The rise of franchise-first pop culture has made what was previously a genre stumbling block into everyone’s problem: Exposition. Specifically, the stuff we call “lore.” When every big show or movie has to connect to something else, those connections aren’t always graceful. Especially when you need to work in how your villain was in the Amazon with your mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Apple TV Plus’ extremely good mystery-thriller based on Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse, deftly dances around every major pitfall modern mega-franchises happily dive into. The series packs the frame with fascinating little details that unobtrusively build out the world of the show without having characters explain much of anything. It’s thoughtful in its visual design in a way that recalls HBO’s Watchmen, another show full of extensive references to a prior work, carefully building out a story that stood on its own.
The similarity is more than superficial. Both shows are very interested in the background construction of a political and cultural apparatus predicated on one massive, divergent event in history. Both shows have clearly had writers do a ton of mapping out the ways in which their fictional worlds were similar and the ways in which they diverged, and instead of having characters recite endless factoids better served by a wiki, they merely depict the characters living in that world. It’s for the viewer to notice the ways in which it is different.
Image: Apple TV Plus
The early episodes of Monarch are filled with details like this. Passengers on a commercial flight are sprayed down by men in hazmat suits after an international trip, airline corridors have clearly marked Godzilla evacuation routes, and installations of military weaponry stand ready for another Titan appearance.
This, coupled with the show’s noteworthy focus on human drama about two siblings whose father kept them from each other, gives Monarch a thematic richness that surprises and delights. If the big, cacophonous MonsterVerse movies use their kaiju as a metaphor for humanity’s disregard for the planet on a grand scale, then Monarch personalizes that devastation. Not just by showing what it’s like to try and adhere to normalcy after surviving a spectacular catastrophe, but in showing how the men and women who chased these monsters over generations shattered their families to pursue their reckless work — work that would in turn shatter the planet.
Monarch is less openly about thorny, difficult topics than Watchmen was. You won’t find, for example, provocative explorations of race in America. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a show for these times. Much like Watchmen found new relevance in its revisitation of a comic book from 1986, Monarch finds depths to plumb in the haphazard cinematic universe that was jury-rigged around Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla remake. In it, we can see a consideration of humanity’s struggles to navigate a collective disaster, a casual reflection of our inability to solve great crises without militarism, and the way institutions warp fear of collapse into an excuse to control more of our lives. The story may be set in 2015, but few genre shows feel more 2023.
Black Friday is here, and it needs no introduction, right? We’ve already gotten warmed up with heaps of early Black Friday deals, but now the main course has arrived first at Amazon and Best Buy before other retailers get fully underway at various points throughout the coming week. We’ll be updating this article frequently with new products, and as many more retailers (both online and in the real world) begin to slash prices with the hopes that you’ll do your shopping there. Who’s next? Target and Best Buy each have some new deals starting this weekend, so stay tuned.
There’s a little something for everyone below, and unsurprisingly there’s a lot more on the way next week for actual Black Friday. But in case your interests are more specific, we’ve got you covered with dedicated posts on board game deals (featuring dozens more than is listed below), and the best deals on gaming hardware like SSDs and monitors.
Take a short hike through the East Sea Road in Japan with Tokaido, a lovely little board game that’s available from Amazon for $24.76 (was $39.99).
If Age of Empires were a deck-building game, you’d have 7 Wonders. Typically available for $59.99, you can currently pick up a copy from Amazon for $40.
Descent: Legends of the Dark features a ton of unpainted miniatures, and a lengthy, interconnected campaign designed for one to four players. This massive game is usually $174.95 but is currently discounted to $87.48 at Amazon.
Azul, the beautiful tile-matching game is currently discounted to $21.70 at Amazon (was $39.99).
Assassin’s Creed Mirage for PS5 and Xbox Series X is $39.99 (was $49.99). This game recently launched, and beyond being a solid game that has a more reduced scope, it’s hard not to also love its cheaper debut price, which is considerably less than the industry average (and now, even cheaper thanks to Black Friday).
You can already get $20 off the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1 for every platform at Best Buy and Amazon. It costs $39.99 (was $59.99).
Lords of the Fallen (2024) is $49.99 (was $69.99) for PS5 and Xbox Series X from Best Buy.
Lies of P for PS5 and Xbox Series X is $49.99 (was $59.99) at Best Buy. This memorable game breaks the mold of being just another Soulslike title by blending the tale of Pinocchio with horror elements. Best of all, it’s fun to play, and its unique weapon system is something that fans of the subgenre should check out.
Elden Ring is $39.99 (was $59.99) for PS5 and Xbox at Best Buy. From Software’s stunning 2022 open-world title remains a must-play, especially before its anticipated “Shadow of the Erdtree” expansion arrives. Note: The Xbox version of Elden Ring costs just $24.99 at GameStop. On PS4 (which allows a free update to the PS5 version if you have a disc-based console), it’s just $19.99 at GameStop.
Remnant 2for the Xbox Series X and PS5 is $39.99 (was $49.99) at Best Buy. This tough, yet rewarding third-person shooter allows single player as well as groups of up to 3 to trove loot-filled environments.
God of War Ragnarök is $34.99 for PS5 at Best Buy and Amazon, easily sailing past the lowest price we’d seen for the game.
Fire Emblem Engage for the Switch is $34.99 (was $59.99) at Amazon. Building off the incredible Fire Emblem: Three Houses was never going to be easy, but Intelligent Systems delivered the goods in Engage, a game focused more on battle than on relationships.
The physical version of Red Dead Redemption for PS4 (also playable on PS5) is $29.99 at Best Buy (was $49.99). In case you’ve always wanted a PS4 disc copy of one of the PS3 era’s defining games, albeit with very few modern updates, you can now buy it. Since launch, Rockstar Games added a 60 frames per second mode you can turn on while playing the game on PS5.
Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core Reunion, the reimagined version of Square Enix’s tough-to-access PSP title, is $29.99 (was $49.99) at Best Buy and Amazon. It’s available for PS4, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. The best deal of all is at GameStop, where you can grab it for PlayStation or Xbox for $24.99.
Super Mega Baseball 4 is $19.99 (was $29.99) at Best Buy. If you like baseball even a little bit, don’t sleep on this title, even if you aren’t particularly sold on its exaggerated art style. SMB delivers baseball that’s easier to pick up and put down than the major sports titles.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is $34.99 at Best Buy and Amazon. The sequel to Jedi: Fallen Order delivers more of that good stuff in terms of combat, story, and solid character development. Remember: this game will be $30 at Walmart starting on Nov. 22, in case it’s worth it to you to save a couple bucks.
Wild Hearts is $19.99 (was $49.99) at Best Buy. In this third-person action game, which Polygon’s review described as Monster Hunter meets Death Stranding, you’re getting a huge amount of bang for your buck during Black Friday especially.
Dead Space for Xbox Series X and PS5 is $34.99 (was $69.99) at Best Buy. Note: this title is currently available on Xbox Game Pass, in case you have a subscription to that.
All Xbox consoles are $50 off. This includes Xbox Series X consoles at Best Buy, which sell for $449.99 and come with a free $50 gift card. At Target, the Series X is $449.99 and includes a $75 gift card through Nov. 18. GameStop is honoring the same deals, but without gift cards included.
Image: Insomniac Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment via Polygon
PlayStation deals
At multiple retailers, you can get one of Sony’s new, slimmer PS5 consoles for $499.99 (its regular cost) that comes bundled with either Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 or Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 for no extra cost (a $69.99 value).
At multiple retailers including Best Buy, Walmart, and GameStop, you can get a Sony DualSense wireless controller for PS5 and PC for $49.99 or a little less (was $69.99, and in some cases, special edition colors were $74.99).
Nintendo
Switch deals
If you’re planning to buy a Nintendo Switch this holiday, and have your sights set on the standard $299.99 model, make sure you get this holiday Switch bundle that also includes Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and three months of Nintendo’s Switch Online service for no extra cost.
Are you a fan of Super Smash Bros.? On Nov. 19, Nintendo will begin to sell a new Switch OLED bundle that includes Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for no extra charge.
Alienware’s AW3423DWF gaming monitor features a curved QD-OLED screen, which provides amazing picture quality and contrast. Its fast 165 Hz refresh rate works with PC games, and it supports up to 100 Hz with consoles.
For something smaller, Asus makes a 27-inch 1440p OLED gaming monitor that typically costs $999.99. It’s on sale at B&H Photo right now for just $629.99. This product features a 240 Hz refresh rate panel.
If you have an appetite for an even wider, bigger OLED gaming monitor, Best Buy has the best price on LG’s 45-inch curved 1440p monitor. Normally $1,699.99, if you sign up for My Best Buy Plus or Total, it’ll knock $700 off the total. At $999.99, there’s never been a better price.
OK, we’re going to keep getting bigger here. Samsung’s 49-inch curved Odyssey G9 OLED gaming monitor is $999.99 (was $1,599.99) at Amazon. This model has a 240 Hz refresh rate and a very fast response time, just like the LG 45-inch UltraGear OLED above, but its slightly bigger size results in even more of a glorious desk hog.
Logitech’s G Pro X Superlight wireless gaming mouse is currently discounted to $109.99 at Amazon (was $159.99). This is one of the lightest mice on the market, making it great for people who don’t want a heavy mouse to hold back their reflexes.
The wired version of the Logitech G502 X gaming mouse is on sale for $59.99 through Amazon (was $79.99). This is a great mouse for people who want to have many buttons.
VR deals
The Black Friday deal on the Meta Quest 2 is live at GameStop, Amazon, Walmart, and at Best Buy, knocking $50 off the cost. The deal will kick on at Target on Nov. 19, and to make it sweeter, you’ll get a $50 gift card with purchase.
There’s currently no better wireless VR headset at this price point.
Best entertainment Black Friday deals
Panasonic’s UB420-K and UB820-K 4K Blu-ray players are widely regarded as some of the best models you can currently buy, and now they’re down to their lowest retail prices. The UB420-K normally costs around $250, but it’s now $197.99 at Amazon (Best Buy is selling it for $199.99).
The higher-end UB820-K is also on sale. In terms of hardware, it’s virtually identical to the 420-K model, except it can display Dolby Vision HDR in addition to other HDR supported by both models. Normally around $500, this model is $349.99 at both Amazon and Best Buy.
Through Dec. 4, Barnes & Noble is slashing prices on many Criterion Collection movies, including DVDs, Blu-rays, 4K Blu-rays, and even top-tier box sets. This semi-annual sale is the perfect time to pick up acclaimed movies from the modern era, as well as older must-see films that have been lovingly repackaged.
The 4K UHD version of the Super Mario Bros. Movie is currently available at Amazon and Best Buy for $9.99 (was $29.99). You can also pick up the Blu-ray version for the same price (was $19.99) in case you don’t have the right hardware to play 4K discs.
Own a copy of The Super Mario Bros. Movie so you can watch it as many times as you want.
The 4K Blu-ray version of James Cameron’s Titanicis $29.99 at Amazon, and it will launch on Dec. 5. This is a few dollars less than the cost at other retailers. If you want to go all out on the pricey collector’s edition, that version is $20 off at both Amazon and Best Buy.
Best Black Friday Lego deals
The Lego version of the Atari 2600 (complete with cartridges and classic wood paneling) is currently discounted to $201.73 (was $239.99).
Normally, the 1,351-piece Lego Millennium Falcon is $169.99, but Amazon has discounted this set to $135.99. The lowest price we’ve seen yet for the ship that made the Kessel run in twelve parsecs.
Yet another Star Wars Lego set available for its lowest price ever, the 474-piece version of Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing is on sale for $37.49 at Amazon (was $49.99).
The Mario, Luigi, and Peach starter courses for Lego Super Mario are currently discounted to $47.99 at Amazon (were $59.99).
This is the Lego Super Mario set you need if you want to add all of Lego and Nintendo’s exciting expansion sets at a later date. This set includes an interactive Mario figure, a Goomba figure, Bowser Jr., and a buildable course.
The summer home of the royal house of Toadstool is typically priced at $129.99, but you can currently pick up the Peach’s Castle expansion set for Lego Super Mario at Amazon for $104.99.
It should come as no surprise to fans that The Last of Us Part 2 might have a remastered version in development for PlayStation 5, ever since The Last of Us Part 1 — the PS5 port of the original game — came out in September 2022. The remastered version of the sequel just got a lot more solid, thanks to a leak courtesy of the PlayStation Store.
Although The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered isn’t on the PlayStation storefront at this time, it appears to have been in the database at some point recently, because websites that track updates to the PlayStation Store have scraped the relevant data about the game. PSdeals.net has a listing for the game that links to a now-broken PlayStation Store page. The PSdeals listing includes screenshots that appear to be from the remaster, with the phrase “captured on PS5” (as is standard practice for Sony) visible in the corner.
Insider Gaming has a report that goes even further, including the game’s release date — Jan. 19, 2024, which would be quite soon — and even a short teaser trailer that starts off with footage of the Part 1 remaster and then progresses to Part 2 footage. Wario64, the deals aficionado made famous on X (formerly Twitter), corroborated that reporting with a link to the same trailer that appears to be hosted on Sony’s own servers.
It’s worth noting that the trailer makes no mention of a Windows PC version of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered. While Sony has been bringing many of its first-party games to PC in recent years, there’s typically been a lag time of more than a year before those PC ports arrive.
Polygon has reached out to Sony for confirmation and will update this story when we hear back.
Super Mario RPG will test your music knowledge via the Tadpole Pond music puzzle in Melody Bay.
After arriving in Melody Bay, if you head right and step on the stone, you’ll be greeted by tadpoles that swim on a musical chart. Jumping on the tadpole stops it from moving, so you can draft a melody. You’ll earn rewards by composing specific melodies, so you’ll want to make sure to come back to Melody Bay every now and then to play a new song for the local composer.
If you miss the timing to jump on the tadpole, don’t worry, as it’ll swim back and forth between the lines.
For each song you play, you’ll unlock better healing items to buy from The Juice Bar in Tadpole Pond.
Below, we show you the Tadpole Pond puzzle solutions in Super Mario RPG and what rewards you get for playing these songs.
Melody Bay song #1: Frogfucius’ Suite #18
A nearby tadpole in the water will actually tell you what notes the tadpoles need to be, but if you’re not good at translating notes to a chart, we’ve got your back.
Arrange the tadpoles like so to get an Alto Card, which grants you one tier of membership to The Juice Bar in Tadpole Pond:
Image: ArtePiazza/Nintendo via Polygon
With the Alto Card, you can buy Frogleg Cola, a healing item that recovers 80 HP for the whole party, for 42 coins each.
Melody Bay song #2: Mole Mountain Blues
After you save the two mole children and get the third star, you can return to Melody Bay to play a new song, the Mole Mountain Blues. Set up the tadpoles like so, to get the Tenor Card:
Image: ArtePiazza/Nintendo via Polygon
With the Tenor Card, you can buy Finless Cola, a healing item that recovers 150 HP for the whole party, for 90 coins each.
Melody Bay song #3: Monstro Town Melody
After visiting Monstro Town, talking to the mayor, and listening to the Pink Starfish upstairs in his home, you can come back to Melody Bay to play the third and final song.
Set up the tadpoles like so to get the Soprano Card:
Image: ArtePiazza/Nintendo via Polygon
The Soprano Card allows you to buy Croaka Cola for 200 coins from The Juice Bar. Croaka Cola fully restores your party, so it’s a useful and powerful item to keep around.
Persona 5 Tactica is the latest non-JRPG spinoff in Atlus’ celebrated JRPG series. Tactica is a tactics game that takes place in the same world as Persona 5 and includes the original game’s core group of heroes: the Phantom Thieves. As a spinoff, it’s natural to wonder: Do you need to play Persona 5 before Persona 5 Tactica?
With the Persona series being so story-focused, it’s a good question. In this Persona 5 Tactica guide, we hope to answer just that question, and will break down whether or not you need to play Person 5 — plus Persona 5 Royal and Persona 5 Strikers— before playing Persona 5 Tactica.
When does Persona 5 Tactica take place in the Persona timeline?
Persona 5 Tactica takes place after the establishment of the Phantom Thieves, the crew that Joker (the main character) puts together to change the hearts of baddies all over Japan in the main game.
Based on the dialogue at the start of the game, Tactica takes place before the third year students (Makoto and Haru) graduate, which is before the main storyline of Persona 5 wraps up. So, think of Tactica as a big side quest that takes place before the end of Persona 5.
Do you need to play Persona 5 before Persona 5 Tactica?
Images: Atlus
Yes, you should play (or have played) at least a few hours of Persona 5 before you play Tactica.
Because of where Tactica is set in the timeline, you’re going to be very confused If you didn’t play any Persona 5. The game’s opening assumes you already know who these characters are, what the “Metaverse” is, and why the cat (who isn’t actually a cat) is talking.
That said, you’ll really just be missing the context of the world and characters by skipping Persona 5 and diving right into Tactica. While the plot of Persona 5 Tactica involves the same characters, in the same world, it tells its own, contained story and you don’t need to understand the plot ofPersona 5 to follow along.
If you love tactics games and are dying to check out Persona 5 Tactica, you’ll be totally fine to do so as long as you accept that you’ll probably be a little confused at the outset. Although, maybe this is just a great chance for you to go back and spend 100 hours in Persona 5, which is one of the best games of the last decade — even if you’re not usually a turn-based JRPG fan.
Do you need to play Persona 5 Royal before Persona 5 Tactica?
Image: Atlus
No, you don’t need to have played any of the Royal content in Persona 5 to understand Tactica.
Kasumi Yoshizawa, the new addition to the Phantom Thieves from Royal, is not part of your crew in Persona 5 Tactica.
So, even if you skipped the expansion for the original game, you’ll still have all the context you need to enjoy the story of Tactica.
Do you need to play Persona 5 Strikers before Persona 5 Tactica?
Image: Atlus/Omega Force/P Studio
No, you don’t need to have played any Strikers to understand Tactica.
Persona 5 Strikers is another Persona 5 spin off, and it replaces the classic turn-based combat with fast-paced, Musou game combat similar to the Dynasty Warriors franchise.
While Strikers relays a great Persona story — seriously, it’s essentially just a mini Persona game, but with slick action combat — the new characters and plot don’t carry over at all to Tactica. If you love Persona and love tactics but hate action games, you’re totally fine to jump into Tactica without touching Strikers.
The video game industry’s string of layoffs continues: Digital Bros. Entertainment and Kongregate have both announced job cuts.
Digital Bros., which owns Control publisher 505 Games and other studios, is laying off 30% of its workforce — roughly 130 people — as part of an “organization review,” it announced Tuesday. The job losses will largely impact Digital Bros.’ studios, according to a news release. Beyond 505 Games, Digital Bros. Entertainment owns DR Studios (Terraria for mobile and console), Kunos Simulazioni (Assetto Corsa), Infinity Plus Two (Puzzle Quest 3), Supernova Games, Nesting Games, Avantgarden (Last Day of June) and Ingame Studios (Crime Boss: Rockay City).
Kongregate, the online gaming portal and publisher, has cut more than a dozen jobs across several departments. Kongregate has not responded to Polygon’s request for comment. The layoffs span multiple departments, including art, VFX, marketing, community management, and production. It’s been a challenging few years for Kongregate, which made a name for itself in the early 2000s as the online portal for Flash games. When Adobe dropped Flash support for good in 2020, Kongregate had to shift toward preserving its Flash games.
In July 2020, Kongregate announced it was no longer accepting user-created games, as it moved toward its own internal development. At that time, it laid off several people to “reshape” the company. One person laid off by Kongregate told Polygon it came as a total surprise.
Three video game studios have laid off workers in as many days: Amazon’s gaming division announced layoffs on Monday. More than 180 people have been cut from Amazon’s Crown Channel and Game Growth programs as the company “refocuses” on Prime Gaming, according to a staff memo sent by Amazon Games vice president Christoph Hartmann. Humble Games, which publishes video games like Coral Island and Mineko’s Night Market, also laid off an unknown number of staffers this week, it confirmed to GLHF. Over the past year, more than 6,000 people have been laid off in the video game industry, according to a layoff tracking website.
It’s been two weeks since Alan Wake 2, the sequel to Remedy Entertainment’s 2010 cult action-horror game, was released, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Between the introduction of protagonist and FBI profiler Saga Anderson and the mystery-board storytelling mechanics of the game’s Mind Place system (not to mention a forthcoming new game plus feature and DLC slated for next year), I’m obsessed with Remedy Entertainment’s latest game — much in the same way I was with its last new release, 2019’s Control.
That obsession has only grown after puzzling over how the events of Alan Wake 2 might relate to the upcoming Control 2. I’ve even started a new playthrough of the original Control in my search for clues I might have overlooked. The Remedy Connected Universe has me excited for the possibility of intertextual storytelling in video games at a time where I otherwise feel fatigue over multi-franchise crossovers. Whether it’s the MCU, DCU, or Star Wars, I’m just over how labyrinthine most of these fictional interconnected universes have become. I don’t feel that way about the Remedy Connected Universe, though.
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing
I think I know why: An interconnected universe on this scale has never really been attempted before in video games. What’s more, Remedy’s games have so far been self-contained enough to be enjoyable as their own experiences. Finally, by virtue of being video games, which are extremely time-intensive and tricky to make, there’s not a new one to play every few months.
Shared-world storytelling, while compelling when done right, is approaching something of a nadir in popular culture. A recent report by Variety about the internal turmoil of Marvel Studios in 2023 paints a picture of a studio that, through a combination of several box-office disappointments and an oversaturation of streaming TV releases, has come to a crossroads in its otherwise unimpeded path of commercial success. There are, as of this writing, 33 films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and nine streaming series recognized as canon.
Image: Remedy Entertainment/505 Games via Polygon
That’s a lot of “homework” for anyone who wants to stay up to date with the latest Marvel developments. Remedy Entertainment’s shared universe doesn’t suffer from this same level of fatigue-inducing scale — as of this moment, there are only three games (Alan Wake, Control, and Alan Wake 2) to play in order to be caught up with what’s going on (leaving aside the many subtle connections to and Easter eggs from Max Payne, Max Payne 2, and Quantum Break). And for those that really couldn’t give a toss about the interconnected plot threads between Control’s corner of the Remedy Connected Universe and Alan Wake’s, the two series are still distinct enough that you could easily enjoy one or the other on its own merit.
For instance: Did you know that Freya Anderson, the mother of Alan Wake 2 protagonist Saga Anderson and daughter of Old Gods of Asgard member Tor Anderson, was first name-dropped in a collectible FBC document in the AWE DLC for Control, three years before the release of Alan Wake 2? Or that Sheriff Tim Breaker and Jesse Faden, who are played by Shawn Ashmore and Courtney Hope, are implied to be alternate-reality versions of Jack Joyce and Beth Wilder, the protagonists of 2016’s Quantum Break, who are also played by Ashmore and Hope? Probably not. Could this be important to the future of the story of either Control or Alan Wake? Sure, maybe — but only for those who care. The point is to reward those players who like to dive a little deeper in order to draw out those lesser-known connections. Best of all, these kinds of Easter eggs don’t come at the expense of what’s unique or enjoyable about either Control or Alan Wake.
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing
Earlier this year, Remedy Entertainment announced its transition to a multi-project studio, with over five games currently in production, including a sequel to Control, a four-player player-versus-environment co-op game set in the world of Control, and a combined remake of Max Payne and Max Payne 2, each roughly scheduled to come out with a year between one another. Even if each of these releases were to be a touchstone in the Remedy Connected Universe going forward, audiences would only need to play one game a year, at most, in order to keep up with the evolving narrative of either Control or Alan Wake.
I totally get the trepidation at the prospect of following yet another shared-universe narrative, especially when there’s no real stated end goal at this early point in the Remedy Connected Universe. Will Saga Anderson cross paths with Jesse Faden at some point in the future? Maybe! Will Quantum Break at some point be retroactively acknowledged as a canon part of this shared fictional universe? Who knows? For now, I’m just along for the ride — and as long as Remedy continues to iterate on its past success, and continues to develop idiosyncratic games with interesting characters and compelling storylines, I’m more than happy to follow the developer down whichever narrative rabbit hole it goes down next.
Even vampires deserve treats. One of the many sacrifices that people make in exchange for eternal life in vampire lore is flavor. They can only eat one thing for the rest of their elongated lives, and it’s a metallic, salty, sinister thing. We all know this. We accept this. But vampires shouldn’t have to give up texture, too. So, in 2013, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch was brave enough to create a vampire with the vision to turn that blood into something good to eat: Eve and her blood Popsicles in Only Lovers Left Alive.
As a millennial woman, I have consumed more than my fair share of vampire stories. I grew up entranced by Interview with the Vampire. Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series of books and films fell into my lap right on the heels of another fantasy series that, er, need not be named. Then there was True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, binge-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the then-new app Hulu. But just once has drinking blood ever looked appetizing to me. Once have I ever vanted to suck blood, and that’s thanks to Eve.
Jarmusch’s moody hangout comedy stars Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as vampires named Adam and Eve (don’t worry about it) who’ve been on-again-off-again spouses for centuries and reunite when Adam is in a particular state of ennui. He’s got a hookup at a local blood bank, so he doesn’t need to do any killing. But Eve gets experimental. In an effort to surprise and cheer Adam up, she freezes some O negative. Very refreshing, especially when you’re in “a hot spot,” she says. Now, Hiddleston enjoying “blood on a stick” is a finger-licking image by itself, but this is not that kind of thirst blog. Hand to Lilith, this is the first and only time I have felt represented on screen by a fictional vampire. This is exactly the type of thing I would do if I were undead. I love to eat Popsicles. I love to make Popsicles.
Have you ever been in a situation where you had limited ingredients in your house — because of money, college, a thunderstorm, or a pandemic, for example — and had to get creative in order to avoid eating the same thing every day? Imagine that plus immortality. Shouldn’t vampires be messing around in the kitchen in an attempt to spice up their lives, like, all the time? The titular cannibal on Hannibal enjoyed sanguinaccio dolce, an Italian pudding, with human blood instead of the traditional pig’s blood. You can’t tell me Lestat wouldn’t be into that.
Vampires are inventive, prolific even, in many ways. Across literature, film, and television, their fighting styles vary. They choose to spend their daytime hours in different ways. You can always count on a fictional vampire to experiment with fashion. But not food. Whether the story is romantic or horrifying or a bit of both, we usually see vampires feeding on fresh human blood by sucking directly from their victim’s neck, wrist if they’re polite, or femoral artery if they’re nasty. It can be scary or erotic, but never exactly tasty. If a vampire doesn’t want to kill, and we have plenty of sullen and brooding faces in popular culture, they’ll find more palatable methods. The immortal teenagers on The Vampire Diaries drink blood-filled IV bags like Capri-Suns. Baz in Rainbow Rowell’s Carry Onseries, Interview with the Vampire’s Louis de Pointe du Lac, and the “vegetarian” Cullen family in the Twilight series hunt animals. Still, they’re drinking from the source. There’s no sense of fun. There’s no flair.
I can think of some notable exceptions. On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the vampire Spike alludes to enhancing his blood with burba weed for flavor and crushed-up Weetabix for texture. At least once in season 6 we see him doing it, so we know it wasn’t a dry joke (hard to tell with those Whedon types). What We Do in the Shadows has a little fun, too. The vampires can get high off the blood of people who are on drugs. They can mix blood with Bud Light and get drunk. Still, that’s not very elegant or inventive. I expect more from them.
Others just merit an honorable mention. The glamorous antagonist known only as the Countess in the 1985 sex comedy Once Bitten drinks a glass of blood with a celery stalk. Occasionally you’ll see vampires drink their blood from a red wine glass or a flask. Presentation is important, so I appreciate that. Amy Heckerling’s romantic comedy Vamps mixes it up by having Krysten Ritter stick a straw into the rat she’s draining. That’s (a) gross and (b) boring! And True Blood, of course, is built around a synthetic blood that vampires can buy bottled and drink “out” in society. However, many of the vampires on True Blood prefer the real thing and tend to drink it in the usual way. Russell will stick his hand into a human’s chest cavity and pull out their heart, but he apparently can’t be bothered to prepare his food.
Come on! Where are the foodie vampires? I know that Hollywood’s best and brightest can do better. What about blood foam? Blood soup is already a dish in many cuisines. There are lots of foods cooked with blood, like black pudding or coq au vin. Where’s the whipping, frying, curdling, and coagulating? Show me a vampire starting the day with a steaming cup of hot blood. I don’t see why you couldn’t make freeze-dried astronaut blood for an afternoon snack. If Popsicles are possible, why not a bloody shaved ice, slushie, or sorbet?
I don’t even think I’ve ever seen a vampire lick a rare steak. Let’s face it: Being a vampire looks fun! Except for drinking blood, of course. That can change. If vampire fiction is here to stay, we owe it to them to give them something good-looking to eat instead of just someone good-looking to eat.
The world outside of Hogwarts is huge, so you’ll definitely to get a broom in Hogwarts Legacy.
Although quidditch was banned by Headmaster Black, you can still fly wherever you want. Unfortunately, you don’t start out with a broom when you arrive, but you’ll unlock one fairly early on.
Read on to learn when you get a broom in Hogwarts Legacy, whether there is such a thing as the best broom (spoilers: there is not) and a list of all brooms and where to buy them.
How to get a broom in Hogwarts Legacy
To get a broom in Hogwarts Legacy, you need to complete the main story quest “Flying Class.” If you were to only complete main story line quests, you would find these quests fairly early on — meaning it’s possible to get your first broom in your first few hours of playing.
Hogwarts Legacy brooms list, and is there a ‘best’ broom?
There are a total of 13 brooms in Hogwarts Legacy, and all of them have the same speed. None are faster than the others; the only difference you’ll find between brooms is a matter of appearance. Other than that, there are no differences between brooms in Hogwarts Legacy– meaning there is no one ‘best’ broom.
To see what all of the brooms look like, check out the gallery below. If you’re searching for where you can unlock the brooms and how much those brooms cost, read on to the next section.
Where to buy brooms in Hogwarts Legacy
You can unlock brooms by purchasing them from a vendor or by popping balloons while riding your broom. Some vendors have prerequisite quests that you must complete before purchasing their brooms:
Arn: Complete the side quest “Carted Away” and the main quest “Flight Test”
Leopold Babcocke, Priya Treadwell, Rohan Prakash: Complete the main quest “Flight Test”
Check out the gallery and table below to see how to unlock all of the brooms and how much they cost.
All of the brooms in Hogwarts Legacy
Broom Name
How to unlock
Cost
Broom Name
How to unlock
Cost
Aeromancer
Purchased from Rohan Prakash
3,000 gold galleons
Bright Spark
Pop balloons challenge
Pop 32 sets of balloons
Ember Dash
Purchased at Spintwitches Sporting Needs
600 gold galleons
Family Antique
Purchased from Pryia Treadwell
2,500 gold galleons
Hogwarts House
Purchased at Spintwitches Sporting Needs
600 gold galleons
Lickety Swift
Pop balloons challenge
Pop 7 sets of balloons
Moon Trimmer
Purchased at Spintwitches Sporting Needs
600 gold galleons
Night Dancer
Pop balloons challenge
Pop 2 sets of balloons
Silver Arrow
Purchased from Arn
5,000 gold galleons
Sky Scythe
Purchased from Leopold Babcocke
5,000 gold galleons
Wild Fire
Pop balloons challenge
Pop 17 sets of balloons
Wind Wisp
Purchased at Spintwitches Sporting Needs
600 gold galleons
Yew Weaver
Purchased at Spintwitches Sporting Needs
600 gold galleons
How do I upgrade my broom in Hogwarts Legacy?
After you purchase a broom for the first time, you’ll start a series of side quests given by Albie Weekes atSpintwitches Sporting Needs,which can be found in Hogsmeade. In these side quests, you’ll test your broom upgrades against Imelda Reyes, a Slytherin student,in a series of time trials. To easily beat Imelda’s times, make sure to fly through the golden bubbles as you progress through the race. These bubbles will refill your boost meter and increase your speed for a short period of time.
After you complete the time trials, return to Albie Weekes, and he’ll begin working on the next broom upgrade. You’ll need to complete three time trials to unlock the ability to purchase the three broom upgrades. These upgrades will increase the speed for every broom you own, not just the one that you have equipped. Check out the table below to see when you can upgrade your broom, and how much it costs to upgrade it.
Xbox just announced a new version of one of its most famous gaming peripherals, this time produced in partnership with Warner Bros. to celebrate a forthcoming movie. I’m talking about an Xbox controller made entirely out of chocolate. No, you can’t actually play games with it. Yes, you can eat it, since it’s made out of 100% chocolate. And of course, it’s wrapped in a gold wrapper — a reference to the infamous golden tickets that Charlie and company had to find in order to enter Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. The film, called Wonka, is a prequel to Roald Dahl’s classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factoryandstars Timothée Chalamet as the chocolateer himself.
To win the “(X)box of Chocolates” — or so the Xbox release calls it — fans have to enter a sweepstakes. The terms, unfortunately, require following Xbox on X (formerly called Twitter) and retweeting the tweet announcing the context. It runs from Nov. 13 – Dec. 14. You don’t just win a chocolate controller itself. You also get five other chocolate truffles, each themed to Xbox: Achievement Hunting, Button Masher, Your Citrus Sidekic, Xtra Kick, and Wonka for the Win. You can also potentially win a replica Xbox Series X that similarly appears to be made entirely out of chocolate.
It’s been a year of blockbuster collaborations with really strong branding, and this is especially true for brand names that appeal to kids. Some of these were all-encompassing, like the inescapable number of Barbie branded items, ranging form hair clips to pool floats to inline rollerblades. And, of course, The Super Mario Bros. Movie opened up the opportunity for tons of new toys and game merch.
I don’t know precisely what types of branded merch I expected for Wonka. I assumed, of course, that there would be candy involved — chocolate even, and probably in a golden wrapper. But chocolate in the shape of an Xbox controller? Do we think Chalamet will be a gamer in Willy Wonka? If so, I presume Xbox would be his console of choice.
Ever since Disney Lorcana launched on Aug. 18, curious friends and family have wasted no breath asking me their most pressing questions: What’s it like?How does it compare to Magic: The Gathering? To thePokémon Trading Card Game?And why the hell can’t I find any product in stores? It’s complicated, I say. The game is quite good, and compares favorably to both of the leading trading card games on the market. Product is hard to find because, well… people are very eager to try and turn a buck on collectibles these days. Also, spooling up the manufacturing capacity to compete with the two global revenue leaders in all of tabletop gaming is hard. Quite hard, in fact.
But the thing I end up talking about the most in these casual conversations is the fact that there are lots of gaps in the design of Disney Lorcana — holes that very clearly need to be filled in with new cards, new mechanics, even whole new decks to play with. With the release of Rise of the Floodborn, at least some of those holes are beginning to get filled in.
I’ve spent some time with its two new starter decks — both Amethyst and Steel as well as Amber and Sapphire — and they’re every bit the match for the three starter decks that came before. In fact, they fit into the metagame like a key fits into a lock… almost like they’d been designed that way.
My favorite of the two, Amethyst and Steel, is a hefty, brawling thing with a slower ramp-up than my previous favorite, and The First Chapter’s breakout star, Amber and Amethyst. Played right it’s almost as effective, so long as you have enough patience to pad out a few early rounds just dropping ink. But once you get Madam Mim and Merlin cards bouncing back and forth, earning lore left and right, it’s satisfying to then start taking a few big swings with Tiana, Celebrating Princess or Kronk, Junior Chipmunk. Keeping everyone protected with a few sets of Mouse Armor, it’s possible to cruise to a mid-game win nearly unopposed.
Image: Ravensburger and Disney
Image: Ravensburger and Disney
On the other hand, my 13-year-old daughter prefers Amber and Sapphire. Also a slow burn, this one’s a team-builder that accelerates surprisingly fast in the mid game thanks to Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs. The Dwarfs vary in cost from two to five ink, but the more of them you get on the table the more powerful they become individually when challenging. It’s a terrific little swarm of charming ruffians, buoyed by none other than Christopher Robin, Adventurer, capable of snagging four lore each round — so long as he has enough friends in play beside him.
Adding these two starter decks to the game, however, does more than just open up two new ways to play. Each 60-card deck in Disney Lorcana must be built from either one or two different colors, and these starter decks are split more or less right down the middle. Amethyst and Steel, for instance, includes 29 Amethyst and 31 Steel cards, respectively. With just a few booster packs — maybe even the ones that come bundled in with each starter deck — you could easily round each of those stacks into two 30-card half decks.
Paired with the other three decks sold at launch in August, those 10 half-decks give you 45 different combinations.
Are all 45 combinations of decks going to be as viable as the five starter decks that the game shipped with across its two launch sets? No. Absolutely not. There are gonna be some real bad matchups in there, to be sure. But until you mash ‘em up together and play them against another deck of cards, you won’t know. And, once you do know, you’ll have a better idea of how to augment those decks to make them better. At its best, the game is intuitive enough that you’ll discover unique maneuvers and combinations at a steady pace. It’s a starting point, and an entrée into the larger world of collecting and building decks for competition.
The bottom line is that Disney Lorcana is growing, just like Magic and Pokémon started growing more than three decades ago. Rise of the Floodborn includes more than 200 new cards in all, effectively doubling the number of cards available with which to build and play. It’s a great game, and its complexity is building at a speed that even its youngest fans can keep up with — and, at $16.99 a starter deck, at a price that many people can afford.
Just don’t you dare pay a penny more than $16.99 (plus taxes) for those starter decks.
Grab a deck or two, maybe all five starters if you can find them with the reprint launching around the same time, and get started learning the game. Quit worrying about the outlandish prices being paid for shiny, sexy cards online. Stop confusing these things for bitcoin. It’s a card game, one with a massive fandom and a healthy momentum behind it. It’s going to be a long journey, one that gets even better as it rolls along.
Disney Lorcana Rise of the Floodborn’s two new starter decks arrive at local retailers on Nov. 17, with a wider release on Dec. 1. They were reviewed using pre-release physical copies provided by Ravensburger. 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.
Stories, especially beloved stories, have a tendency to bleed past their borders and escape their original bodies. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is among many well-loved works that have long since taken on new shapes, shifting forms constantly. The epistolary tale of vampires has hundreds upon hundreds of adaptations, with one domineering throughline: Stoker’s lasting characterization of the elegant, verbose, vampiric count himself.
Given the breadth and variety of the landscape, it can be difficult, at this point, to iterate on Dracula in a way that feels fresh — which is why Dimension 20’s Coffin Run was, and continues to be, such a delight.
Coffin Run, a Dungeons & Dragons actual-play series, premiered in the summer of 2022. The six-episode run, described on Dropout’s website as “a tale as old as many lifetimes,” was helmed by storyteller and game master Jasmine Bhullar and starred Zac Oyama, Erika Ishii, Isabella Roland, and Carlos Luna. Coffin Run emerged from Bhullar’s love of Stoker’s novel, she told CBR in 2022, as well as comedic source material like Young Frankenstein and What We Do in the Shadows.
The cast of the series shines as archetypical members of Dracula’s retinue, brought together to ferry the Count (who sustains undeath-threatening injuries at the top of the series) home to Castle Dracula in his coffin. Oyama plays Squing, a Nosferatu-like vampire who is Dracula’s “firstborn,” turned as a child and preserved forever. Roland plays Dr. Aleksandr Astrovsky, a brash, invigorated mad scientist figure. Luna plays Wetzel, a young human who lives as Dracula’s plaything in hope of becoming a vampire himself. And Ishii plays May Wong, one of Dracula’s vampire brides, who used to be an actress in New York.
Image: Dropout
Coffin Run unfolds as a love letter to Dracula, both the form of the novel and the vampire himself. The story roots itself in Stoker’s work from the start, anchoring the narrative in the epistolary form. It’s letters all the way down, really (and not just inside Squing, who has a tendency to eat them). The series opens on Dracula himself standing over a writing desk, penning a letter to Squing. The letter takes a journey across the sea before it arrives at the Gold Crona Inn — much like Jonathan Harker at the outset of Dracula. From there, letters guide the narrative, arriving for the players at key moments.
Letters, as a kind of delivery system for the story, are adeptly wielded by Bhullar — because of the fickle nature of their author, Dracula, when heartfelt sentiments are poured out in the letters there’s a lingering sense of unease, perpetuated by the arrival of letters that reveal that the Count’s feelings for his coffin-bearing friends and family might not be what they seem. Wetzel, for example, becomes disillusioned with the Count as the series goes on, slowly beginning to distrust him, while May realizes that her own adoration for Dracula may be more one-sided.
Materially, Coffin Run pays beautiful homage to the Gothic lushness of Dracula. When players are handed letters, they receive actual letters at the table, passed along with a glowing candlestick. In the final fight, Dracula’s vitality is measured by vials of “blood” poured into a crystal goblet by Bhullar and then consumed as the vampire comes back to himself. Black-and-white film adaptations get a nod in the grayscale miniatures and the monochromatic set. The special effects all come together to create a world that feels incredibly familiar to horror fans as well as uniquely new — Rick Perry, production designer and creative producer for Dropout, gets heaps of nods throughout the series for his work on the sets and miniatures, as do the crew in a talkback episode post-series.
Image: Dropout
From the Scooby-Doo-like title sequence to the performances, the crew and cast of Coffin Run perfectly hone in on the comedic influences Bhullar cited for the series, as well as the inherent ironies of the source material. May, the classically gorgeous vampire bride, is played by Ishii with a gleeful, over-the-top accent, as is Roland’s Dr. Astrovsky. Squing, as Dracula’s firstborn, is constantly baffled by modern technology, referring to the train that delivers Dracula’s coffin as a “metal tube.” Seemingly, his lack of understanding stems from apathy, rather than access. Castle Dracula, when the story eventually arrives there, is similarly frozen in time, preserved by caretakers who eventually end up ceding the castle to antiquers and “Lairbnb” opportunists.
So much of vampiric representation in pop culture is rooted in Dracula’s particular brand of allure. Even Dungeons & Dragons has its own storied distillation of Stoker’s Transylvania and the titular count in the enigmatic Strahd von Zarovich and the land of Ravenloft. The cast and crew of Coffin Run do a fantastic job of preserving the larger-than-life presence of Dracula in the story, from adding a silhouetted batwing shadow over Bhullar when she speaks to characters as Dracula to character arcs that nod at the ubiquity of the Count and his story. In discussing his place with Dracula at the end of the tale, Wetzel says, “It’s like everyone in [Castle Dracula], they’re just gonna be in there for a while, you know? It’s like the same thing over and over again. Same stuff.”
No adaptation is perfect — with Dracula in the public domain and vampires back in the zeitgeist (hello, Interview with the Vampire, and the resurgence of Twilight, and a million other fanged options), there will likely be hundreds more distillations in the future. Coffin Run takes a pile of well-known, over-offered ingredients — Dracula, the undying bogs of Transylvania, letters, a carriage ride through wolf-stalked trees — and makes something wonderfully new from them.
At the very least, it’s worth sinking your teeth into.
Netflix has been investing heavily into gaming over the past few years in its continued effort to become the Netflix of… well, everything. In addition to acquiring and building new game studios, nabbing big name talent, and moving into cloud gaming, the streamer is making a concerted effort to make the Netflix app a competitive destination for subscription-based mobile gaming. Though as of now, less than 1% of all Netflix users take advantage of the service.
That hasn’t slowed down Netflix’s determination in the space. During this year’s Geeked Week virtual event, the company announced a slew of new titles coming to the Netflix mobile app in 2024.
Here are the biggest game announcements and trailers from Netflix Geeked Week 2023.
Hades
If you’ve never played Supergiant’s peerless action roguelite before — or always wanted to play it on mobile — Netflix has you covered. An iOS version of Polygon’s 2020 game of the year is coming soon, exclusively to Netflix subscribers. Set in a gaudy, funny, sexy, and mysterious version of the Underworld of Greek myth, Hades follows Zagreus, prince of the Underworld, as he tries and tries and tries again (and again, and again) to escape his father’s domain. With near-infinite permutations of weapons, skills, and boons granted by your fellow gods, Hades never plays the same twice, and it will automatically be the best game in Netflix’s catalog when it arrives there.
Braid: Anniversary Edition
The long-awaited anniversary edition of Jonathan Blow’s time-bending puzzle platformer, which was first announced way back in 2020, is finally being released in April of next year. If that weren’t enough, it’s also coming to the Netflix mobile app!
The Anniversary Edition of the game comes with a suite of new features, including the ability to switch between the old and new graphics at will and 15 hours of developer commentary from Blow himself and Frank Cifaldi of the Video Game History Foundation.
Chicken Run: Eggstraction
Coming hot on the tail (feather) of the long-awaited sequel Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, Aardman Animations has announced Chicken Run: Eggstraction — a top-down, real time stealth action game set shortly after the events of the film. You’ll hatch plans, assemble a crack team of chicken commandos, improvise gadgets, and sneak into farms as you liberate whole flocks of new recruits when the game is released in 2024.
Death’s Door
Death’s Door, the isometric action-adventure game from Acid Nerve and number seven on our list of the best games of 2021, is coming to the Netflix mobile app. As a sword-wielding crow, you traverse the afterlife collecting souls for the Reaping Commission Headquarters. Think a slightly easier take on Dark Souls — though not that much easier.
Katana Zero
The stylish, neo-noir action platformer Katana Zero is also headed to Netflix mobile. You play as a katana-wielding amnesiac assassin as you hack and slash your way through swaths of enemies, slow down time, and dodge deadly attack as you bob and weave your way through a dystopian neon-lit metropolis.
Money Heist
One of Netflix’s biggest international hits is its Spanish heist thriller, which now gets this interactive spinoff from the in-house studio Netflix Stories. Dialogue choices and hacking minigames abound when you join the original Money Heist crew in the theft that started it all — La Perla de Barcelona. Like all the games based on Netflix’s original shows and movies, the Money Heist game will remain exclusive to Netflix subscribers when it releases soon, alongside spinoff series Berlin.
Shadow and Bone: Enter the Fold
Fans of Shadow and Bone are still waiting on word of a possible third season of the fantasy mystery drama. But in the meantime, Netflix announced a new narrative roleplaying game set between the events of season 1 and 2, which is available to play now on the Netflix mobile app. Explore the world of Grishaverse as Alina, Jesper, Sturmhond, and General Kirigan as you traverse the war-torn land of Ravka, meet familiar faces, and make hard decisions in Shadow and Bone: Enter the Fold.
The Dragon Prince: Xadia
Due next year, The Dragon Prince: Xadia is a Diablo-style co-op action role-playing game with hack-and-slash combat and loot galore. It’s being made at Wonderstorm, the studio responsible for the animated fantasy series that’s one of the longest-running shows on Netflix (its sixth season debuts next year), so it should capture the show’s vibe perfectly. This one will be exclusive to Netflix on mobile at launch, but it’s getting a PC version too.
The Lost Boys’ poster made the prospect of becoming an undead creature of the night pretty attractive: “Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It’s fun to be a vampire.” But the movie’s story is full of teenage terrors: an older sibling in the grips of addiction, divorced parents, starting over in a strange new place, and contending with adults who won’t listen to your real, valid teenage problems.
Released in 1987, The Lost Boys isn’t particularly terrifying as a horror film. With its gaudily dressed vampires and long-flowing mullets — plus its iconic, extremely sweaty saxophone man — it reads more camp than straight horror three decades later. And despite its R rating, it’s fairly tame. Its single sex scene is pretty chaste and the film’s gore is limited to gushes of blood from dying vampires.
The Lost Boys succeeds as an enduring piece of vampire fiction because of its stars, with Kiefer Sutherland standing out as vampire gang leader David, and the strong bones of its story. In that story, recently divorced single mom Lucy (Dianne Wiest) moves to the fictional Southern California town of Santa Carla, “the murder capital of the world,” the film tells us, with her teenage sons, Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam (Corey Haim). The displaced family moves in with Lucy’s dad, an eccentric taxidermist known only as Grandpa.
Image: Warner Bros./Everett Collection
As they settle into the town, which appears to consist primarily of a densely trafficked beach boardwalk, Lucy gets a job (and a potential boyfriend) at a video rental store, while Michael and Sam seek new friends — Michael’s comes in the form of a group of young vampires, while Sam bonds with comic book store geeks Edgar (Corey Feldman) and Alan Frog (Jamison Newlander). When Michael falls for Star (Jami Gertz), a seductive vampire in the making and apparent partner of David, peer pressure compels him to become a vampire himself.
Opposite Michael’s path, Sam throws in with the Frog brothers, who warn the new kid in town that Santa Carla’s whole murder-capital-of-the-world problem stems from a nest of vampires. The Lost Boys doesn’t shy away from established vampire fiction with the Frog brothers; they use horror comic books as a field manual to identify and kill vampires. (Refreshingly, unlike far too many modern zombie genre stories, which refuse to use the word “zombie” at all, vampire fiction isn’t afraid of calling its monsters what they are.)
While Michael’s story of becoming bewitched by both Star and David is at the center of the film’s story, The Lost Boys is also Sam’s story of watching his brother slip into a metaphorical addiction during the “just say no” era of the Reagan administration’s war on drugs. It’s also a story set during an era of skyrocketing divorce rates; The Lost Boys plays masterfully on the fear of watching your parents split and the inevitable replacement father figure coming into the picture.
Photo: Warner Bros./Everett Collection
Sutherland and Patric hold The Lost Boys together as rivals ostensibly competing for Star. As David, Sutherland channels Billy Idol as a spiky trickster, making Michael hallucinate that he’s eating worms and maggots — when, in reality, he’s eating Chinese takeout — before David presents him with a taste of real vampire’s blood. As Michael, Patric plays it both cool and disaffected, but also earnest in his love for Star and terrified of his new vampire powers. There are strong set-pieces involving the two male leads, including a moment where David and his vampire gang convince Michael to hang out underneath a moving train, compelling Michael to let go and embrace his ability to fly. It’s the movie’s strongest allusion to its inspiration, J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.
Despite strong performances and great character twists, The Lost Boys rushes toward its ending in clumsy and unsatisfying ways. Dianne Wiest’s Lucy has too little to do outside of reacting to the men in the film, and Grandpa seems to have much more going on than the film reveals. Its 98-minute run time needed a little more time to breathe.
But The Lost Boys, much like ’80s kid-heroism movies E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and The Goonies, is about its young people. As an oft-campy time capsule of ’80s-era hopes and fears, it will never get old.
Each week, we round up the most notable releases new to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.
This week, The Killer, David Fincher’s latest psychological thriller, finally arrives on Netflix following its brief theatrical run. Charlie Day’s satirical comedy Fool’s Paradise comes to Hulu, while a new documentary on actor-director-comedian Albert Brooks premieres on Max. There’s a ton of other new releases to choose from on VOD, including the biographical comedy-drama Dumb Moneystarring Paul Dano, A24’s Dicks: The Musical, and more.
Genre: Action thriller Run time: 1h 58m Director: David Fincher Cast: Michael Fassbender, Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell
Based on the 1998 French graphic novel, David Fincher’s latest stars Michael Fassbender as a professional assassin who becomes the center of an international manhunt after his latest assignment goes wrong.
In theory, The Killer could be seen as a film about the ruthlessness of the gig economy, disguised as a crime thriller. It sends the Killer through a Russian nesting doll of missions until there’s little delineation between his personal life and his profession. But Fincher and Walker have little to say about anything they present on screen, or the fleeting thematic subtext they introduce. The film is airtight in its construction, but slight in its artistic objectives. Beyond Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ nerve-wracking score, there really isn’t that much to it.
Genre: Art documentary Run time: 1h 41m Director: Anton Corbijn Cast: Paul McCartney, Roger Waters, Jimmy Page
Dutch photographer and director Anton Corbijn (The American, A Most Wanted Man) makes his second straight doc about the music industry here after 2019’s Depeche Mode concert movie Spirits in the Forest. This time, he turns his eye on the album art design studio Hipgnosis, with the help of some rock ’n’ roll luminaries.
Genre: Satirical comedy Run time: 1h 38m Director: Charlie Day Cast: Charlie Day, Ken Jeong, Kate Beckinsale
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Charlie Day makes his feature directorial debut in this satirical comedy about a mute amnesiac (Day) who is abducted by a desperate publicist (Ken Jeong) to impersonate his client — a method actor who refuses to leave his trailer to film a biopic about Billy the Kid. It gets even weirder than that, trust me.
Genre: Documentary Run time: 1h 28m Director: Rob Reiner Cast: Albert Brooks, Judd Apatow, James L. Brooks
Framed as a dinner conversation between actor-director Albert Brooks and director Rob Reiner, this documentary charts Brooks’ career from his early work on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and his mainstream acting debut in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver to his meteoric rise to fame starring in such films as Private Benjamin and Broadcast News. Guests include Larry David, Conan O’Brien, Sarah Silverman, and Jonah Hill.
New on Shudder
Birth/Rebirth
Where to watch: Available to stream on Shudder
Image: IFC Films/Shudder
Genre: Horror Run time: 1h 38m Director: Laura Moss Cast: Marin Ireland, Judy Reyes, Breeda Wool
This horror-thriller follows a morgue technician who performs a miracle by successfully bringing the body of a dead girl back to life. Unfortunately, this miracle comes at a price, forcing the technician to hunt down pregnant women in order to harvest their biological material to keep the girl alive.
New to rent
Dumb Money
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Photo: Claire Folger/Sony Pictures
Genre: Biographical comedy-drama Run time: 1h 45m Director: Craig Gillespie Cast: Paul Dano, Pete Davidson, Vincent D’Onofrio
Remember the GameStop short squeeze of 2021? No? That’s OK — admittedly, it was a very hectic and wild time, what with the whole… everything going on. In case you’re looking for a refresher, this biographical comedy-drama about a middle-class financial analyst who struck big during squeeze might be just what you’re looking for.
Where The Big Short was patronizing but still hugely entertaining and legitimately informative, Dumb Money’s creators seem uninterested in explaining what the hell happened with the GameStop scenario, or how the hell it happened. The script assumes that the audience is either already familiar with the story, or doesn’t much care about the financial specifics and just wants to see the news reenacted by people they know. Most of the jargon goes unexplained, and the series of events that facilitated the saga is just shrugged off in favor of a simplistic “isn’t this crazy?!” tone.
Dicks: The Musical
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: A24
Genre: Musical comedy Run time: 1h 26m Director: Larry Charles Cast: Josh Sharp, Aaron Jackson, Nathan Lane
This musical comedy follows two longtime business rivals who inadvertently discover they are identical twin brothers separated at birth. Concocting a scheme to get their divorced parents back together, they switch places in order to orchestrate a reunion. Think The Parent Trap, but with more musical numbers, dick jokes, and Megan Thee Stallion.
Dicks takes shots at different kinds of modern movies early on, starting with other A24 movies. A24’s logo is accompanied by grandiose music, and its signature elevated horror threatens to become a tongue-in-cheek thematic inspiration when Trevor and Craig wonder whether their predicament meets the qualifications for abuse and trauma. The film’s New York-set, American Psycho-esque corporate saga is clearly filmed in Los Angeles, with the seams of several sets and stages showing in the margins, while the stock footage it uses of NYC is all distinctly anachronistic.
Rebel
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Genre: Drama Run time: 2h 15m Directors: Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah Cast: Aboubakr Bensaihi, Lubna Azabal, Tara Abboud
Rebel follows the story of Kamal (Aboubakr Bensaihi), a Moroccan-born Belgian rapper who chooses to travel to Syria to aid victims of a war. After being abducted by the Islamic State, Kamal is forced to work as a cameraman filming the group’s skirmishes against the military. While trying to find a way to escape, Kamal must find a way to save his impressionable younger brother, Nassim, who is being groomed as an Islamic State recruit.
Foe
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Amazon Studios
Genre: Sci-fi drama Run time: 1h 50m Director: Garth Davis Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Paul Mescal, Aaron Pierre
Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal star in this sci-fi psychological thriller about Henrietta and Junior, a married couple whose love is put to the test when Junior is called to work on a large space station orbiting Earth. In his stead, Henrietta will be left in the company of a robotic replica of her husband. Remember that one episode from the sixth season of Black Mirror that starred Aaron Paul and Josh Hartnett? This sounds kind of like that.
A couple of significant things happened in the world of online gaming over the first weekend of November. At its BlizzCon convention in California, Blizzard devoted quite a lot of time to World of Warcraft Classic — the nostalgic, retro version of its 19-year-old massively multiplayer game — and revealed surprisingly ambitious plans for Classic’s future. At the same time, Fortnite’s servers were melting under the load of its biggest day ever, which was all down to the launch of Fortnite OG, a special season bringing back the game’s original map and 2018 gameplay.
All of a sudden, in the proudly impermanent world of online gaming — where change is always good, and if it’s not, never mind, because here comes more change — winding back the clock is big business. It’s a kind of paradox: Because online games are always evolving, a sense of scarcity and intense nostalgia forms around the way they used to be. If you can find a way to bring that feeling back, especially for an audience that’s getting jaded, then you’re on to something.
Blizzard initially seemed reluctant to get on board with a growing movement in WoW’s community that wanted to go back to the way things were in 2004-2005. It squashed unofficial “vanilla” servers and prevaricated over creating an official alternative for years. In a way, it’s understandable: If you have spent many years of effort on (in your eyes) modernizing and improving your game, why would you want to indulge this rose-tinted exercise? Isn’t World of Warcraft just better now?
Of course, that’s a value judgment — but what’s undeniable is that WoW is now extremely different from how it used to be. And that’s exactly what makes Classic a viable and interesting, if slightly old-fashioned, alternative. After Classic arrived in 2019, included in a standard WoW subscription, it became a roaring success, partly because of the strong contrast between it and the two unloved expansions (Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands) it launched between.
But what’s really fascinating about Classic is where Blizzard is taking it next — because Classic is an online game, and no online game can stand still, even a throwback. It began as a relatively faithful version of the original MMO with smart tweaks: It moved through content patches at an accelerated rate, while locking to a single iteration of game design and balance. Then it bifurcated, with some servers moving forward through classic expansions, while others stayed in the “vanilla” era. This year, it acquired a third track, something completely new that WoW had never had before: a permadeath Hardcore mode, which turned out to be a game-reviving innovation that was quite brilliant in its simplicity.
From its showing at BlizzCon, Blizzard is doubling down on morphing WoW Classic into its own game. The expansion servers are moving on to Cataclysm, which is probably the point at which “classic” becomes a misnomer: Whatever your feelings about this divisive expansion, its sweeping rewrite of the “old world” questing experience is the point at which original WoW died, and is still represented in the game today. Blizzard is going even further than it has before in tweaking and fixing this expansion for Classic, accelerating leveling, adding quality-of-life features, and throwing in new dungeon difficulties and loot.
World of Wacraft Classic’s Season of Discovery seeds the well-explored world of Azeroth with secrets.Image: Blizzard Entertainment
But that isn’t even the headline. Blizzard — drawing inspiration from sister series Diablo, as it did for the Hardcore mode — is also introducing a fourth track to the WoW Classic servers that seasonally remixes the original “vanilla” game. Season of Discovery, which launches on Nov. 30, seeds entirely new content across the original world of Azeroth in the form of Discoveries, which producer Josh Greenfield said at BlizzCon were a way to disrupt the “solved nature” of original WoW and restore a “feeling of adventure and exploration.” It also offers a Rune Engraving system that endows classes with entirely new abilities, even allowing them to switch archetypes (you’ll be able to create a tank Warlock or a healer Mage, to name a couple).
The game is furthermore being broken up into level-banded phases — the initial level cap will be only 25 — and interpolated with all-new endgames, one for each phase. The first of these reworks the classic leveling dungeon Blackfathom Deeps as a 10-player raid, but Blizzard is also teasing adding unfinished or cut content, and even all-new dungeons, to Season of Discovery. It’s not just a new way to think about classic WoW — it’s a new approach to structuring MMOs, borrowing liberally from across the online gaming landscape. It’s pretty exciting.
That Blizzard is going to all this effort shows that WoW Classic is working both for the business and for the WoW community. It also demonstrates that for an online gaming nostalgia mode to succeed in the long term, it needs to evolve away from being an emulation or restoration of a bygone experience, and become a (sort of) fresh game in its own right. (Or, in Classic’s case, four games.)
Tilted Towers has returned in Fortnite OG.Image: Epic Games
Currently, Epic has no plans to keep Fortnite OG going past its current monthlong season, which sprints through six seasons of the game’s Chapter 1 in a matter of weeks instead of months. The branding clearly allows for OG to return and revisit later chapters, but given the enormous surge in interest, Epic would be foolish not to be considering ways to keep some of these new or returning players in the fold permanently.
It’s true that WoW and Fortnite are very different games with, crucially, different business models. Splitting the game’s audience might be more of a worry for Epic than it is for Blizzard, which is presumably happy as long as all those players stay within the one subscription-paying bucket. But WoW has proven that a big online game — especially one with a history — can support a family of sub-communities enjoying different flavors of the same game. Indeed, that might be the healthiest way forward for a game of that sort, certainly one approaching its 20th anniversary.
More importantly, perhaps, what WoW Classic and Fortnite OGdemonstrate is that the history of online games doesn’t have to be consigned to the scrapheap of memory. There’s a genuine hunger from players to turn back the clock, which, when met by an inventive studio that understands what was special about what it created but is willing to take some risks with it, can create something vibrant and sustainable in the long term — a kind of multiverse of paths not taken for your favorite old multiplayer games. What’s next, Vault of Glass in modern Destiny 2? Sign me up.
MATIC price is up over 15% and trading near $0.85. Polygon bulls are in charge, and they might soon aim for a move toward the $1.00 level.
MATIC price started a strong increase above the $0.75 resistance against the US dollar.
The price is trading above $0.78 and the 100 simple moving average (4 hours).
There is a key bullish trend line forming with support near $0.775 on the 4-hour chart of the MATIC/USD pair (data source from Kraken).
The pair could continue to rise if it clears the $0.850 and $0.880 resistance levels.
Polygon Price Signals Breakout
After forming a base above the $0.65 level, Polygon’s price started a strong increase. MATIC broke many hurdles near $0.70 to move into a positive zone, like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
There was a move above the $0.75 resistance and the price climbed over 15%. Finally, it tested the $0.850 resistance zone. A high was formed near $0.8588 and recently the price saw a downside correction. There was a sharp decline below the $0.820 level.
The price even spiked below the 50% Fib retracement level of the upward wave from the $0.6952 swing low to the $0.8588 high. However, the bulls remained active above the $0.750 support zone.
There is also a key bullish trend line forming with support near $0.775 on the 4-hour chart of the MATIC/USD pair. The trend line is near the 61.8% Fib retracement level of the upward wave from the $0.6952 swing low to the $0.8588 high.
MATIC is now trading above $0.78 and the 100 simple moving average (4 hours). Immediate resistance is near the $0.850 level. The first major resistance is near the $0.880 level. If there is an upside break above the $0.880 resistance level, the price could continue to rise.
The next major resistance is near $0.920. A clear move above the $0.920 resistance could start a steady increase. In the stated case, the price could even attempt a move toward the $0.980 level or $1.00.
Downside Correction in MATIC?
If MATIC’s price fails to rise above the $0.850 resistance level, it could start a downside correction. Immediate support on the downside is near the $0.800 level.
The main support is near the $0.775 level or the trend line. A downside break below the $0.775 level could open the doors for a fresh decline toward $0.720. The next major support is near the $0.700 level.
Technical Indicators
4 hours MACD – The MACD for MATIC/USD is gaining momentum in the bullish zone.
4 hours RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for MATIC/USD is now above the 50 level.
Major Support Levels – $0.800 and $0.775.
Major Resistance Levels – $0.850, $0.880, and $0.980.
The live-actionAvatar: The Last Airbender will officially premiere on Netflix on Feb. 22, 2024. The streaming service revealed the release date and the show’s first teaser trailer on Thursday during its Geeked Week presentation.
Netflix first announced the live-action rendition of the beloved animated show in 2018. The original creators, Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, were on board to reimagine the series better than the M. Night Shyamalan film. However, the two left production two years later, explaining that the vision of the Netflix series did not align with the “spirit and integrity of Avatar.” They’ve since gone on to announce new animated projects in the Avatar-verse.
Meanwhile, a new creative crew, lead by Sleepy Hollow’s Albert Kim, took over the Netflix show. Michael Goi (Riverdale), Jabbar Raisani (Lost in Space), and Roseanne Liang (Shadow in the Cloud) also joined as directors. The main cast includes Gordon Cormier (The Stand) as Aang; Kiawentiio (Anne with an E) as Katara; Ian Ousley as Sokka; and Dallas Liu (Pen15) as Zuko. The four relative newcomers are joined by heavy-hitters including Daniel Dae Kim, Amber Midthunder, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Danny Pudi, and George Takei.
We’ve already seen some first glimpses of the show, including the main cast — as well as the Fire Nation characters — in costume. With an official release date on the horizon, there’s more to come for the live-action Avatar.
Goth fashion isn’t new, but fashion associated with the vampire scene has seen a resurgence as the vampire has once again grown in popularity through the success of the 2022 adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, as well as the Castlevania franchise seeing a resurgence with its Netflix series. Once again, the vampire has permeated the mainstream, sinking its fangs into an entirely new generation, coupled with an interest in historical fashion and what this timeless creature has come to represent. In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, sometime in 2021, while cleaning out my wardrobe, I decided to dress like I could fit into one of Koji Igarashi’s Castlevania games.
The look of the vampire is ageless but hard to define. It exists somewhere between Victorian fashion and goth subculture, and has morphed into different subsets and microtrends over the past few decades. It can be black frocks or Tom Cruise’s frilled shirts and brocade vests in 1994’s Interview with the Vampire. It could be one of Ayami Kojima’s gorgeous oil painting illustrations of Alucard and various Belmont family members from the Castlevania series.
It was my interest in period fashion and various subcultures that brought me to dress like a Castlevania vampire for a year. (That and having disposable income as an adult.) Would I have dressed this way as a teenager? Probably. The modern vampire has often been associated with androgyny, and it’s something I’ve always personally gravitated toward. Naturally, there are also some subsets to this. There is the more industrial goth that is sometimes blended with mid-’80s aesthetics, extremely heavy makeup and all, or the “romantic” goth associated with ruffled shirts, corsets, and modified pieces of Victorian clothing.
The vampire is associated with so many various interpretations that it’s hard to pin down just what exactly defines it — outside of fangs, odd-colored eyes, and a penchant for the night. (I didn’t end up ordering a pair of fangs — I’m a little too self-conscious about my teeth — but someone else I know wears their pair almost religiously.)
Photo courtesy of Kazuma Hashimoto
Photo courtesy of Kazuma Hashimoto
Image: Konami
I scoured the internet for sellers that would provide exactly what I was looking for: linen shirts with ruffles, tightly-laced corsets, leather trousers, knee-high boots, everything I associated with the gorgeous Gothic designs Kojima incorporated in art of characters like Alucard and Mathias Cronqvist, and in one-off illustrations she’s done that feature these ephemeral creatures. I packed my closet with velvet capelets from Dark in Love, scoured secondhand shops for antique Victorian brooches and silk ribbons I would tie my then-shoulder-length hair with. To cement the vampire image, I ordered matte black lipstick to use exclusively on my upper lip, in combination with full-coverage foundation to get that perfectly flawless countenance coined as “vampire skin,” which appeared as a full-blown trend in 2022. Naturally, I also wore colored contacts and heavy eyeliner to further accentuate the look.
I felt great assembling these outfits, spending the time to practice and perfectly apply my makeup, and walking around in clothing that made me feel extremely comfortable. I would get stopped from time to time by random passersby, but since Germany has a history of a thriving goth subculture and scene, I never received any disparaging remarks. It was all compliments, which further cemented my confidence in walking around dressed to the nines, inspired by one of my favorite artists and game series of all time.
Many others are drawn to the way the vampire aesthetic lets self-expression and various interests converge. “Being into Victorian fashion, architecture, and even smaller subcultures like Visual Kei when I was a teenager was sort of how I got my start into vampire fashion,” said Storm, a former member of the fang community (slang for vampire communities, or in some cases even clans) when asked about what drew them to the subculture. “My interests in fashion and subculture merged with my nerdiness when I discovered the game Vampire: The Masquerade.”
Photo courtesy of Kazuma Hashimoto
Photo courtesy of Kazuma Hashimoto
Image: Konami
Don Henrie, “The Human Vampire,” was a popular internet personality in the early 2000s, and was even featured in a National Geographic program and appeared on SyFy’s Mad Mad House. He was one of the first glimpses into what bridging the vampire lifestyle and fashion movement was like during that era. There was also the (moderate) success of Queen of the Damned, Van Helsing, and Underworld roughly around the same time. The website VampireFreaks began in 1999, functioning as a MySpace for goths; it still exists today, now as an online shop that sells goth-related apparel and goods.
This style of fashion has also created a community. “I ended up becoming part of an online community in the early 2000s, which was super into all of the Vampire: The Masquerade clans. It’s actually how a lot of ‘vampire clans’ in the physical world formed,” Storm said. One of the more popular “vampire clans” was featured on Buzzfeed in 2018, where host Selom received her own pair of vampire fangs. Vampire fangs can definitely be a fashion statement; I know a few people who wear them without joining a clan, as they’ve become more accessible through sellers like Kaos Kustom Fangs. But for clan members, it’s more or less a lifestyle they subscribe to. I never joined a clan myself, and only learned the inner workings of them through friends who had participated in the culture, but living in a major metropolitan city meant that I definitely wasn’t alone in dressing outside of the norm. I was friends with former cyber goths, and while they had more or less toned down their looks, they still dressed in mostly all black and gravitated toward voluminous black dresses with heeled boots.
Having orbited those circles and now seeing the resurgence of vampire media, it feels like the scene is in the middle of an upswing. Would I dress like a “vampire” again? The answer is maybe, mostly because where I live now doesn’t accommodate it all that well. (Wearing black velvet in sweltering summer heat doesn’t bode well for anyone.) But it was definitely one of my favorite periods of personal fashion, and a fulfilling period of self-expression. So maybe I’ll throw everything together for a night at the club. Regardless, it’s great to see this subset of goth subculture still alive and well.
“Precious Cargo” is the second mission in Modern Warfare 3. Several of the main campaign missions have collectible items and weapons to find. This gear doesn’t carry over between missions, but, once you’ve collected it, you can change your loadout both during the mission and any time you replay it.
Our Modern Warfare 3 guide will show you all of the weapon locations and item locations in “Precious Cargo.”
All ‘Precious Cargo’ weapon and item locations in MW3
There are 21 weapons and items to find in the “Precious Cargo” mission.
1. MTZ-556
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
You’ll find the MTZ-556 assault rifle in the Shadow Company shipping container just east of the starting location.
2. Silenced WSP Swarm
You’ll find the Silenced WSP Swarm SMG in the same shipping container as the MTZ-556 above.
3. Recon Drone
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
Back outside, turn to the right. A little east of the container, you’ll find an open container with the Recon Drone field upgrade inside.
4. Silenced Rival-9
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
Hop onto the boxes just to the right of the Recon Drone’s container. Climb up to find another orange crate with the Silenced Rival-9 SMG inside.
5. Heartbeat Sensor
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
Head back to the first container and turn south to find another Shadow Company container. Inside, you’ll find the Heartbeat Sensor field upgrade.
6. Silenced Expedite 12
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
From the Heartbeat Sensor, head south and take the first left. Turn right immediately and you’ll find the Silenced Expedite 12 shotgun in a crate on the second row of shipping containers.
7. 556 Icarus
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
Head east along the bottom of the map and watch for a small building on your left. Get past the guards and you’ll find the 556 Icarus light machine gun in a crate in the northwest corner.
8. Snapshot Pulse
In the northwest corner of the same room, you’ll find the Snapshot Pulse field upgrade.
9. PILA
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
Back outside, look for a ladder on the south-facing wall. Climb to the roof to find the PILA launcher.
10. Munitions Box
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
Keep heading east across the bottom of the map to reach the tower — where you’ll find the manifest for this mission’s objective. On the ground floor, head into the garage to the southeast to find the Munitions Box field upgrade.
11. RPK
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
Continue up the tower to the third floor. In the room across from the Harbormaster’s Office, you’ll find a crate against the window with the RPK light machine gun inside.
12. Pulemyot 762
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
Inside the Harbormaster’s Office, there’s a hallway leading to the southwest. Head through it to find a crate with the Pulemyot 762 light machine gun.
13. Explosive Victus XMR
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
Continue up the stairs to the roof and take a left to find the Explosive Victus XMR sniper rifle (and a good perch to clear out some baddies).
14. Silenced ISO Hemlock
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
From the roof, look to the northeast and you’ll find another building standing on its own. The Silenced ISO Hemlock assault rifle is in the crate inside.
15. Signal 50
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
From that building start working back to the west. A little to the north, you’ll pass by one of the automated gantries. Climb up it to the catwalk on the northern side (not quite the very top of the gantry) to find the Signal 50 sniper rifle.
16. Hybrid STB 556
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
Drop off the gantry heading southwest and you’ll find another small building. Head to the room on the north side to find the Hybrid STB 556 assault rifle.
17. BAS-B
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
Exit the building and climb onto the shipping containers heading west. You’ll find the BAS-B in an orange crate on the top of the northern edge of the stacks of shipping containers.
18. GS Magna
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
Continue along the tops of the shipping container heading west. Just before you reach the edge of the map, look for a small open area on the ground. You’ll find the GS Magna handgun in a small orange crate.
19. Incendiary Bryson 800
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
When you first board the ship, cut to the north (port) side as you work forward. Stay on the deck level and take the first door on the left that you come to. You’ll find the Incendiary Bryson 800 shotgun in a small room there.
20. RGL-80
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
Keep heading east toward the bridge. When you enter, take the first door on the left to find a crate with the RGL-80 launcher inside.
21. KVD Enforcer
Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision
A little further into the ship, you’ll find the Control Room with the GPS trackers on a long table. Go through the first door on the left to find the KVD Enforcer sniper rifle.
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