The character portrayals in the first season already sparked a little bit of controversy from fans, especially since Ramsey wasn’t exactly what most fans had in mind for Ellie, and it looks like that trend will continue with season 2. For starters, there are already comments that Ellie’s new arm tattoo placement isn’t accurate to the game, and neither is her bob and tied back hair.

While I’m not exactly particular about the look of the character — it’s near impossible to make a real-life actor look exactly like a video game character after all — I’ll admit the tattoo placement is a little jarring. It’s important to remember that the reason why Ellie got a huge arm tattoo in the first place (aside from looking badass as hell) is that she needed to cover up the bite mark on her arm.

While Joel and Tommy are already aware of her immunity to the cordyceps virus, no one else is, and it’s important to get that plot device right at least.

Still, it’s exciting to see the actors back on set for season 2, especially since The Last of Us Part II takes the story in some pretty fun (and very controversial) directions going forward. We already relived the whole “Was Joel wrong?” discourse with the season 1 finale, and I’m especially looking forward to the dumpster fire that will surely be the season 2 (or 3) finale discourse.

HBO’s The Last of Us season 2 doesn’t have a release date just yet, but be sure to keep it locked to The Escapist for more information and updates on the show, including my diss on the adaptation after having watched Fallout.

With Zenless Zone Zero, however, it looks like HoYoverse has finally found a way to capture the attention of that smaller subset of players. Unlike its predecessors, ZZZ doesn’t feature any sort of open world. Instead, the game is broken down into smaller, bite-sized zones with activities to do and NPCs to talk to.

The main hub — Sixth Street — is small and cozy, and getting a coffee or a bowl of noodles for your daily buffs is only a few seconds away from the protagonists’ videotape store. It doesn’t take too long before you’ve become completely familiar with everything Sixth Street has to offer. And, in fact, I’d argue that the coziness it evokes also helps to bring about a sense of familiarity and connection to Zenless Zone Zero‘s world — a feeling I was never quite able to experience in Genshin Impact or Star Rail just because of how vast those games are.

Zenless Zone Zero is also structured like a more conventional gacha game. You’ve got a list of missions to choose from, and each one comes with star ratings that will yield more rewards if you’re able to nab them. The much-maligned TV mode also helps to break things up, as its structure makes for very clear starting and stopping points, allowing you to quickly jump in and out of a stage without feeling like there’s so much more to see and do after finishing a mission.

This is especially crucial for players who generally enjoy being more casual with their mobile games, as there isn’t any pressure to continue playing for hours on end when everything has been broken up into neat little chapters for you.

This isn’t to say that ZZZ isn’t a game you can binge, either. If I’m making this game sound simple and far too easy, rest assured that there are way harder challenges waiting for you as you make your way to the endgame portion. Reckless Challenges and Hard Mode missions help elevate the game and bring the combat to the next level. While you could largely get through the early stages just by spamming buttons, Zenless Zone Zero offers much more challenging game modes later on for players who really want to learn the intricacies of the combat system and get good at it.

There’s plenty to grind for in the endgame too, with weekly boss runs to do, as well as the classic HoYoverse resin mechanic (it’s called Battery Charge in this one), time-gating you slightly so you can’t just power level all your characters in one sitting.

With Zenless Zone Zero, it’s clear that HoYoverse wanted to focus on creating an immersive environment with top-notch character designs rather than creating yet another massive open world for players to explore. While it’s obviously been scaled down quite a bit, it’s safe to say that I’ve never felt more connected with a pair of HoYoverse protagonists than I have with Belle and Wise. Their casual sibling bickering and rivalry are endearing, and it’s heartening to see that each character has so much time to shine in the story.

The vibes of ZZZ are immaculate as well, with the soundtrack being one of the main highlights here. Everything about New Eridu, from the coffee-making robot to the retro videotape store, just screams style, resulting in one of the most well-realized worlds HoYoverse has ever created.

Not everything needs to be a huge open world that takes hundreds upon hundreds of hours to explore. Sometimes there’s satisfaction to be had in just being static, chilling with a cup of coffee as you bask in the comfort of familiarity, and that’s what Zenless Zone Zero does.

Zenless Zone Zero is available now.

This patch also comes with various bug fixes involving animation cancels and stamina consumption. All in all, a pretty solid one. Here are the full patch notes for Elden Ring patch 1.12.3.

PvP-exclusive balance adjustments

• Decreased the damage and damage animation of the shearing vacuum effect of the “Swift Slash” Skill.

General balance adjustments

• Increased the Intelligence scaling of the Carian Sorcery Sword and slightly decreased the base damage.
• Extended the throwing attacks range for the following weapons:
• Smithscript Dagger / Smithscript Cirque
• Changed the placement of the bosses in the re-fight against the Golden Hippopotamus and Commander Gaius bosses to be in the same position as in the first fight.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused the Rolling Sparks Skill to deal more damage than expected.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Rolling Sparks and Wall of Sparks Skills to deal no damage while some special effects were applied to the player.
• Fixed a bug where some special effects of a right-handed weapon would also be applied to the following Weapon Skills when cast with the left hand:
  • Feeble Lord’s Frenzied Flame
  • Discus Hurl
• Fixed a bug where successfully guarding while attacking using the Thrusting Shield weapon type would consume less stamina than intended.
• Fixed a bug that prevented players from cancelling the attack recovery of two-handed strong attacks by rolling for certain weapons of the Backhand Blades weapon type.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Lightning Perfume Bottle and Frenzyflame Perfume Bottle weapons to deal double damage under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug where the Arcane scaling of the Bloodfiend’s Arm weapon was higher than intended when setting an affinity. The status buildup of the heavy attack was also reduced.
• Fixed a bug where the Faith scaling of the Gazing Finger weapon was not being applied correctly.
• Fixed a bug where the damage animation of some attacks of the Fire Knight’s Greatsword against players was different than expected.
• Fixed a bug where the attack affinity of some attacks of the Fire Knight’s Greatsword were different than expected.
• Fixed a bug that caused some affinities for the following weapons to be higher than intended:
  • Smithscript Dagger
  • Smithscript Cirque
  • Smithscript Axe
  • Smithscript Greathammer
  • Smithscript Spear
  • Golem Fist
  • Smithscript Shield
• Fixed a bug that caused enemies to heal when the Maximum HP reduction gradual HP reduction effect  applied by Black Knife Tiche wore off.
• Fixed a bug that caused summoned NPCs to behave differently than expected under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug that where the unblockable bite attack of the Golden Hippopotamus boss would connect with players more easily than intended.
• Fixed a bug that caused text to display differently than expected.
• Several other performance improvements and bug fixes.

Possible unstable performance fixes

• For the PS5 version of the game, unstable framerate may be improved by using the “Rebuild Database” option from the device’s safe mode.
• In some PC versions, Ray Tracing may be unintentionally enabled and cause unstable performance. Please check the Ray Tracing setting in the “System” > “Graphics Settings” > “Raytracing Quality” from the title screen or in-game menu.
• In the PC Version, the message “Inappropriate activity detected” may appear without cheating.

To fix this issue, please verify the integrity of the game’s files before restarting the game.

• In the PC version, unstable framerate may be caused by third party applications that control mouse behavior. Deactivating these third party applications may improve performance.

Elden Ring is now available on PC and consoles.

All New Content in Palworld’s Sakurajima Update

This update doesn’t just add the new content with Sakurajima Island; it also comes with quite a few quality-of-life updates, such as increased Pal Box capacity as well as a more intuitive building system for folks who love working on their base. Here are the full patch notes for Palworld v0.3.1.

New Island – Sakurajima

• A new island has appeared! Sakurajima!
• Take control of the tower protected by a new faction “The Moonflowers”, and free this beautiful island from their control!
• Sakurajima is home to many new Pals! Explore and find new species!

Arena

• An arena has appeared in the Desiccated Desert! Battle against other players to assert your dominance! (Multiplayer exclusive content)

Stronghold – Oil Rigalw

• An oil rig controlled by the Rayne Syndicate has appeared in the ocean! Work together with your friends to defeat powerful enemies and claim valuable resources such as crude oil!

Player level cap raised to 55!

• Players can now adventure to level 55!
• New technologies available
• Upper limit for Pal’s capture bonus has been increased from 10 to 12

New Resource – Crude Oil

• You can extract crude oil by unlocking and placing a new building, the crude oil extractor, in certain spots around the world
• New high-tier equipment and spheres can be crafted using the new material Plasteel which can be made from crude oil

New Raid – Blazamut Ryu has arrived! The strongest Dragon Pal in the game!

Meteorite Event

• Meteorites or supplies will fall from space sometimes! There may even be an unknown Pal from outer space too…!?

Tower Boss Hard Mode

• Each tower boss now has a hard mode, allowing you to face them in their ultimate form!

New Merchant – Medal Merchant

• A merchant who will exchange a new item Dog Coin for rare items!

New Items

• Mysterious Accessory Box – Permanently increases the number of accessory slots by 1
• Concentrated All-Purpose Pal Extract – Increases the rank of a Pal by 1 when used
• Ring of Freight – Increases your carrying weight when equipped
• Vital Remedy, Stamina Remedy, Might Remedy, Speed Remedy, Burden Remedy – These new remedies permanently strengthen the player’s base stats. Until now, players could only increase their stats when levelling up, but now you can reach MAX stats!

New Weapons

• Laser Rifle
• Flamethrower
• Gatling Gun
• Grenade launcher
• Guided Missile Launcher
• Multi Guided Missile Launcher
• Meteor Launcher

New NPC cosmetic hats! Dress up like your favourite bosses!

• Zoe Hat
• Axel Hat
• Lily Hat
• Victor Hat
• Marcus Hat
• Saya Hat

New Pal cosmetic hats! Dress up like your favourite Pals!

• Lyleen Floral Cap
• Sibelyx Hat
• Leezpunk Hood
• Killamari Cap
• Cawgnito Hat
• Ribbuny Headband
• Lamball Helm
• Dumud Helm
• Swee Cap
• Dazzi Hat
• Cattiva Hat

New Buildings

• Cold Food Box – Feed your Pals while keeping your food nice and cool
• Sulfur Mine and Coal Mine – Gather valuable resources at your base
• Pal Disassembly Conveyor – Get rid of unwanted Pals automatically! Your heart will hurt less this way…
• Wall-Mounted Sign – Make notes without taking up too much space
• Refrigerated Crusher – An upgraded Crusher that can break down various items into different items

New Feature – Lockpicking

• You can now attempt to open locked treasure chests with the new lockpicking mini-game. Requires a Lockpicking Tool!

New Feature – Pal Skins! (Cosmetics for Pals)

• You can now change Pal’s skin at the new Pal Dressing Facility!
• The “Sunglasses Cattiva” skin is now available for everyone! More skins will be added in future updates

Player

• Pal Box capacity increased from 480 Pals to 960 Pals
• Increased the maximum amount of power that can be enhanced by Lifmunk Effigies from 10 to 12
• Added a setting that prevents items from being automatically picked up if it will overencumber the player

Base Related

• The building system has been reworked and improved! Basic construction is now much more intuitive and smooth!
• Pillars have been added. The days of accidentally demolishing a supporting wall and the entire 2nd flood collapsing are over!
• Axis alignment function added
• Defensive walls can now be connected
• It is now possible to connect from the roof, walls, stairs, and pillars to the foundation (previously, connections could only be started from the foundation)
• New building material “Glass” has been added. Keep an eye on your cute Pals from inside with glass walls!
• The maximum base level has been increased to 25, and the number of bases allowed has been increased from 3 to 4 at level 25
• You can now change the maximum amount of guild bases from the game options ※Note: Too many bases may lead to performance issues
• You can now change the maximum amount of base Pals from the game options ※Note: Too many Pals at one base may lead to performance issues
• Implemented a private lock function for chests. Your friends won’t be able to steal your metal anymore!
• It is now possible to permanently assign a Pal to a specific facility from the Monitoring Stand
• Cakes will now be transported to chests as a priority
• Readjusted the work priority order for Pals
• Changes to defense facility specifications. Work pals will use them automatically even if they are not assigned to a specific facility
• Measures and mitigation for base pals getting stuck when a route cannot be taken

UI

• Added a lock function in the Pal Box menu
• Player crosshair colour can now be adjusted and fixed an issue where the crosshair would get stuck behind the player
• You can now craft items in units of 100x
• Added more types of custom map markers, and increased the placement limit to 300
• Statue of Power UI has been improved
• Improved sorting function of Pal Box, making it easier to find the Pal you want

World

• Junkyards have been added around the world! You might find some valuable items there…
• A new random event has been added. Find and steal eggs from “Monster Nests” hidden around the islands!

Pal

New Pal Skills!

• Unique Skills
  • Jumping Stinger (Menasting)
  • Rocket Slam (Chillet)
  • Protection of Fertility (Lyleen)
  • Raging Flame Wave (Faleris)
  • Thunderbolt Heavy Tank (Grizzbolt)
  • Polyceraunos (Orserk)
  • Divine Disaster II (Shadowbeak)
• Neutral Skills
  • Air Blade
  • Holy Burst
  • Star Mine
• Fire Skills
  • Flame Wall
  • Volcanic Rain
  • Flame Funnel
• Water Skills
  • Splash
  • Wall Splash
• Grass Skills
  • Circle Vine
• Electric Skills
  • Thunder Rain
  • TriSpark
  • Thunderstorm
• Ice Skills
  • Icicle Line
• Ground Skills
  • Rockburst
  • Sand Twister
• Dragon Skills
  • Beam Slicer
  • Comet
• New Passive Skills
  • Philanthropist – Greatly reduces the time required to produce eggs
  • Impatient – Reduced cooldown on active skills
  • Infinite Stamina – Increased stamina (Only on mountable Pals)
  • Noble – Pals with this passive will give you an advantage when trading with merchants
  • Nocturnal – Pals with this passive become nocturnal and will work throughout the night

Multiplayer

Added a new setting that always rejects guild invites

Balance Adjustment

• Due to the increase in accessory slots, accessories with the same name have been changed so they cannot be equipped more than once
• Defensive accessories have been balanced due to the increase in accessory slots.
• Due to the addition of many new Pals, some Pal breeding combinations have been changed
• Adjusted the selling price of all Pals. The selling price of Alpha Pals is now about twice that of the original species

Bug Fixes

• Mitigations have been added for an issue that caused PCs to freeze when closing the game
• Changed the grappling gun behaviour to make it less likely to get stuck
• Many many many other minor bug fixes

Other

A warning will now be displayed if the GPU driver is too out-of-date

Soundtrack

6 new songs have been added to soundtrack. If you have already purchased the game, please update the soundtrack. *Please note that the soundtrack update may be delayed by about a day.

Palworld’s Sakurajima update is available now.

Calibration Update 1.12.2 Change List

The changes outlined in the patch are largely balance-related, and players should be able to enjoy a more substantial increase in Blessings bonuses in the first half of the game.

Attack and damage negation curve scaling of the Shadow Realm Blessings have been revised.

• The attack and damage negation has been increased for the first half of the maximum amount of Blessing enhancements, and the second half will now be more gradual.
• The attack and damage negation granted by the final level of Blessing enhancements has been slightly increased.

The calibration update can be applied by logging into the multiplayer server.

If the Calibration Ver. listed at the bottom right of the title menu is not “1.12.2”, then select LOGIN and apply the latest regulations before enjoying the game.

About Graphics Settings (PC Version Only)

We have confirmed a bug where the raytracing settings are automatically enabled if you have previously loaded saved data from previous game versions.

If your framerate is unstable, please check in the ‘SYSTEM’ > ‘Graphics Settings’ > ‘Raytracing Quality’ settings from the title menu or in-game menu to check if it has been unintentionally set to ‘ON’. Once set to ‘OFF’, Ray Tracing will no longer be automatically enabled.

In addition to that, Bandai Namco has also gone on to state that other balance adjustments and bug fixes have also been planned for a future patch.

For folks who might be having difficulty progressing in Shadow of the Erdtree, the Blessing buff should help to make things easier at least, and the gradual increases in the second half of the DLC will make things feel more balanced. Especially if you’re going toe-to-toe with bosses like Bayle the Dread.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is now available on PC and consoles.

Whatever the reason, you’ve got a pretty long journey ahead of you if you want to see everything FFXIV has to offer, and things can feel overwhelming at times. I’ll walk you through everything you need to do in FFXIV, from A Realm Reborn all the way to Dawntrail, along with weekly and daily activities, important side quests, and other miscellaneous things you need to be aware of to become a seasoned player.

Get Through A Realm Reborn

This first step will likely be the hardest, as A Realm Reborn is notorious for having the weakest story in the FFXIV story. However, it’s a necessary step, and you’ll be glad to know that Square Enix has since truncated the story and cut out a bunch of filler quests to allow you to get through it quicker.

Really, all you need to do is just follow the main quest markers, enjoy the story and cutscenes, keep at it, and you’ll have cleared A Realm Reborn in no time at all.

Do Your Job Quests

When you decide on a job that you want to commit to in FFXIV, make sure to do all of your class and job quests. In A Realm Reborn, these unlock at your guildmaster’s location every five levels or so, and they all reward you with job-specific gear or new skills and actions you need to play your job properly.

Most importantly, you’ll also unlock job crystals, which give you access to the full potential of the job you’ve chosen. Never neglect these, even when you get into the expansion content.

Gear Up Accordingly

As you’re progressing through the MSQ, you may start to realize that you’re not quite able to keep up with the gearing requirements. You’ll usually be rewarded with higher level gear just from completing quests, but if you find that you’re lagging behind while pushing content, you can get new gear via the following methods:

• Purchasing them from NPC vendors in the major cities
• Farming them from the latest dungeon you’ve unlocked
• Purchasing them from the marketboard

Your best bet is to just buy gear from NPC vendors, especially in A Realm Reborn. Then, make sure to roll for your job-specific loot when doing dungeon runs. I don’t recommend buying them from the marketboard as they’re usually more costly, and you’ll be getting rid of them soon enough anyway.

If you’re underleveled, don’t forget to do your daily leveling roulettes to gain some fast experience too.

Clear the Crystal Tower Alliance Raid Series

After you’ve finished A Realm Reborn, make sure to start and complete the Crystal Tower Alliance Raid series. This is mandatory for progressing through Shadowbringers anyways, but you should just get it out of the way now.

To start it, talk to the Outlandish Man NPC at Mor Dhona, X:21 Y: 8.1.

Get Through the Expansions

After that, it’s basically rinse and repeat for the next few expansions. You’ll want to get through the MSQs for all of the expansions, while also making sure to gear up accordingly and keeping up with your job quests.

You’re free to check out the regular and Alliance Raid series for each expansion, and I’d recommend doing so at your own pace as they all come with fun stories that are well worth checking out. None of them are mandatory for story content, though, so if you’re just looking to get through the story as quickly as possible, you can ignore them for now.

Do Your Role Quests in Shadowbringers and Endwalker

Starting from Shadowbringers, you’ll have role quests that you need to complete in order to unlock the rest of your job actions. These are split up into a few categories: tank, healer, melee DPS, ranged DPS, and magic DPS.

You only need to do the one related to whichever job you want to level up. This is important, as you won’t be able to progress further in the story without doing these, so stay on top of them once you get to Shadowbringers and Endwalker.

Daily and Weekly Activities

Finally, let’s go over some of the things you should be doing on a daily and weekly basis. Once you’re all caught up with the main story and patch content, here’s what you should do daily, as much as you can:

• Clear all of your roulettes: This includes Expert, Level-specific roulettes, Leveling, Trials, and Normal Raids. The Main Scenario and Alliance Raid roulettes are a lot more time-consuming so you don’t necessarily have to grind them out everyday, but they do reward you with extra Tomestones for getting better gear at the endgame hub.
• Buy Mini Cactpot Tickets at the Gold Saucer: Visit the Gold Saucer everyday to buy three Mini Cactpot Tickets. These will reward you with a small amount of MGP.

As for the weekly activities, here’s what you should focus on:

• Farm the latest Normal Raid: This will become important once you’ve hit endgame content and completed the story. Farming the Normal Raids will reward you with special items that can be exchanged for powerful gear at the endgame hub, and these are more powerful than Tomestone gear you get from Roulettes.
• Get Wondrous Tails from Khloe: Visit Khloe Aliapoh at Idyllshire each week to get a new Wondrous Tails journal. By completing the journal each week, you’ll be rewarded with a variety of things like MGP, Gil, Tomestones, or even treasure maps.
• Do the Fashion Report: Visit the Gold Saucer each week to complete your Fashion Report for a ridiculous sum of MGP. There are usually guides available online for these that help you meet the requirements with as little Gil as possible.
• Buy the Jumbo Cactpot Tickets: There’s also a weekly Jumbo Cactpot draw that you can buy for even more MGP. These give a lot more than the daily Tickets.

And that’s pretty much everything you need to know about FFXIV if you’re coming in as a new player. Sure, there’s a lot more hardcore endgame content to talk about, like Savage Raids. But for now, if you’re just looking to get your feet wet and get acquainted with the game’s routine, this is a good place to start.

Such is the case with Alexander, the Warrior Jar of Elden Ring. Often referred to affectionately as the pot boy or the jar boy by the Elden Ring community, Alexander is easily one of the most popular characters in the game, right up there with Ranni. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that there’s a dark side to, well, his entire existence. The whole giant jar aesthetic is pretty adorable, sure, but shortly after completing the Radahn Festival, it’s revealed that Alexander has to gather corpses into his jar to heal up and restore himself.

Not much else is known about Alexander and the other jar beings you come across in the game, but it’s well established that these jars are probably filled with corpses. But you know what? Alexander’s a good guy. So who cares if he needs to stuff himself with dead bodies to literally function?

With the release of Shadow of the Erdtree, however, it seems that FromSoftware is intent on making you see every last gory detail of what makes these jars tick.

You can reach the Belarut Gaol dungeon fairly early in Shadow of the Erdtree. It starts off as a rather unassuming dungeon. Just another ol’ gaol in the Shadow Realm, filled with shadow enemies you get to kill while making your way down. But before long, Belarut Gaol turns into a horror movie. It starts when you pass a corridor with a large jar at the side. Next to it is a spirit that you can interact with, and all it does is beg for its life. “Anything but the jar,” it says. “This is a fate worse than death.”

As you continue moving through the dungeon, you start encountering a new type of enemy: Mutated Prisoners. I don’t really know how to describe them, as they’re literal walking lumps of flesh. They’re humanoid, with a large, bulging flesh-colored pus bag on their backs, and they look absolutely grotesque. Not to mention the fact that they have a terrifying grab attack where a tentacle-like thing bursts through their chest (or their mouth hole; it’s a little hard to tell) and drags you towards them, almost as if they want to add your body to its own bulbous mass.

It’s not long before the game assaults you with terrifying sight of these Mutated Prisoners moaning as they crawl out of the living jars they were sleeping in. They drop a new crafting material called Innard Meat when you kill them. It’s the stuff of nightmares. And when I think about these things writhing inside Alexander’s large jar body, I shudder.

The development team at FromSoftware have always been masters of body horror and creating new abominations that leave their fans grimacing in disgust. And while the Mutated Prisoners certainly aren’t the most terrifying thing they’ve ever created—that honor goes to the Winter Lanterns from Bloodborne, pardon my French, but fuck those things—knowing that they exist within the body of Elden Ring‘s most likable character makes the whole affair feel extremely unsettling.

Shadow of the Erdtree is a tremendous DLC in many ways. The amount of new content stuffed is staggering, but it’s also yet another showcase of FromSoft’s design chops. Elden Ring had far and away surpassed anything the team’s ever put out before, and Shadow of the Erdtree elevates the game to new heights. This is thanks in no small part to the morbid fascination they’re able to spark from fans with their creative design decisions, and the Mutated Prisoners are just one small part of that. And if it had to come at the cost of me never being able to look at Alex the same way ever again, then so be it.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is available now.

As you might expect, it’s a lot of the usual stuff, including information on the new major cities and zones, as well as details on where you’ll need to go to unlock the new Viper and Pictomancer jobs. There’s also information on the locations of the new role quests, which you’ll need to do to unlock the final job action for whatever job you’re playing, as well as how to actually start the Dawntrail MSQs.

With the release of 7.0, the number of aetheryte currents in the Endwalker zones will be reduced, which means that you can now activate fewer of them to unlock flying in those zones. You can expect there to be plenty of aetheryte currents in the Dawntrail zones, though, and you’ll need to hit up all of them if you want to make use of your flying mounts.

As expected, the new raid series will only be available in 7.01, while the Savage version and treasure hunt instance Cenote Ja Ja Gural will release in patch 7.05. You can check out the full patch notes for yourself here.

Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail is set to be released on July 2, though players who pre-ordered the game can start playing on June 28.

For the video game nerds out there, the words of Kazuhira Miller from 2015’s Metal Gear Solid V have never resonated more with me than in last week’s episode of The Boys. We’re now well into the fourth season of Prime Video’s popular TV show, and still, we’re stuck rehashing the same story beats of Frenchie’s past. And as someone who just wants the best for our poor, tortured, romantic French boy, this needs to stop.

In its first three seasons, The Boys has fleshed out Frenchie’s past and backstory quite a bit. The show has spent a considerable amount of time dealing with his Lamplighter trauma and his failure to protect Mallory’s grandkids, and we even see him confront his past when Little Nina comes back into the picture.

These story beats were handled well. The Lamplighter incident was wrapped up nicely, giving Frenchie the opportunity to face up to what he’s done, while also confronting Lamplighter himself. The Little Nina arc was perhaps a little less interesting, but it was still an important point of growth for Frenchie as he needed to reckon with his past and also accept that he was no longer beholden to his trauma.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention Kimiko’s part in all this. Through the first three seasons, the two have been inseparable especially as they’ve helped each other through their own trauma and ghosts of their past. I didn’t even mind that Kimiko ended up friendzoning Frenchie because y’know, boys and girls don’t all have to fall in love with each other. Sometimes they can just be best friends. Both characters have shown immense growth, but with The Boys season 4 and the introduction of Colin, it feels like the showrunners have just taken Frenchie right back to where he started.

Colin is a new character created for the show. He serves as Frenchie’s new love interest in season 4 but there’s a catch: his entire family was murdered by Frenchie while he was still working for Little Nina. And to make matters worse, Frenchie has relapsed and gone back to drug use again. And not only that, he’s also pushing Kimiko away yet again.

And I guess my question is, why? Why do we need to see Frenchie hit rock-bottom yet again?

While the season’s first four episodes have certainly been entertaining and I’m very much glad to have The Boys‘ comical crassness back on my screen again, I can’t help but feel like Frenchie’s storyline, in particular, is just meandering. It’s clear that this is meant to be an emotionally heavy season for the main cast; Starlight’s dealing with her own faith, her past mistakes, and being a Supe; Hughie’s dealing with his dying father and the return of his estranged mother; Kimiko is struggling with getting her speech back and facing her past in Shining Light; MM’s just trying to hold everything together; Butcher is just straight up dying.

And Frenchie? Well, he’s been dealing with his trauma for three seasons at this point, and I guess the showrunners couldn’t just have him be well-adjusted and mentally healthy while everyone deals with their own problems. And so the solution is to just rehash his past, once again.

It’s honestly a pretty sore point in an otherwise fun season. As of episode 4, Colin has since learned of Frenchie’s true identity and has proceeded to beat the crap out of him before leaving. It’s worth noting that actor Elliot Knight is only credited for the first four episodes of season 4, which means that we may very well never see Colin again. And if that’s the case, then what was the point of it all?

After three and a half seasons of pain and trauma, Frenchie’s more than paid his dues. The boy deserves to finally be free of his past, and fingers crossed that he’s finally able to put all that to rest by the end of season 4.

Beat Radahn and Mohg

In order to access the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, you’ll need to progress quite a decent bit in the base game of Elden Ring. The unlock requirements include starting the Radahn Festival at Redmane Castle and beating Radahn himself, as well as beating Mohg, Lord of Blood.

Mohg, in particular, is the boss you need to make sure to beat as you can only access the new DLC area in his arena. Once you’ve beaten both bosses, then you’re pretty much good to go as soon as Shadow of the Erdtree goes live.

Farm Runes and Level Up

Generally speaking, most players should reach around level 140 by the time they’ve cleared the main story of Elden Ring, and this is the level range you should aim for as well before starting Shadow of the Erdtree.

If you happen to be starting a completely new run, the good news is that there’s a pretty quick way to level up, as long as you know where to look. You’ll want to head to Mohgwyn Palace, which is where you’ll need to go to beat Mohg anyway. There are two ways to get here: by using the waygate teleporter just northwest of the Yelough Anix Ruins in the Consecrated Snowfield, or by progressing through Varre’s questline.

The former option is actually rather difficult, as it requires you to progress very far into the game and enter one of the tougher areas of Elden Ring. It’s easier to just follow Varre’s questline, as he’ll give you earlier access to Mohgwyn Palace by doing a few invasions for him.

Once you’re in Mohgwyn Palace, you can farm runes pretty easily by killing the Albinaurics in the path leading to the Palace proper, and you can get around 30,000 runes per run.

Get Your Larval Tears

We’re all expecting Shadow of the Erdtree to give us a whole host of exciting new weapons, which means even more fun builds to experiment with. Of course, in order to use some of these new weapons, you may need to respec so that you have the right stats to use them. And to do that, you need Larval Tears.

In the base game of Elden Ring, you can only get Larval Tears with the following methods:

• By killing the Lesser Runebear standing east of the Agheel Lake South Site of Grace.
• Picking it up in the Village of the Albinaurics.
• Killing the Grafted Scion disguised as a Giant Crayfish near Rose Church and Boilprawn Shack.
• Purchasing it from Pidia after killing Royal Knight Loretta at Caria Manor, then jumping down the cliffs on the southeastern side of Three Sisters.
• Killing the Troll just south of the Caelid Highway South Site of Grace.
• Killing the Lion Guardian in the ruins just southeast of Windmill Village.
• Purchasing it from the Nomadic Merchant in Siofra River.

There are a few others to be found in Nokstella, but Larval Tears are quite limited in the base game, so grab as many as you can before starting the DLC. Hopefully there’ll be more to find in Shadow of the Erdtree, but either way, once you have a Larval Tear, you can respec by talking to Rennala.

Gather Smithing Stones

With so many new weapons to check out, you’ll also need to upgrade them with Smithing Stones. You can start by collecting all of the Bell Bearings in the game, as this will unlock more Smithing Stones for purchase at the Twin Maiden statue back at Roundtable Hold. Hit up the following locations for the relevant Bell Bearings:

• Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel
• Sealed Tunnel in Altus Plateau
• Zamor Ruins
• Faram Azula, after defeating the Godskin Duo
• Sellia Crystal Tunnel
• Altus Tunnel
• First Church of Marika
• Tempest-Facing Balcony in Faram Azula

Farm Your Gloveworts

Finally, this isn’t really a priority if you don’t like using Spirit Ashes. But if you do, then it’s worth getting Gloveworts to upgrade existing ones, or save them for new ones in Shadow of the Erdtree. Just like with the Smithing Stones, you can also purchase Gloveworts from the Twin Maiden statue by collecting Bell Bearings.

Here’s where to get the relevant Bell Bearings:

• Wyndham Catacombs, after defeating the Burial Watchdog
• Giants’ Mountaintop Catacombs, after defeating Ulcerated Tree Spirit
• Crumbling Beast Grave Depths
• Giant-Conquering Hero’s Grave
• Drainage Channel in Miquella’s Haligtree
• Nokron, Eternal City, at the main gazebo
• Nokstella, Eternal City

And there you have it. Once you’ve got your build sorted, and you’ve farmed up enough runes, Smithing Stones, and Gloveworts, you should be ready to take on Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.

For instance, the game should no longer crash whenever you pick up Motes of Light or Luminescent Seeds. If you were having trouble progressing through certain campaign missions, that should all be fixed here as well.

Here are the full patch notes for Destiny 2’s update 8.0.0.4:

ACTIVITIES

CAMPAIGN

• The Final Shape Campaign: Exegesis
  • Fixed issues stopping players from getting their Prismatic subclass in the following circumstances:
    • Being in a fireteam where at least one player already had the subclass.
    • Playing on a second character of the same class after getting Prismatic on the first character of that class on the same account.
    • Joining another player AFTER the subclass part of the mission, then got kicked to orbit during the cinematics.
  • Affected players will get the Prismatic subclass and all missing unlocks the next time they visit The Pale Heart.
• The Final Shape Campaign: Transmigration
  • Fixed an issue in the Empower Font step where the activity would become soft locked if a player immediately defeated the Eaters of Light and Dark before they stood up.

GAMEPLAY AND INVESTMENT

ARMOR

• Fixed an issue preventing Hazardous Propulsion’s Enhanced Rockets buff from applying to rocket damage when some lower-strength weapon damage buffs, such as Radiant, were active.
  • Hazardous Propulsion will only override Radiant and other similar bonuses when the stack count is high enough to exceed Radiant’s damage bonus. It will also not override in cases where it does not apply (g., non-rockets).

WEAPONS

• Fixed an issue where players would hit a Weasel error code when reshaping their Exotic class Glaives from The Witch Queen release.
• Fixed an issue where the Vow of the Disciple Adept weapons did not cost Spoils of Conquest to perform weapon enhancement.

• Fixed an issue where Seasonal weapons from the Lightfall year required Lightfall to be craftable.
  • Players still need the pattern unlocked to craft these items.
• Fixed an issue where the Tusk of the Boar Grenade Launcher and the Multimach CCX Submachine Gun wouldn’t enhance properly.
  • These weapons will now enhance correctly, and those previously enhanced should be updated to work as expected.

ABILITIES 

• Fixed an issue where Smoke Bomb would not make players and their allies invisible when Trapper’s Ambush is equipped. 
• Fixed an issue where picking up a Stasis Shard with the Glacial Harvest aspect equipped wouldn’t heal the player. 
• Fixed an issue where Facet of Command reloading behavior could be activated repeatedly with no cooldown. 

ACCESSORIES

• Fixed an issue causing the Lore tab for the Nacre ship to not display properly
  • “How thoughtful, you waited for a visit from me until the very end. Let’s chat, shall we…”

PLATFORMS AND SYSTEMS

• Fixed an issue that would cause audio output to be silent on the PC when using spatial sound formats, including Windows Sonic for Headphones.
• Fixed an issue that would cause audio output to be silent on the PS5 when emulating the PS4 executable with 3D Audio for Headphones enabled.

GENERAL

• Fixed an issue where the game could crash if a player’s Consumables inventory was full when trying pick up these items:
  • Mote of Light
  • Luminescent Seed
  • Strand Meditations
  • Polymorphic Shellcode

Destiny 2 is now available on PC and consoles.

It’s rough out there for introverts and lone players. And it’s a damn shame, especially since the raids have always been the most impressive part of Destiny. I’ll never forget my first foray into the Vault of Glass, where the only thing you had to go on with was “Raise the spire.” Or the times I spent staying up till 4 a.m. on the verge of giving up on taking down SIVA in Wrath of the Machine, only for everything to finally come together in the last, cathartic attempt.

Destiny raids are very special, which is why I wholeheartedly recommend at least giving the new Dual Destiny quest in The Final Shape expansion a go, especially if you’ve never had the chance to check out a raid.

Dual Destiny is a new quest in Destiny 2 that became available after the world’s first completion of the new Salvation’s Edge raid, and it’s a repeatable quest that allows you to farm for your Exotic class item. Starting the quest itself is already a bit of a puzzle, but once you get in, you’re in for a real treat.

To start, this quest requires you to take it on with one other player. No more, no less. As someone who generally enjoys playing solo, this is an annoying requirement, but it’s not terrible.

The mechanics of the entire Dual Destiny dungeon are extremely raid-like, with cryptic objectives and hints that you and your partner need to figure out on your own. We’re talking seeing random floating symbols in the air and having to get the other person to go into another room to shoot the symbols in order to progress. We’re talking strange clock-like structures with orbs lit up in a pattern with seemingly no rhyme or reason to them and having to figure out which ones to activate.

Dual Destiny demands teamwork from you and your partner, and coordination is key to getting through the puzzles and making it through to the end. This isn’t a quest that you can just brute force through by over-leveling, and that’s the special ingredient that makes Destiny’s raids so rewarding.

I won’t spoil the mission for those who have yet to tackle it, but Bungie also caps off this mission with a very poignant final decision that you and your partner have to make together. It’s unlike anything else we’ve ever seen in Destiny, and while it ultimately doesn’t have any bearing on the overall gameplay experience, it’s still a fun moment that makes this quest all the more special.

If you’ve always shied away from raids because you’ve never been able to get a group together, Dual Destiny succeeds at replicating a similar sense of accomplishment you’d get from doing that activity. It’s well worth checking out, and who knows? Maybe it’ll even inspire you to start reaching out to fellow introverted players online to get a little raid group together.

Destiny 2 is available now.