times. And back in 2013, Grand Theft Auto 5 saw a significant delay, slipping from its original spring release date to its ultimate September 2013 launch.
In other words, even if Rockstar gives us a release date or window by the end of 2023, history tells us that nothing is set in stone.
When does the GTA 6 trailer come out?
Rockstar co-founder and president Sam Houser has only confirmed an “early December” release for the first GTA 6 trailer. It may or may not coincide with The Game Awards 2023, which streams live on Dec. 7. It’s more likely that Rockstar will release the trailer on its own schedule, without competing with a bunch of other game announcements.
Where does GTA 6 take place?
According to a massive leak of early gameplay videos and early reporting on the game, Grand Theft Auto 6 will be set in Vice City, the GTA version of Miami. That location was previously explored in 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and that game’s 2006 prequel Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. Those entries were set during the mid-1980s, but GTA 6 will reportedly tell a modern-day, Bonnie and Clyde-inspired story featuring two leads named Jason and Lucia, based on early gameplay videos. Lucia would be the GTA series’ first female lead playable protagonist in a mainline game.
The videos show robberies, gunplay, open-world driving, a police chase, a crowded nightclub scene, and conversations with full voice acting. The game footage was clearly not intended to be shown publicly, with debug programming elements visible on-screen at the time.
One of the longer videos showed the female player character robbing a diner, as well as threatening staff and customers, who react in fear to having a gun pulled on them. Then she and her male accomplice get in a shootout with police before jumping in the police patrol car and driving off. The game’s graphical treatment is quite realistic, but still consistent with GTA games’ style.
TBD, but PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X are a safe bet. Unlike previous Grand Theft Auto games, which saw staggered releases on consoles versus PC, it seems more likely than ever that Rockstar would release all versions of the game on the same day. But given Rockstar’s track record, the PC version could lag behind PlayStation and Xbox releases.
There’s also another platform coming that could be home to Grand Theft Auto 6: Nintendo’s Switch successor. Rockstar has embraced the Switch with releases like L.A. Noire, Red Dead Redemption, and Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition, so don’t rule out an eventual release of GTA 6 on Switch 2.
How much will GTA 6 cost?
Rockstar and publisher Take-Two haven’t announced a price point, but it seems likely that Grand Theft Auto 6 will carry a $69.99 price point, increasinglythe standardfor AAA video games with big budgets.
Don’t worry about those unfounded rumors that GTA 6 will cost $150, or will be priced per hour, based on misinterpreted comments from Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick. There may be higher-priced premium or collector’s edition versions of GTA 6 that cost more than the industry-standard $69.99, but hold your horses (and your pre-orders) until Rockstar makes it official.
What happens to Grand Theft Auto Online when GTA 6 comes out?
Rockstar hasn’t said, but given the massive popularity of GTA Online, which is also sold as a stand-alone experience, it will likely continue. Rockstar may have more grand ambitions for an online mode for GTA 6, and it may run two versions of the online experience for each game. The future of GTA Online is one of the biggest open questions — not to mention Rockstar’s trickiest needle to thread — when it comes to discussing GTA 6. Rockstar may very well keep those plans under wraps for the foreseeable future.
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