#DEXTER

Update 4/19/2019: Runes are back, baby, and right in time for Fortnite Season 9. A floating, metallic object appeared near Paradise Palms today players quickly discovered they could damage it. Advertisement The mysterious object has massive health meter, and it's shared by all players simultaneously. Once players have done enough collective damage to the object, it lurches forward a few feet towards an unknown destination. Since the metallic architecture closely resembles the vault at Loot Lake, it's very likely they're connected. The runic vessel is almost certainly heading to Loot Lake, likely the first key for the huge vault unearthed beneath the cube's final resting place. We'll keep an eye on the object throughout the day and update if any significant changes occur. Original story: We're already closer to Fortnite Season 9 than the beginning of Season 8, which means it's time for Epic to rev up interest with another in-game event. While last season's volcano reveal was a bit of a gimme, Season 9 looks like it's returning to obtuse MacGuffin magic again, tugging on the classic purple cube mystery once more. With the v8.40 update, a massive vault has been unearthed beneath Loot Lake, which also happens to be where the cube's remains were laid to rest after a transdimensional butterfly made it explode or something. I'm not sure what happened either, but I liked it. Players are reporting a low, lurching noise at the sight, and low, lurching noises beneath massive vaults probably aren't a good omen. Expect that sucker to open in the next couple weeks. But what could be inside? I'm suspecting cube activity, or some evil purple stuff to emerge at the very least. Maybe the dark cube energy has been chilling while the Ice King and Fire King duke it out, assuming a new form while the elements do their thing. Side note: what the hell is Fortnite lore? Let's just hope nothing too wild happens during the Fortnite World Cup qualifiers. Short of the vault opening only to suck up all the ballers and lock again forever, I'm not sure pros want another in-game event to screw up their shot at a piece of the $100 prize pool. We'll keep an eye on the vault and update if anything happens.

Report Rejected Topic/Closed!!

Tropico 6 is a great game for people watching. It's a satirical city builder in which every one of the citizens of your banana republic is simulated. You place a mine. You watch as a construction crew makes its way over to the building site. You watch as the newly constructed mine's employees start digging for gold or coal or uranium or whatever. And you watch as teamsters come to take the raw materials to a factory for processing. When it's all going well, there's a calming rhythm to the bustle of your island. When it's not, you find yourself scouring around the map, trying to diagnose problems. Why hasn't the mine been built? Why are the workers off-site? Why haven't the goods been transported? Why is the processing plant out of raw materials? Why isn't the shipment at the docks? The next cargo ship won't arrive for six months, and if I don't complete this trading order soon the Axis forces are going to declare war on me because of the time I used them as a scapegoat to win an election. The focused, individualised simulation means that small inefficiencies can balloon into big problems, and the behaviour of your citizens feeds back into wider systems in interesting ways. That's why—while there is a sandbox mode with plenty of different islands and options—often the Tropico series is at its best during the campaign missions, where specific requirements force you to adapt. In sandbox, you can go slow, sensibly growing your island, diligently pursuing new financial ventures, effectively placating political factions and superpowers. You have the space and freedom to effectively manage your growth as you progress through the different eras. But the missions – presented as an anthology of past adventures, narrated by your trusty aide Penultimo – throw in entertaining curveballs to overcome. Each focuses on a different aspect of the game, be it the spread of propaganda, the challenges of mass tourism, the balancing act of international relations, or the benefits of light piracy. The latter is one of the most entertaining. Starting on an island with virtually no natural resources, you're required to pillage raw materials to then manufacture into more profitable goods. The raid system is a powerful new tool, essentially gifting a regular trickle of goods, immigrants and, in later eras, beneficial propaganda and even falsified tourist reviews. Having to create supply chains that aren't supported by local crops is a meaningful twist on a standard campaign. If there's a downside to raids, it's that there's no major downside. Foreign powers have traditionally taken a dim view to piracy, but in this, a game that specifically pokes fun at international relations, it just doesn't come up. You do at least get a negative reputation modifier for stealing famed national monuments like Saint Basil's Cathedral or The /actual White House/, but it's easy to mitigate and goes entirely unremarked upon when said nation next gets in touch to demand you complete some petty task. Some missions aren't as successful. One, in which El Presidente launches a grand experiment to abolish housing, sounded promising, but in practice just meant working around the negative opinion modifier that poor housing confers. Citizens can protest and even rebel, but, just like superpowers, they're too easy to placate—even when they don't have a roof over their head. Where the missions excel, however, it's in forcing you to take actions that can upset the delicate balance of economic growth. If political strife always feels manageable, financial ruin is a more immediate danger, especially when progressing through to a new era. A few times I've gone from comfortable profit to uncontrollable decline, as upkeep and wages outgrew my production thanks to some ridiculous request from a faction leader. Tonally, Tropico is almost too broad and bawdy to be considered satire, but the over-the-top absurdity does lead to some fun mission requests that feed comedy into mechanics. In one, for instance, the communists instruct me to dismantle religion, banks and mansions. This leads to outrage from the Capitalists. The only thing that can placate them? Building a golf course. Tropico 6 was developed by new series stewards Limbic Entertainment, but you'd be hard pressed to know by just playing the game. It takes Tropico 5's era system, reintroduces Tropico 4's political speeches and work modes, and adds in a few new features designed to complicate supply chains and diversify systems. It looks a bit nicer – the Tropico series has always been very pretty – and the archipelagoes, bridges and tunnels add a few neat wrinkles to construction. That's about it. Ultimately, this is still a series about people watching. The builder. The miner. The teamster. The factory worker. I've been watching these people perform the same tasks since I first encountered the series with Tropico 3. I'll probably watch them for many, many hours to come.

Earlier this week, Respawn rolled out an update for Apex Legends that, among other things, conferred damage reduction to Gibraltar and Caustic—an attempt to compensate for the big boys' beefy builds, which are a whole lot easier to hit than, say, the slim-and-sleek Wraith or Octane. But it doesn't appear to be working quite as intended, and may in fact be doing more harm than good. Characters in Apex Legends can equip defensive shields that protect them from incoming damage; once the shields wear out, they begin taking physical damage. But this clip from YouTuber Slaydra (via GamesRadar) illustrates, some damage is now getting through Gibraltar's shield—his health (the white bar on the bottom left) goes down even while the shield (the segmented purple bar above it) is still active. It's a not a huge health loss, but every little bit counts in a do-or-die game like Apex, and more to the point it's basically the opposite of what Respawn is trying to accomplish with the buff. Respawn community manager Jayfresh acknowledged the issue yesterday on Reddit, saying that the studio is aware of the issue and working on a fix, although there was no ETA on it at the time. This isn't the only issue with Gibraltar to come to light since the 1.1.1 update went live: Players have also noted that he can escape the effects of Arc Stars (basically electrified stun grenades) that strike his passive gun shield, simply by lowering the gun shield. It's not clear whether this is actually a result of the latest update, as others have claimed that the glitch has been there all along; Respawn has said only that it is "looking into it."

AMD hasn't released a truly new GPU architecture for its graphics cards since its RX Vega line in 2017, over 18 months ago. Sure, the Radeon VII and RX 590 are new models, but both represent die shrinks and tuning of the existing Vega and Polaris (respectively) architectures. The Polaris architecture dates back to mid-2016, a three-year hiatus for the midrange graphics card market, but there are rumblings coming from the earth suggesting that's about to change. AMD Navi release date After bringing the Radeon VII to the consumer market in February, I wondered if that might be it for AMD's 7nm GPU aspirations in 2019. Thankfully, it appears I was overly pessimistic, and there are plenty of indications that AMD will be unveiling both its Ryzen 3000 CPUs and Navi 10 GPUs at Computex in late May/early June. Or at least, the press will be briefed on the new CPUs and GPUs—several other rumors indicate a July 7 retail launch date for Navi. That's 7/7 if you're wondering, a not-so-subtle indication of AMD's use of TSMC's 7nm lithography. I'm not fully sold on the 7/7 launch date, but it's almost certain we'll see new AMD Navi GPUs sometime in the June to August time frame. As to what those GPUs will actually entail, things start to get a lot less clear. AMD Navi specifications It's no secret that AMD GPUs have fallen behind Nvidia offerings, in performance, efficiency, and features. This has been the status quo dating back to at least 2014, when Nvidia's Maxwell architecture doubled down on efficiency, without sacrificing performance. That left the Radeon R9 family to compete primarily on price. Each new family of GPUs largely failed to close the gap, especially when it comes to power efficiency and even die sizes. AMD does compete on price, to varying degrees, but it's time for a new design. We know very little about the actual specs for Navi, other than it will use TSMC's 7nm process technology. Budget and midrange focused Navi 10 models (and Navi 12, according to some rumors) will come first, and they'll forego HBM2, opting for more economical GDDR6 and maybe even GDDR5 memory. A higher performance Navi 20 design is expected to come later—though how much later isn't clear. That could use GDDR6 as well, or it might see a return of HBM2. The move to 7nm allows for a substantially smaller die size, higher clockspeeds, increased core counts, and new features. However, current indications are that AMD won't be adding any specialized hardware cores for ray tracing, at least not with Navi 10. Navi 20 (a variant of which is likely to find its way into the PlayStation 5) will be where AMD adds ray tracing hardware, and it will replace the current Vega and Radeon VII cards, but it likely won't be available until 2020. But for the initial Navi 10 GPUs, AMD will try to increase the performance it offers in the budget and midrange markets. That means more cores, and higher performance per core. Looking at the Vega 64 vs. Radeon VII core size, we can get at least a reasonable estimate of what can be done. Vega 10 (Vega 64) at 14nm is a 486mm^2 die with 12.5 billion transistors, Vega 20 (Radeon VII) at 7nm is a 331mm^2 die with 13.2 billion transistors. That's 32 percent smaller with 6 percent more transistors. With similar scaling, AMD could end up with a 200mm^2 die with 40-48 CUs (2560 to 3072 streaming cores). Toss in higher clockspeeds and lower power consumption, with more memory bandwidth thanks to GDDR6, and the top Navi 10 part could be competitive with RTX 2070. Another option is to just stick with similar core counts but focus on improving efficiency, shrinking the die size, and keeping cost down. GDDR6 can boost memory bandwidth by 75-100 percent compared to GDDR5, so Navi doesn't necessarily need more memory channels. Keep the 36 CU (2304 cores) of Polaris and just clock it higher, while shrinking the die size down to 150-170mm^2, and AMD could end up with a part that matches GTX 1660 Ti performance but costs less to produce. For now, it's not clear which approach AMD will take. AMD Navi models I've held off weighing in on the AMD Navi speculation for the past several months, largely because so many of the rumors have been wafer thin. Or if you prefer, many so-called leaks are just pulling numbers out of a hat and making up a "news" story. The model numbers of the Navi GPUs are still unknown as far as I'm concerned—and no, I don't think RX 3000 is likely. It could happen, or we could get the RX 600 series, or RX Navi, or maybe even RX 777—AMD seems to like the number 7, right? But whatever the new cards are called, AMD will stick with the usual approach of offering multiple levels of performance, based on varying GPU designs. The first Navi 10 cards are slated to go after the midrange market, priced around $250. They'll replace the current RX 590/580/470 line, most likely with two models. Whether they're called RX 680/670 or something else isn't really important. Below these will be at least one budget card, but the budget market is tough to get right. Look at the RX 560 vs. RX 570 right now: the RX 560 4GB starts at $100 and the RX 570 4GB starts at $120, but the 570 is nearly twice as fast. The difficulty is that there's a certain minimum amount of stuff that goes into a graphics card—the PCB, GPU, memory, capacitors, video outputs, cooler, etc. It's why most new GPUs start at $100, even if they're relatively slow, and it's also why we don't generally recommend the cheapest GPUs (eg, GT 1030 or RX 550). The $150-$250 range is typically where the best values lie, delivering good performance at a reasonable price. More to come… For now, there's very little concrete information on AMD's Navi GPUs. We strongly expect a launch this summer, with an unveiling at Computex. That's the earliest we expect to see the cards go on sale, and as Computex gets closer we'll probably start seeing more actual leaks rather than hypothetical GPUs. Some rumors hint at an RTX 2080 competitor, but Radeon VII already goes after that niche and it's difficult to imagine a replacement this soon, never mind getting one at a price below $300. If Navi does end up competing with the RTX 2080, I expect the price will start closer to $450-$500—but without ray tracing support or Tensor cores. As far as architectural changes, AMD hasn't gone into any detail on whether Navi will continue to use GCN, or if it features more fundamental changes. It will likely build off AMD's prior GPU architectures, perhaps with some improvements to memory compression and other techniques, but we'll have to wait for additional details. And as always, we'll want to run independent benchmarks before providing a final verdict.

Sometimes a game comes along that follows every tired convention you can imagine, but executes them so well that it still manages to make an impression. Ghost Giant, the painterly first crack at a virtual reality experience from Fe developer Zoink Games, ticks many of the cliche boxes established by previous story-driven sandbox and puzzle VR games. But Ghost Giant’s charming characters and thoughtful storytelling drew me in all the same for a short, but rewarding virtual trip. As the Ghost Giant, you act as the imaginary friend of a troubled anthropomorphic cat-child named Louis LaFleur, learning about his life and helping him on his adventures as he takes care of his family’s sleepy farm. Though he’s described as a young child, responsibilities far beyond his years have fallen to him, so it’s your job to work some magic and help out a friend in need. Without getting into too much detail, as discussing even the broad themes of the story would strongly hit at certain events, Ghost Giant tells a lovely, at times heartbreaking tale. Don’t let the storybook-style animal-people fool you; there are complex emotional issues at play here, and watching Louis and the people in his life wrestle with them is captivating – even overwhelming in its most cathartic moments. (Have you ever teared up while wearing a VR headset? I hadn’t before. It kind of stings.) Louis' story is beautifully paced thanks in part to its charming dialogue and emotional performances, and has just enough mystery and excitement to keep me tapping the street signs that direct you to the next scene. Using the required PlayStation Move controllers to control each of the Ghost Giant’s ectoplasmic hands, you stand (or sit) and survey each level while Louis goes and talks to people, then solves problems for himself or others. Watching the world (or playing with it) is a series of simple pleasures. All the details in each level, from the intricacies in people’s homes to little bits of dialogue from townspeople are captivating in their own ways. My favorite minor character is the covetous crow, who is obsessed with shiny objects. In one level you find his home, where he’s planning how to rob a pearl from a clam. When Louis needs you to help — and he frequently does — you can be asked to find lost keepsakes, open doors, move heavy objects, or other basic things. Those tasks, which I would describe as “puzzles” in the broadest sense, are relatively simple, bordering on tedious. While there are a few clever moments, like finding sources of color to mix paints for a story-mandated work of art, much of it comes down to identifying movable objects and putting them in the right places. It rarely takes long, but there can occasionally be interesting complications that mix up how you grab things. In one level, for example, you have to use a virtual fishing pole to pull in tools that are out of your reach. Often, though, the puzzles serve to point you toward all the nooks and crannies of a level, making sure you take everything in. The aesthetic isn’t exactly grabby, but it’s fitting for this particular and the loosely interpreted rustic French town feels oddly natural for the children's-book vibe. In another scene set in a harbor, Louis and the Ghost Giant search warehouses, docks, and under the sea for parts to fix a giant crane. Poking in and out of each building, you get to see small scenes as people go about their lives, or simply find cute virtual dioramas to observe, like the girl on the dock who’s diving and rummaging through the trash underneath the waves. You’d probably never think to look under the water if not for the fact that she’s pulling up chairs, giant pencils, and other strange junk. The process of scouring each level for puzzles and story can be engrossing but also led me into some technical problems. You are meant to stand or sit in place while playing Ghost Giant, turning your head without moving your body. That proved difficult: fascinated by the world around me, which is filled with neat little details — furniture in each house, paintings and posters with cool bits of art — I found myself enticed to physically move around much more than I was supposed to. I would lean down for a closer look or peek around the corner of a building, and slowly but surely I would move out of my prescribed position, leading to inevitable detection issues with my controllers. To be fair, this is a limitation of the PlayStation VR and its single point of external tracking. You can rotate your in-game position by pressing certain buttons on the controller, giving you better access to new views while avoiding any tracking problems, but it's not the intuitive way I wanted to move. As a human being, my instinct is to turn by moving my head when my sightline is obscured and contort my body to reach when something is in my way. As a result, Ghost Giant’s creative level designs can’t help but butt against the technical limitations of its platform. The Verdict Ghost Giant may look like just another VR object-based puzzle-playground from the outside, but its charming world and beautiful story tugged on my heartstrings in a way I wasn't expecting. Considering its only three or four hours long, it’s a PSVR game worth making time for.

i will give u chance too

WPS Office is a high performing and affordable suite office software solutions developed by a subsidiary of Kingsoft Corp, a software and Internet services company based in California, USA. WPS Office has established a reputation in the market for being an alternative to Microsoft Office, empowering businesses, educational institutions, and professionals to painlessly handle their office tasks. The office software solution provides a set of efficient and light applications that can run on Windows and Linux PCs as well as on iOS and Android devices, making it a cross-platform office suite. WPS Office helps users perform various tasks and fulfill their document needs such as the ability create and modify word or text documents, produce spreadsheets and presentations, convert PDF files to editable document formats, and even retrieve files and documents that they have accidentally deleted. In addition, the office suite is available in various editions including a free version that provides users with basic tools: word processor, spreadsheet application, and presentation tool.

Higher performance, ray tracing, and AI capabilities have been at the forefront of our GeForce RTX 20-series graphics card reviews. However, our conclusions about the models released thus far (the GeForce RTX 2070, the RTX 2080, and the RTX 2080 Ti) have found that the value of their generational performance gains over the preceding GeForce GTX 10 series, although significant, have been offset by higher prices. In fairness, we've yet to see games take advantage of many of the new technologies in the GeForce RTX 20 series. But using today's games, we haven't seen the per-dollar performance increase we've seen from previous generations. At least, that was the case until now. The GeForce RTX 2060 is the first GeForce RTX 20-series card to offer a substantial per-dollar performance improvement over the prior generation, a distinction that helps this Zotac version of the card ($369.99) earn an Editors' Choice laurel for upper-mid-level graphics cards. GeForce RTX 2060: The Essentials The new GeForce RTX 2060 is here to make us rethink the economic angle of RTX. On paper, its technical specifications are relatively close to those of the $499-starting-price GeForce RTX 2070, but RTX 2060 cards are priced starting at "just" $349. That makes the GeForce RTX 2060 more expensive than its predecessor, the GeForce GTX 1060 ($299). However, it's close enough still to be considered mainstream turf. As our benchmark test results will show, the GeForce RTX 2060 delivers gaming performance well above what we've come to expect from a mid-level performer. No question, it's faster than the GeForce GTX 1060, and it even outperforms the GeForce GTX 1070 by double-digit percentages. First, though, let's run through some quick background on the GeForce RTX 2060 and the GeForce RTX 20-series before getting into the finer details. Based on the new "Turing" architecture, Nvidia's latest generation of graphics processors (GPUs) brings improved gaming performance and new technologies over the outgoing "Pascal" architecture of the GeForce GTX 10 series. Two of the hallmark new technologies with Turing are hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-driven Deep Level Super Sampling (DLSS). Both have seen a slow adoption among game developers, although some lenience is due; it's been less than six months since the GeForce RTX 20-series launch, and that's not a long time in the game-development world. That's about all I'm going to say about Turing nitty-gritty in this article. Our GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition review has a comprehensive look at Turing and is well worth a read if you need the background. Under review is the GeForce RTX 2060 Amp edition from the well-established Nvidia board partner Zotac. This card shares nearly all of its technical specifications with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition, but is priced at $369 ($20 higher) because of its factory overclock. Here's how the GeForce RTX 2060 compares to the outgoing GeForce GTX 1060. (Note I used Nvidia's reference specifications for the GeForce RTX 2060 in the tables below; I'll explain the minor differences with the Zotac GeForce RTX 2060 Amp in the next section.)

the world of processed food falls into three categories: things that are always better when you make them yourself, but are a hassle (such as bread); things that are always better and no hassle (pancakes); and things you can never make as well as the shops make them (tomato ketchup and a particular kind of chocolate cake that we will discuss another day). The third set is the most confusing – exactly what can a factory do that I can’t? It was in this fog that I embarked on a homemade ketchup. I wanted a recipe penned by someone with a vested interest in the homemade variety; someone whose livelihood depended on it. Reader, I ended up on ikea.com. Ikea sells chic ketchup bottles, which nobody would buy without this specific storage need. Peo Fredholm’s recipe (he is a Swedish chef) runs counter to everything you think you know about how food works. You don’t sweat the shallots and garlic – you chuck everything in the pan at the same time as the chopped tomatoes. These do not need skinning, apparently, although everything I know about liquidisers tells me that nothing gets rid of a tomato skin. So, I went off piste and skinned 20 very ripe tomatoes. It is much easier to skin them when they are not quite ripe. Besides, there is a proud feminist tradition of not being arsed to bother with such things (“Life is too short to stuff a mushroom,” Shirley Conran once wrote), so let’s just say they were about 70% skinned. After adding a surprising amount of vinegar, a bit of salt and (off piste again, but surely not dangerously so) a bit of Worcestershire sauce, in went the sugar – about the same proportion you might put in a compote or biscuits. Ketchup is just an inventive word for “treacle”. I guess this is something we always knew and didn’t want to admit, like how battery chickens are treated and what goes into a cheap sausage.

NEW DELHI: Lenders are exploring ways to utilise about 15 planes owned by Jet Airways and discussing with authorities on protecting the valuable assets, including airport slots, of the grounded airline, banking sources said. As they wait for completion of the bidding process for stake sale, the domestic lenders, led by State Bank of India (SBI), are looking at options to raise funds from available assets of the carrier, which has operated in the Indian market for nearly 26 years. Cash-starved Jet Airways on Wednesday suspended operations temporarily -- a decision that has also left more than 20,000 employees as well as various other stakeholders in the lurch. The sources said the lenders are actively considering proposals, including from Air India, for utilising the planes owned by Jet Airways. The use of these idle planes would ensure that they remain in good condition as well as earn revenues, they added. Jet Airways owned 16 aircraft, including 10 wide-body Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft, while the rest of the planes were on lease. The full-service carrier had more than 120 planes in its fleet last year. Earlier this week, Air India chairman and managing director Ashwani Lohani wrote to SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar saying that the airline is looking at leasing five of Jet Airways' Boeing 777s and operate them on London, Dubai and Singapore routes. As concerns mount over the future course of Jet Airways, the sources said lenders have been proactive and cannot be blamed for the current situation at the airlines. "They (lenders) have been actively engaging with the company for almost nine months ever since the airlines started incurring cash losses and have been urging the management to come forward with a definite plan for resolution." "Unfortunately, the management and the promoter delayed in taking a decision leading to the present situation. The lenders continued to support the airline during this period," one of the sources said. The decision of founder-promoter Naresh Goyal to step down came as late as March 25 and he signed a binding agreement to facilitate stake sale only in the second week of April. By then, the airline's operations had been severely affected, the source added. The source also said that banks have now put in place a transparent bidding process for a new investor to take over the airline and the outcome would be known by May 10. According to the sources, lenders have also reached out to relevant authorities to protect valuable assets for the airline, such as airport slots, as it would improve the chances of a better revival. The best revival prospect would be to have a new investor who brings in sufficient cash and also has a definite plan going forward, they added. It is also learnt that while the promoter has stepped down and entered into a binding agreement, there has been no change in complexion of the board of the airline due to technical reasons. "The conversion of debt into equity was conceived as a way to allow a new investor to come in. Also, while the lenders have nominated AK Purwar and Kapil Kaul to the board of Jet Airways consequent upon stepping down of the promoters, this is yet to take effect on account of some technical reasons," another source said. The banks have been working with the same executive management team who have been in charge of running the company even after stepping down of the promoter, the source added. On Thursday, lenders said they were "reasonably hopeful" that the bidding process for the airline will end successfully. "The lenders after due deliberations decided that the best way forward for the survival of Jet Airways is to get the binding bids from potential investors who have expressed EOI (Expression of Interest) and have been issued bid documents on April 16," they had said in a statement. A consortium of seven domestic lenders led by State Bank of India (SBI) has invited bids from potential suitors. Their debt exposure to the airline is more than Rs. 8,500 crore. "Lenders are reasonably hopeful that the bid process is likely to be successful in determining the fair value of the enterprise in a transparent manner," it said. COMMENT Banks had rejected the emergency funding request of Jet Airways that forced it to ground operations.

Welcome To CSBD Topic/Closed!

Welcome To CSBD

God of War is an action-adventure video game developed by Santa Monica Studio and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE). Released on April 20, 2018, for the PlayStation 4 (PS4) console, it is the eighth installment in the God of War series, the eighth chronologically, and the sequel to 2010's God of War III. Unlike previous games, which were loosely based on Greek mythology, this installment is loosely based on Norse mythology, with the majority of it set in ancient Norway in the realm of Midgard. For the first time in the series, there are two main protagonists: Kratos, the former Greek God of War who remains as the only playable character, and his young son Atreus; at times, the player may passively control him. Following the death of Kratos' second wife and Atreus' mother, they journey to fulfill her promise to spread her ashes at the highest peak of the nine realms. Kratos keeps his troubled past a secret from Atreus, who is unaware of his divine nature. Along their journey, they encounter monsters and gods of the Norse world. Described by creative director Cory Barlog as a reimagining of the franchise, a major gameplay change is that Kratos prominently uses a magical battle axe instead of his signature double-chained blades. God of War also uses an over-the-shoulder free camera, with the game in one shot, as opposed to the fixed cinematic camera of the previous entries. This was the first time a three-dimensional AAA game utilized a one-shot camera. The game also includes role-playing video game elements, and Kratos' son Atreus provides assistance in combat. The majority of the original game's development team worked on God of War and designed it to be accessible and grounded. A separate short text-based game, A Call from the Wilds, was released in February 2018 and follows Atreus on his first adventure. God of War received universal acclaim for its narrative, world design, art direction, music, graphics, characters, and combat system. Many reviewers felt that it had successfully revitalized the series without losing the core identity of its predecessors. It received a number of perfect review scores, tying it with the original God of War (2005) as the highest-rated game in the series, as well as one of the highest-rated PlayStation 4 games of all time on review aggregator Metacritic. The game performed well commercially, selling over five million copies within a month of release, also making it one of the best-selling PlayStation 4 games of all time. Among other awards and nominations, God of War was awarded Game of the Year by several media outlets and award shows. A novelization of the game was released in August 2018, followed by a four-issue prequel comic series that was published from November 2018 – February 2019. Gameplay : God of War is a third-person action-adventure video game. It features an over-the-shoulder free camera, a departure from the previous installments, which featured a fixed cinematic camera (with the exception of 2007's two-dimensional side-scroller Betrayal). Cinematographically, the game is presented in a continuous shot, with no camera cuts or loading screens. Although the previous main installment, Ascension (2013), introduced multiplayer to the series, this installment is single-player-only. The game is open, but it is not open world. Due to its openness, players can fast travel to different locations. Swimming, an ability in previous games, was cut, and players instead use a boat to traverse bodies of water. Unlike previous games, which allowed players to freely jump at anytime, jumping can now only be done at designated areas, such as at a rockface or ledge. Throughout the game, players battle Norse mythological foes, such as dark elves, wulvers, draugrs, as well as Gullveig and the revenants, beings warped by seiðr magic, among many others. Valkyries appear as optional boss battles, and among the many side quests, players can free the imprisoned dragons Fáfnir, Otr, and Reginn—dwarfs that were turned into dragons—in addition to battling one called Hræzlyr, a story-based boss battle. The player controls the character Kratos in combo-based combat and puzzle game elements. The gameplay is vastly different from the previous games, as it was rebuilt from the ground up. A major change is that Kratos no longer uses his signature double-chained blades, the Blades of Chaos, as his default weapon. Instead, he uses a magical battle axe, called the Leviathan Axe, which is infused with ice elemental magic. The axe can be thrown at enemies and magically summoned back to his hand (similar to Thor's hammer Mjölnir). Larger enemies have precision targets and throwing the axe at those targets stuns the enemy. The weapon can also be thrown at environmental objects to trigger a damaging explosion and it can freeze objects and some enemies in place for puzzle solving until the axe is summoned back to Kratos' hand. The axe has standard light and heavy attacks, and over time, it can be upgraded with runes to allow for special runic attacks, with one slot being for a light runic attack and the other for heavy. This provides players with a variety of options to cater to their own play style. Another new weapon that Kratos utilizes is the Guardian Shield. When not in use, it folds up and appears like a vambrace on Kratos' left forearm. When summoned, the shield can be used offensively and defensively, similar to the Golden Fleece in previous games. Kratos also utilizes hand-to-hand combat, a feature originally introduced in Ascension. The Blades of Chaos, infused with fire elemental magic, are acquired approximately half way into the game via a plot device and perform similarly as they did in previous installments, but can also be upgraded with light and heavy runic attacks. Pre-release gameplay screenshot of God of War, taken from the trailer shown at E3 2016: Kratos (center) and his son Atreus (right) are battling a troll. Atreus can assist in combat, such as firing lightning arrows on the player's command. Similar to previous games, there is a "Rage" ability called Spartan Rage. Like the previous versions, the Rage ability has a meter that gradually fills during combat. With this ability, Kratos uses powerful bare-handed attacks, as opposed to weapons, to greatly damage enemies. The game also features role-playing video game (RPG) elements. There are crafting resources for the player to find that allow them to create new or upgrade existing armor with better perks. Players also accumulate a currency called Hacksilver, a key component in crafting and purchasing new items. Experience points (XP) are used for learning new combat skills. Throughout the game world, players find chests containing random items, such as Hacksilver and enchantments for improving armor and weapons, as well as two special items, Iðunn's Apples and Horns of Blood Mead, which increase the maximum length of the health and rage meters, respectively. The meters are replenished by green and red orbs, respectively, found throughout the game world and dropped by downed foes. Quick time events have changed from previous games. Enemies display two meters above their heads, one for health (the color of which indicates the enemy's difficulty) and the other for stun. Filling up the stun meter helps to defeat more difficult enemies. When the stun meter is full, a grab-prompt will appear. Depending on the enemy, Kratos may rip it in half or grab them and throw them into other enemies, among other possible outcomes. Although the game is played entirely as Kratos, there are times when the player may choose to passively control Kratos' son, Atreus. One button is dedicated to Atreus and its use depends on the context. For example, if the player needs assistance, they can look at an enemy, press the button, and Atreus will use his Talon Bow to shoot arrows at the enemy. The arrows have little effect on an enemy's health, but do increase the stun meter. Over the course of the game, Atreus helps in combat, traversal, exploration, and puzzle-solving. When facing a large number of enemies, he distracts the weaker ones as Kratos fights the stronger ones. If too many enemies gang up on Atreus, he is knocked out for the remainder of that combat. Just like Kratos, Atreus acquires new skills, armor, special arrows, such as lightning arrows, as well as runic attacks for his Talon Bow, but it only has one slot instead of two. Atreus' runic attacks summon different spectral animals with different abilities. For example, one summons a wolf that attacks enemies, while another summons the squirrel Ratatoskr that will dig up orbs for the aforementioned health and rage meters. About God of War While the first seven games were loosely based on Greek mythology, this installment takes the series to Norse mythology. Six of the nine realms of Norse mythology can be explored. Predating the Vikings, the majority of the game takes place in ancient Norway in the realm of Midgard, inhabited by humans and other creatures and is the same realm that the Greek world had existed in. As more creatures began appearing, many humans fled. Other realms visited as part of the story include Alfheim, the mystical home of the light and dark elves, Helheim, the icy land of the dead, and Jötunheim, the mountainous land of the giants. Optional explorable realms include Niflheim, a realm of poisonous fog with a maze-like structure of rewards, and the fire realm Muspelheim, featuring the six Trials of Muspelheim; completing each trial grants rewards and advances Kratos and Atreus closer to the top of a large volcano. Access to the other three realms—Asgard, home of the Æsir gods, Vanaheim, home of the Vanir gods, and Svartalfheim, home of the dwarves—have been blocked by the ruler of Asgard and the Æsir gods, Odin. At the center of the realms is the mythical tree Yggdrasil, which connects each realm together. Although each realm is a different world, they simultaneously exist in the same space. Travel to and from realms can be done by the use of the Bifröst from a root of Yggdrasil contained within a temple located at the center of the Lake of the Nine. The temple was created by the now dead Týr, a peaceful God of War who had traveled to other lands and learned about their mythologies; Odin had him killed as he believed Týr was secretly aiding the giants and would try to overthrow him. The protagonists of the game are Kratos (voiced by Christopher Judge) and his young son Atreus (Sunny Suljic). Kratos is a warrior originally from Sparta who became the Greek God of War and is a son of Zeus. After ending up in ancient Norway, he met his second and now deceased wife, Laufey (addressed as Faye), and they bore their son, Atreus, who does not know about Kratos' past or his divine nature, but can hear other beings' thoughts. The main antagonist is the Æsir god Baldur (Jeremy Davies), the brother of Thor, whose sons Modi and Magni (Nolan North and Troy Baker, respectively) assist Baldur. His parents are Odin and the Vanir god Freya (Danielle Bisutti). Freya tried leaving Odin, as she did not truly love him, and Odin had her banished to Midgard, after which she became known as the Witch of the Woods. To protect her son from a prophecy that foretold his death, Freya cast a spell of immortality on Baldur, which also caused him to not feel pain or any feeling of pleasure, which he resented her for. The only thing that she could not prevent from breaking the spell was mistletoe, which she kept secret. Other characters include Mímir (Alastair Duncan), who claims to be the smartest man alive, and the Huldra Brothers, Brok (Robert Craighead) and Sindri (Adam J. Harrington), a pair of dwarves who appear at various points in the world and assist Kratos and Atreus with forging new gear. Their weapons, including Thor's hammer Mjölnir, were used by the Æsir gods and they also had forged Kratos' Leviathan Axe, which originally belonged to Faye, who also gifted Kratos his Guardian Shield. The spirit of the Greek goddess Athena (Carole Ruggier) makes a cameo appearance, and Zeus (Corey Burton) appears as an illusion to Kratos in Helheim. GameStory Many years have passed since Kratos took his vengeance against the Olympian gods, and he now lives with his young son Atreus in ancient Norway in the realm of Midgard. The game opens following the death of Kratos' second wife and Atreus' mother, Faye, whose last wish was for her ashes to be spread at the highest peak of the nine realms. Before starting their journey, Kratos is confronted by a mysterious man with godlike powers. After seemingly killing him, Kratos and Atreus begin their journey. Reaching the Lake of the Nine, Kratos and Atreus encounter the friendly World Serpent, Jörmungandr, the last remaining giant. After running into impenetrable black mist which can only be extinguished with the Light of Alfheim, they receive aid from the Witch of the Woods to use the Bifröst in order to travel to Alfheim and secure the Light. Upon vanquishing the mist and reaching Midgard's peak, they overhear a conversation between the mysterious man, revealed to be Baldur, his nephews Modi and Magni, and the imprisoned Mímir. After they leave, Kratos and Atreus confront Mímir, who reveals that their goal is actually in Jötunheim, but travel there has been blocked to keep out Odin and Thor. Mímir, however, knows another passage. He instructs Kratos to cut off his head and have it revived by the Witch of the Woods, revealed to be Freya. Kratos immediately distrusts her, but both Freya and Mímir warn him that he must tell Atreus about his true nature. Kratos, Atreus, and Mímir's head journey to collect needed components to open Jötunheim's portal when they are attacked by Modi and Magni. After Kratos kills Magni, Modi flees, but later returns and ambushes them. Atreus collapses ill, which Mímir and Freya explain is a mental contradiction of a god believing himself to be mortal. She tells Kratos that he must retrieve the heart of the Keeper of the Bridge of the Damned in Helheim, but his Leviathan Axe is useless there. Kratos then returns home to unearth his old weapons, the Blades of Chaos, and is haunted by Athena's spirit, who goads him about his past. After retrieving the heart, he has a haunting vision of Zeus. Atreus is cured and Kratos tells him that he is a god. Atreus then becomes increasingly arrogant on their journey, and he murders a weakened Modi, despite Kratos ordering not to. At Midgard's peak, they are ambushed by Baldur, resulting in Jötunheim's portal being destroyed and the group falling into Helheim. Atreus makes amends with Kratos and they find out about Freya and Baldur's familial relationship. Returning to Midgard, Mímir realizes there is another way to reach Jötunheim, but it requires recovering his missing eye. After obtaining it from Jörmungandr's belly, who had inadvertently swallowed it when he ate a statue of Thor, they are attacked by Baldur again, but Freya intervenes in an attempt to protect her son. During the fight, Baldur is pierced by Atreus' mistletoe arrow, breaking Freya's spell on him. Baldur is defeated, and although Kratos gives him an opportunity to retreat, he instead attempts to strangle Freya, forcing Kratos to kill him. A grieving Freya swears revenge on Kratos and taunts him about hiding his true nature from Atreus. Kratos finally tells Atreus about his past and how he had killed his fellow Greek gods, including his father Zeus. Atreus laments whether all that gods are good for is committing parricide. Kratos tells Atreus that they should both learn from their experiences and not repeat the mistakes of their predecessors. A silent Freya leaves with Baldur's corpse and Mímir hopefully suggests that she will eventually move on from the tragedy and that Kratos did the right thing. In Jötunheim, they find a temple with a mural depicting their adventures, showing that the giants had foreseen everything that would happen and vaguely foretold what was to come. In addition, they discover that Faye was a giant who decided to stay behind in Midgard, making Atreus part giant, god, and mortal. Their fight with Baldur was shown, revealing he was actually after Faye the whole time. It is also revealed that Atreus was named Loki by his mother. Wondering if Faye planned this in advance, Kratos and Atreus fulfill their promise and spread her ashes at the peak, overlooking a valley of giants' corpses. Afterwards, Kratos reveals to Atreus that his given name was also the name of a compassionate Spartan comrade. When they return to Midgard, Mímir warns them that the three-year long Fimbulwinter has started, meaning Ragnarök is soon to follow, which was not supposed to occur for another hundred years. In the game's secret ending, Kratos and Atreus return home and slumber. Atreus has a vision that at the end of Fimbulwinter, Thor will arrive at their home to confront them. Development Development on the next God of War began in 2014, which was confirmed by Santa Monica Studio's creative director Cory Barlog at the first annual PlayStation Experience on December 6, 2014. Barlog said that the game was in very early development and that it would not be a prequel, but possibly a reboot. In April 2016, Polygon reported that concept art of the next installment had been leaked. The images showed Kratos in the world of Norse mythology; a concept originally considered by series creator David Jaffe after Kratos eliminated the Greek gods. The game's official announcement came at the 2016 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) with a gameplay demo that confirmed the concept art to be true. The demo showed a fully bearded Kratos with a son, and Kratos was teaching the boy how to hunt. The pair also battled a troll. The end of the demo showed the title God of War and confirmed it was in development for the PlayStation 4 E3 also confirmed that Barlog had returned to the series as game director for the new installment. Barlog had been a major contributor in the development of the God of War series since the original installment in 2005, with his prior most notable role being game director of God of War II (2007). This new installment was his fifth God of War game. In naming the game, Barlog stated that it was deliberately titled God of War with no numeral or subtitle because although it is a continuation of the series, "we are reimagining everything." Head of Santa Monica Studio, Shannon Studstill, and Barlog said that Sony Interactive Entertainment had to be convinced to do another God of War game as a lot of people at Sony wanted the series to "sleep and rest" due to the lackluster response of the previous game, Ascension. In explaining why Barlog was brought back, Studstill said that he knew the series very well, "and bringing in someone that understands that history is the respect the franchise deserves." Barlog followed up with "You gotta know the rules to break the rules." Series creator David Jaffe was also considered, but was unavailable. In explaining the transition from Greek mythology to Norse mythology, Barlog said: "it's kind of this BC–AD change over kind of thing. We're moving and starting from zero and kind of moving forward on that." Before settling on Norse mythology, Egyptian mythology was also considered. Barlog said that half of the team was for it, but since "there's a lot more about civilization – it's less isolated, less barren", he had to make the decision and decided on the Norse setting because they wanted the focus to stay on Kratos: "Having too much around distracts from that central theme of a stranger in a strange land." In explaining why Kratos was now in the Norse world, Barlog said that different cultures' belief systems coexisted, but they were "separated by geography", suggesting that Kratos traveled from Greece to Norway (Scandinavia) after the conclusion of God of War III; in clarifying the conclusion of that game, Barlog said that Kratos did not destroy what was believed to be the entire world, but only the portion that was ruled over by the Greeks. Barlog said that the new game predates the Vikings; it is the time in which their gods walked the Earth. It was also confirmed that this would not be Kratos' last game. Barlog said that future games could see the series tackling Egyptian or Mayan mythology, and that although this game focuses on Norse mythology, it alludes to the fact that there are other mythologies co-existing in the world. Barlog also said that he liked the idea of having different directors for each game, seen throughout the first seven games, and although he may not direct another God of War, he would still be at Santa Monica to work on future games. Most of the development team that worked on the original God of War worked on the new installment. They claimed that they matched the new gameplay with the same level of accessibility as the previous installments. It was confirmed that the game would not feature any morality system or branching story; all players have the same story experience. The developers also confirmed that some of the more controversial mini-games found in previous entries (such as the sex mini-game) would not return. The enemy count was increased to up to 100 enemies on-screen; God of War III and Ascension could do up to 50. Some gameplay characteristics found in the previous installments were cut, such as jumping, swimming, and instant-death platforming challenges; these were cut due to the camera being closer to Kratos. Although the previous installment, Ascension, introduced multiplayer to the series, the team decided to drop the mode to focus on the single-player experience. In changing the gameplay, Studstill said "I felt like, in order to reinvent, we really needed to turn a lot of things around." In regard to the camera change, Barlog said they wanted a more intimate and player-controlled experience. The entire game was done in a single shot, as in no camera cuts, meaning there are no loading screens or fade-to-black between gameplay and cutscenes. Barlog said that about forty percent of the team did not originally agree with this decision due to the increased work and production to implement the feature, especially since this was the first time that a one-shot technique was being used for a three-dimensional AAA game, meaning Barlog had no examples to show if this would work or was a good idea. (The only other game to fully utilize this technique was the indie game Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, which also began development in 2014 and was released eight months before God of War.) After the game was finished and the team got to play through it, Barlog said they finally understood his vision and said that it was a feature they should use from now on. Barlog had originally pitched the idea for a one-shot camera while he was at Crystal Dynamics working on 2013's Tomb Raider, but was turned down. Sony, on the other hand, was much more supportive of Barlog's creative ideas. Explaining Kratos' axe, lead gameplay designer Jason McDonald, who had worked on the series since the original game, said the axe was chosen because they wanted a more grounded direction for the game. Initially, they were unsure how to make it unique, like how the double-chained blades were. After they came up with the concept of throwing the axe and having it return to Kratos, "things started to fall into place." McDonald said that combat with the axe is a little slower than the blades, "but it's just as fluid and just as brutal as it's ever been." Barlog took inspiration from Dark Souls (2011), which influenced the game's combat system, particularly its gameplay loop and strategic decision-making, as well as the game's approach to storytelling. In addition, designers Anthony DiMento and Luis Sanchez revealed how God of War's level design and exploration was influenced by Bloodborne (2015), as they wanted to "just have the world breathe a little bit" and expand upon player discovery by including "micro-loops where you're unlocking paths, unlocking shortcuts" that gave purpose. DiMento said that a team dedicated to focusing on the game's exploration was formed. One challenge was creating quests in a world that did not have non-playable characters outside of the core narrative. DiMento said "I set out to create a quest giver that was light-weight, but also flexible enough to be used in multiple locations, while providing a varied suite of quest activities." This resulted in the "wayward spirits" (ghosts with ties to the world) found throughout the game. Having the spirits tell their stories "made [the world] feel more alive". The developers ended up with a four-tiered system for side quests: the top tier quests were from the characters Brok and Sindri, the next level from wayward spirits, then treasure maps and artifacts, and the bottom tier were milestones, such as destroying all of Odin's ravens. Brok and Sindri's quests were made into dungeons while the others were used for exploration. The developers also had to find the reasons that would motivate Kratos to do these quests. For Brok and Sindri, it was to obtain more powerful gear, but for the wayward spirits, it was because of Atreus' naiveté and kind-hearted nature, as well as opportunities for Kratos to teach Atreus a lesson. Unlike the previous games, Santa Monica did not make a demo specifically for public release. Barlog explained that doing so would have delayed the game by a couple of months. He also confirmed that the game was built for the standard PlayStation 4, but the game would "benefit from the power" of the PlayStation 4 Pro; an updated version of the PlayStation 4 that can render games in 4K and was released a few months after God of War was announced. Players with a PS4 Pro have two options to either favor resolution or favor performance when playing the game. Favoring resolution runs the game in 4K with checkerboard rendering at a target frame rate of 30 frames per second (fps), while the performance option runs the game at 1080p and targets 60fps. In late December 2016, Barlog confirmed that the game was playable from start to finish, and later said that the game's story would take 25–35 hours to complete, which is significantly more than the previous four main installments, which each took an average of 10 hours to complete. A new trailer was shown at E3 2017, featuring new gameplay, cinematics, and characters. In the trailer, Kratos was shown using a shield that he could use offensively and defensively. At one point in the trailer, Kratos finds a Greek vase with himself on it, wielding his infamous double-chained blades. During the trailer, an unnamed woman warns Kratos about the Norse gods, as they know what he did to the Greek gods, while a pair of wolves were also shown. The trailer ends with Kratos and Atreus encountering the World Serpent. Atreus was able to translate what it said, which was that it wanted to help the pair. It was confirmed that the game would release in early 2018. Since then until the game's launch, Santa Monica included a section on the God of War website titled "The Lost Pages", detailing some of the lore of God of War's Nordic world. In January 2018, the game's release date was confirmed for April 20, 2018. A trailer was also released that showed that the character Mímir from the mythology would have a role in the game. God of War went gold on March 22. SoundTrack God of War (PlayStation Soundtrack) was released on April 20, 2018 by Sony Classical Records. The soundtrack was composed by Bear McCreary, who is best known for his work on television shows such as Battlestar Galactica and The Walking Dead. McCreary was called into Santa Monica Studio in November 2014 to meet with music producers Peter Scaturro and Keith Leary to discuss "a secret project"; McCreary had previously collaborated with Scaturro and Leary on 2011's SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs. Ideas of folk music, mythology, Nordic ethnic instruments, vocal writing, and classical thematic development were discussed, to which McCreary correctly guessed that the discussions were about a new God of War. He met with Barlog early on, and they discussed Barlog's narrative vision for the game. After meeting with Barlog, McCreary felt that the franchise was in good hands because God of War II, which Barlog also directed, was his favorite installment. During initial discussions, McCreary realized that he needed to compose completely new music for the game and not reuse any previous music from the series. He said that although he loved those games, he "would not describe them as emotionally dynamic." Based on his memory of the previous games' music, however, he was inspired by their sounds, such as "deep choirs, pounding drums, and shrieking brass", and reinvented them for the Nordic setting. In ensuring that the music represented the setting, McCreary spent months researching and listening to folk music of Viking antiquity, which resulted in him using "exotic instrumentation and languages from various Northern European folk traditions." He also wanted the score to be huge and varied, "full of peaks and valleys, tiny incantations and gigantic set pieces." The main Kratos theme in particular features low orchestral instruments, Icelandic choir, deep male vocals, powerful female vocals (in particular Faroese singer Eivør Pálsdóttir), folk percussion, and Nordic stringed instruments, such as the nyckelharpa and hurdy gurdy. The track "Witch of the Woods" uses a renaissance and baroque instrument called a viola da gamba, which is an ancestor of the modern cello. The Stranger's theme, found in the track "Deliverance", uses a Hardanger fiddle. The first theme composed for the game was "Memories of Mother". McCreary said the theme itself was not originally for Atreus' mother Faye, but it was actually for Kratos himself. His initial sketches were different variations of this melancholy tune. After the game went into full production, McCreary and the development team realized it was "too sad and lyrical to represent Kratos." McCreary stepped away from this theme and focused on writing a new one, or what he called the Kratos Theme, which he felt was more representative of the character: "masculine, relentless, and badass". He spent several months working with Barlog, Scaturro, Leary, Sony music director Chuck Doud, and the rest of the development team in making this new theme. McCreary described it as "arguably one of my most structurally satisfying and catchy melodies." After further scoring, McCreary realized that Faye would require a theme, and his original one was "exactly [what] I needed." This melody was woven throughout several scenes and is featured as prominently in the game as Kratos' theme. The three-note Kratos theme is most obviously heard in the title track, "God of War". When it was decided that God of War would be revealed at E3 2016, Sony wanted McCreary to perform his original score with a live orchestra at the press conference. McCreary opened the show with the new main theme before the unveiling of God of War, and performed the gameplay demo's music live during the presentation. On January 13, 2017, a live recording from E3 2016 of God of War's overture was released for free for a limited time. Barlog released the overture as a thank you to fans for God of War's E3 2016 trailer reaching fifteen million views on YouTube. All Game Monsters DRAUGR Mother said that Draugr were warriors who died, but their souls were too stubborn and angry to stop fighting. They’d fight off the Valkyrie that came to collect them, and bring their own dead bodies back to life… warping and twisting their previous form into something else. Now they’re husks of their former selves and fight anybody they can find. She also said they can come back in all different shapes and sizes and that some even have powers that others may not. Draugr fight with dangerous weapons, but they aren’t very skilled with them. Not like Father and his axe. If we watch their movements, it should be easy to dodge or block their attacks. These basic Draugr aren’t very fast or strong. We can dodge or block them and take them down pretty easily. DRAUGR (DUAL WIELD) A Draugr with two weapons is twice as dangerous, right? When they’re with a more defensive enemy, we should consider taking down these dual-wielding Draugr early in the fight an not turn our back on them. These Draugr really know how to use their weapons. We need to be ready for several attacks at once. With two weapons they like to combo their attacks, but we can disrupt their flow by parrying their attacks. DRAUGR (EXPLOSIVE) I’m not sure how they do it, but these Draugr store energy in their bodies, and then explode on contact. But the explosion doesn’t hurt them at all! I wonder if it feels good to them? Anyways, we should attack from a distance when we see that they are fully charged up. We should avoid hitting them with melee attacks when they’re powered up, we’ll be knocked back by an explosion. Farther should throw his axe at them when they’re powered up. They’ll explode and damage all nearby enemies. DRAUGR (POWER WEAPON) As if the undead trying to kill us with sharp objects wasn’t bad enough, some Draugr can channel energy through their arms, charging their weapons and making them even more dangerous. Getting hit with a rusty old sword hurts, but getting hit with a fire-charged sword hurts worse. They power up their weapon attack with a forward moving shockwave. They have a strong attack, but if we dodge to the side we should be okay. DRAUGR (PROJECTILE) These Draugr can shoot fireballs. How do they do that? They like to attack from a distance, which can be really annoying when we’re fighting a bunch of other enemies, but luckily they go down pretty quickly.They can attack from long range, but we should be safe if we dodge or block.He has to create his projective before launching it, if either of us can interrupt his attack, he’ll have to create it again. DRAUGR (SHIELD) I already knew that Draugr weren’t just mindless monsters, but I didn’t think they were smart enough to use a shield. They like using it, too. We’ll have to change up our strategy a bit and see where we can find an opening. Swinging wildly won’t break his guard, but if Father uses his Block Break, he should be able to find an opening (double tap :l1: ). Parrying his attacks can also break his guard. DRAUGR (SPEED) What’s more terrifying than a Draugr? A Draugr that can run at you really fast. Mother said some Draugs had special powers, and these ones are able to shoot fire out their legs and move quickly around the battlefield. We’ll need to be on our toes. These speedy enemies can be hard to hit. Father should wait for them to rush him and parry their attacks. I see them stompg their feet right before they sharge. Should help us spot their incoming attacks. HEAVY DRAUGR These Draugr seem bigger than the ones we first encountered. They carry heavier, more dangerous weapons. It makes them slower, but they’re a LOT stronger than the regular ones. It takes a beat for him to recover after swinging, if we dodge, he’ll be open to a counter-attack. His attacks are so strong, it makes blocking them really hard. Father should probably just dodge them. FIRE NIGHTMARE These Nightmares Nightmares shoot fireballs. As if we needed MORE reasons to hate Nightmares. Using the :r2: axe throw will freeze them and bring them down to earth. My arrows can stun them which will allow Father to finish them off. If he grabs them when stunned, he can throw them at other enemies and they’ll explode! FOREST ANCIENT We ran into an Ancient of the Forest on our way out of Fafnir’s Storeroom. This one was walking around, instead of just hibernating like most of them do. Or maybe we woke it up while we were trying to get inside? These Ancients are kind of beautiful… I wish their hearts weren’t so valuable. ICE ANCIENT An Ancient in the ice and snow… I wonder if they have thoughts like we do? I can’t hear any. They don’t have mouths or ears… none that I can see, anyways. They’re mostly pretty peaceful, unless we attack first. I’d never say this to Father, but I wish we could just leave them alone. SOUL EATER They look almost exactly like Ancients, but there’s something… off about them. Mom always called the Soul Eaters, “Dangerous abominations.” She never said a bad word about ANY living creature (even poisonous bugs!), so her saying that always stuck with me. I wish I could tell her Father and I killed one. STONE ANCIENT One of the Ancients… I can’t believe it! Did Mom know they were still alive? They’re, well… ancient! Supposedly they’re a part of Ymir himself, and they’ve been around since the beginning of time. I thought they were all in Midgard… I wonder why this one is in Alfheim? Seidr BROOD These things are a complete mystery. They always show up in groups, but at least they go down fairly easily. They don’t have weapons, but they can grow their limbs into sharp points that are just as dangerous. They also tend to try and latch onto Father, and use their greater numbers to overwhelm us. They can poison us, and we need to be extra careful of their leaping attack. The Brood explode when they die. We can use this to damage and knock away any nearby enemies. NIGHTMARE Mom used to tell me stories about Nightmares until, well… I started having nightmares. I was embarrassed, but she said they were just another part of life, and that sometimes there was “beauty in the horror.” She always saw the upside to everything, even these creepy little floating eye monsters. They’re named after an older creature, called a Mare, that sits on your chest while you sleep and feeds off your fear. NIGHTMARE PARASITE As if Nightmares weren’t annoying enough, it looks like this type can actually possess other creatures and make them stronger. Does the possessed creature have any control over their actions, or are they just trapped in some horrific waking nightmare? Not a very nice thought. These Nightmares try their hardest to possess other enemies, making those enemies a lot stronger. If we stun or kill a possessed enemy, it will force the possessing Nightmare out of their body. EXPLODING NIGHTMARE These Nightmares like to swarm in close and then explode. Why do they sacrifice themselves like this? Maybe they are all part of some kind of hive mind. Whatever the reason, ifs really annoying. As soon as they start charging us, just one hit to their body will blow them up. The explosion hurts other enemies, too! Could be useful when fighting a big group. If they get too close to us, they’ll explode. We need to hit them at range. LEGION Freya always seems to have more and more magic up her sleeve. First she used her roots to try to restrain Father and Baldur, but they were too strong. Then she reanimated Thamur—the Giant Stone Mason! That was incredible, but it still didn’t work. Baldur kept trying to kill Freya, and we couldn’t let that happen. So we kept fighting, and Freya summoned these weird creatures. They kept trying to grab Father to keep him from fighting. Luckily, they go down easily. There sure are a lot of them though… REAVER These were just normal human Reavers once, but they look like they’ve been corrupted by Seidr magic. When did this start happening? Seidr Reavers are able to heal, so if we start attacking one, we should try to finish the job quickly. REVENANT (POISON) Mother once told me that some witches trade little bits of their soul here and there to become more powerful in Seidr magic. Eventually, they lose every part of their humanity and become Revenants. They can disappear in an instant, and these particular Revenants are able to spread poison through touch and breath. Her pestilence powder leaves poison hazards in the environment. If Father steps in them, he’ll be damaged and poisoned. Her fissure attack can move around obstacles to hit us. Father has a better chance of dodging if he waits until it’s closer. REVENANT (SUMMONER) This kind of Revenant can actually summon Nightmares. Does she create them with her Seidr magic, or are they all just squeezed together in her pack? I wonder how so many of them fit in that little pack. She tries to summon Nightmares often, so we need to make sure we interrupt her to avoid being overrun by them. SHADOW These were human Reavers, but now that they’ve embraced the ways of the Seidr, they can throw magic spells at a distance. They only attack after they’ve conjured an explosive Seidr magic spell. We should rush them down before they can throw it, or try and dodge. If they do create their bomb, Father can disrupt them by throwing his axe before they have time to throw it. TRAVELLER They wear really strong armour, have huge swords, and are one of the toughest enemies we’ve faced. Who are they, and what do they want with us? Mom never mentioned the Travellers. I hope we don’t have to fight too many of them. TRAVELLER CHAMPION This Traveller has a huge shield on his back, which makes breaking through his extremely tough armour even tougher. These Travellers must be a paranoid bunch, because they keep a huge shield on their back that will deflect any attempt to back stab him. VIKEN These Seidr Reavers like to use big maces when they fight. Mom always referred to them as “Vikens” for some reason. Beast HRÆZLYR I can’t believe it… Father just killed a dragon! I’ve never seen him fight like that before. I mean, I know he’s really strong and all, but this thing was huge! The dragon’s name was Hræzlyr, which is sort of like the word for “Terror”. It’s an appropriate name too—he’s vicious, ugly, and shoots lightning out of his mouth. Luckily, Father was able to find some Yggdrasil tree sap crystals, and he used them to stun Hræzlyr. Then he stabbed a big crystal into his throat! There was a big explosion, and down went the dragon. I’m still shaking from the excitement, but Father doesn’t even seem fazed. Does he ever get scared? FIERCE OGRE These Ogres are similar in size to the regular ones, but they can cover long distances with a single jump. And… they smell REALLY bad. I wonder if that’s why they’re so angry all the time? If Father can goad an Ogre into using their jump smash, it’ll take them a couple of moments to recover if they miss. I just hope they miss. Getting behind an Ogre is a good opportunity for Father to do some damage. But if they turn and see him, they’ll definitely attack. OGRE Giant, powerful, angry, but thankfully not very smart. The Ogre is one of the ugliest enemies we’ve fought. Their huge arms give their attacks good range, and they can hit the ground so hard it creates powerful shock waves. This Ogre has a very quick tell before he attacks. Father can use that to get out of the way. Father is strong enough to block one of his attacks, but it takes some time for him to recover. Smarter to avoid it altogether. POISON WOLF We’ve seen a lot of aggressive wolves, but these are something else… some other kind of disease. They spit out some kind of poison that we should avoid walking in, and they’re even more aggressive than the rabid ones. I bet we would be doing them a favour by putting them out of their misery. We’ll have to be extra careful not to step in the stuff they vomit up. It’s poisonous. Smells real bad, too. The poison from these wolves makes attacking up close risky. My bow and Father’s axe throw is a safer way to take them down. RABID WOLF I’ve always admired wolves, but the ones we’ve encountered attack us on sight, which means they’re probably rabid. I guess to them, we are food. I know it’s kill or be killed, but still… they’re beautiful in their own way, and killing them makes me a little sad. Good thing Father probably won’t read this. Wolves typically hunt in packs and will try to surround their prey. Father should try to keep them in front of him and let me help draw their attention. When these wolves howl, we should be ready for a strong attack. REGINN Reginn was captured by the Dwarf King and forced to act as Sentry of KonUnsgard. He’s not very good at it; there are monsters everywhere. I guess that’s what happens when you force a dragon to stand guard against his will. The Dwarf King must’ve wanted to capture these dragons for a different purpose… TATZELWURM A Tatzelwurm is part lizard, part cat—a Lizard-Cat! Or a Cat-Lizard… or something. Either way, the combination is pretty weird. They like to burrow underground to close the distance between them and their prey. Their claws and teeth are extremely sharp, but it’s that poisonous barb on their tails that we really need to watch out for. When Father throws his axe at a Tatzelwurm as it burrows towards him, it’ll pop them out of the ground. Launching and attacking Tatzelwurms as they dig into the ground will stop them from burrowing for a short time. CURSED TATZELWURM This Tatzelwurm doesn’t have the poisonous barb, but it does have a sac in its throat that lets it barf poison at us. I know; it’s really gross. The poison is deadly to the touch, so even if we dodge the attack, we still need to be careful not to step in it. Their spit is highly poisonous, even on the ground. Throwing the axe with will freeze them and keep them from burrowing underground. WULVER They look like wolves, but they stand upright like humans and are a lot smarter. And stronger. And faster. Their fur is so dense, it makes them tough to put down. They remind me a little of those Berserkers that Father put down last summer… but wolves instead of bears. A Wulver’s howl is a sign they are going into a frenzy where they can attack with incredible speed. If Father finds himself caught in the Wulver’s frenzy attack, I may be able to draw the Wulver’s attention with a well placed arrow. FIERCE WULVER This looks like an even tougher breed of Wulver. They’re smarter, too. Really, really dangerous creatures. Glad my bowstring has some magic in it, otherwise, I’m not sure how we’d bring these stronger ones down. When a Wulver crouches on all fours, they become very difficult to hit. We need to be on our guard and not leave ourselves open to counter attack. The other Wulver gets a lot faster after it starts howling. This one seems to get a lot stronger. We should be really, really careful after this one starts howling. Hel-Walker HEL-BROOD These faceless creatures are very aggressive and don’t hesitate to run straight at us. They clearly have the same kind of ice powers we see from anything that comes from Hel. They fall very easily to Father’s Blades. Their air slam attacks can leave us slowed. If they’re up in the air, steer clear The Brood are extremely weak to Father’s Runic Attacks. HEL-REAVER First, it was a human Reaver. Then we killed it. It died in battle, so shouldn’t the Valkyries have taken it to Valhalla? But they didn’t… it just came back as something else. Before she died, I overheard Mother telling Father that, “The Hel-Walkers were returning.” Is this what she was talking about? People rising from the dead? Father doesn’t seem to know (or care) much about it. Since this thing used to be a Reaver, I’ll call them, “Hel-Reavers.” These enemies become enraged and super aggressive when you’re frosted. Father should do his best to avoid their frost blast attack. If these things do manage to freeze us, we should stay on the defensive until it passes. HEL-REAVER GUARD It’s a Hel-Reaver, but it carries a shield and it knows how to use it. Guess they aren’t completely mindless. Hel-Walkers with shields can block just about anything. Father can use his Block Break skill to break their guard. Father should throw his axe at their feet to get around their shields and trip them up. HEL-REAVER LORD These must’ve been strong Reavers back when they were alive. Now that they’re dead they are even stronger Hel-Reavers. These enemies will deflect Father’s frost axe attacks. He’ll have to use his fists instead to stun them. Hel-Walkers seem to draw their power from the frost, which makes Father’s axe pretty weak against them. Good thing he’s strong with his fists, too. I wish we had a fire weapon. HEL-REVENANT Like the other Hel-Walkers, the Hel-Revenant attacks with ice that can slow us down. Mother used to tell me bedtime stories about the Revenants, but she never mentioned this kind. Maybe she thought it was too scary for me. Her icy fissure attacks damage and freeze Father. We’ll have to avoid them if we want to be able to take her down. We can either interrupt, outrun, or dodge her ice-breath attack — it can freeze Father and leave him idle and vulnerable to attacks. HEL-SHADOW ARCHER It’s like one of the Shadows, but it uses Ice magic like a thrown spear. Must be one of the Hel-Walkers. Their projectiles are quick but don’t stun us. If we rush them, we can take them out of the equation early. I should be able to help Father with these enemies. Just like their projectiles disrupt his movements, my bow can disrupt theirs. HEL-SHADOW SCOUT It acts like a Shadow, but uses ice magic instead of Seidr magic. Definitely a Hel-Walker. They can cast an ice wall as cover. Father can throw the axe when they pop up behind cover, or throw it past them and recall it to hit them from behind. Their ice walls do more than just provide cover: if we get too close, they can detonate it. We should try to deal with them from range. HEL-TRAVELLER I didn’t think the Travellers could get much worse, but it looks like death wasn’t enough to keep this one down. In fact, it’s even MORE aggressive than the other Travellers we’ve seen. I guess even Travellers can become Hel-Walkers. The Undead Travellers are more aggressive than the regular ones. Ranged attacks are tricky, because he sprints right at us. We can whittle down his armour if we stay close and dodge his strikes. But when he charges up his sword for an overhead strike, it’s time to move! HEL-VIKEN It’s a Viken, but a dead one. So, a Hel-Viken? This Hel-Walker is just as strong as its Seidr counterpart. Maybe even stronger. Father can dodge his mace depending on the type of swing. Looks like it’s best to dodge horizontal swings backwards, and the vertical swings sideways. If he misses his overhead attack, his mace gets stuck in the ground and he’s open for an attack. ICE NIGHTMARE These Nightmares can use the same power of frost that we’ve seen the Hel-Walkers use. These attacks will slow us down if they manage to hit. They’ll look straight up before firing their ice projectile, so we should either get out of the way or hit them with Father’s axe (or my arrows). When Father throws his axe at Nightmares, it knocks them closer to the ground. Then he can use melee attacks to finish them off. Elves DARK ELF Unlike the Light Elves of Alfheim, the Dark Elves prefer dark places. Maybe that’s why they want to cover up the Light? They can fly and seem pretty smart and well-coordinated; more so than most of the enemies we’ve fought so far. Their weapons are useful; effective up close and at a distance. Kind of like Father’s axe! Dark Elves like to attack as a group. When Father lands a heavy hit or parries, it tends to break the swarm. If we can freeze or weaken the Dark Elves, it will prevent them from using air recoveries when launched. DARK ELF LORD Bigger, faster, and stronger than any Dark Elf we’ve fought so far. Their attacks are so strong they can blind and deafen us for a bit. They fight a lot like regular Dark Elves, just WAY harder. It’s so strong and has thick armour, but leaves itself open after certain attacks. If we can freeze or weaken it, it won’t be able to recover in the air when launched or knocked out of aerial attacks. SVARTALJQFURR We just killed the Dark Elf King that’s been harassing us this whole time. I thought I’d feel good about that, but… just before he died, he said the Light Elves were the bad guys. Could that be true? What if we’ve been fighting against the good guys this whole time? The Light Elves don’t SEEM evil, but… if they really were the ones who started this war, then maybe the Dark Elves were just fighting back? So confusing… I guess I see why Father didn’t want to get involved (but I’m not going to tell him that). DARK ELF SUMMONER This one is able to call in reinforcements, so we should take him down quickly. They should be easy to spot, thanks to the bright glow in their wings. I wonder how many Dark Elves there are in Alfheim? When he spins his weapon, it means he’s about to call in more Dark Elves. We should stop him before he slams it into the ground. He can block axe throws, but if we catch him off guard, Father’s heavy axe throw will freeze him and negate his speed. DARK ELF WARRIOR This type seems stronger than the average Dark Elf. They swing their heavy weapons so hard it creates a shock wave, making their attacks really tough to dodge. We should watch out for their charge attacks. They can cause temporary blindness. It’s hard to fight when you can’t see anything! They are much easier to kill when grounded. Tripping them up seems to be a work pretty well. THE LIGHT ELVES The Light Elves are back! We freed the Light of Alfheim from whatever the Dark Elves were doing to it, and they all returned to the temple. Everything is beautiful in Alfheim now that the Light shines free. The Light Elves seem nice. They don’t really say anything, but at least they aren’t trying to kill us. Father says I shouldn’t assume anything, but what does he know? He was doing who knows what inside the Light, while I had to take down an entire swarm of Dark Elves by myself. I don’t care what he says… I’m glad we got involved. GLOOM NIGHTMARE These Nightmares can blind us for a little bit. Just when I thought Nightmares couldn’t get any worse… Father can hit them twice on the same axe throw; once on the throw and again on the recall. Friends ANDVARI Andvari wasn’t very helpful at first, but something about seeing that dead Soul Eater in the Landsuther Mines made him realise he was being kind of a jerk. I think he feels guilty because he and some other Dwarves were experimenting with Ancients there, and they accidentally created Soul Eaters. Glad we didn’t have to fight any more. Anyway, his soul is still trapped in a ring. Brok wanted to melt him down (he can be so mean sometimes!), but I convinced Father to keep him, and now he’s part of our group. Father even uses Andvari’s soul as an Enchantment sometimes. Must be hard being trapped in a piece of jewellery, but Andvari doesn’t complain TOO much. I’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring him. BROK We met this Dwarf on our way to the Mountain, and he’s a blacksmith. A famous blacksmith, apparently. He made the Leviathan Axe! He upgraded it for Father, too. He was a little rude and grouchy, but I kind of like him anyway. I hope we see him again! THE GODDESS FREYA The Witch of the Woods was the goddess Freya the whole time! No wonder she’s so good at magic. Father got REALLY mad at her when he found out. He always tells me that gods are nothing but trouble, but Freya’s always been nice to us. Maybe not all gods are bad? MIMIR We found this strange man trapped in a tree at the summit of the Mountain. His name is Mimir, and he calls himself the Smartest Man Alive. Or he did, until Father chopped off his head. The witch of the woods (who was actually the goddess Freya this whole time!) was just able to resurrect him, and now we’re taking him to talk to the World Serpent. Mimir says Jormungandr is the only Giant left in Midgard who knows the secret rune to Jetunheim. It’s kind of weird talking to a reanimated head, but it’s nice to have someone else to talk to. MOTSÒGNIR The Dwarf King. One of the Sons of Ivaldi. He ruled over humans both in Veithurgard and Konimsgard. He was a good king at first, but then he started having dreams about his people dying. For some reason, he thought forcing them to hunt deadly beasts was the way to save them. He captured three dragons to harvest their “Fury” killed innocent people to harvest their “Screams”, and was then killed by those very same people when they returned as HeI-Walkers. That created “Ultimate Sacrifice”. We can use these three ingredients to create some kind of legendary armour. SINDRI Sindri’s also a famous blacksmith, but he and his brother are really different. Sindri REALLY doesn’t like dirt and grime. Weird trait for a blacksmith dwarf, but he’s just as talented as his brother. I wonder why they don’t get along? WORLD SERPENT We just woke up the World Serpent of Midgard! Father thought he was going to try and eat us, but Mother always said Jormungandr was a friendly Giant. He tried speaking to us, but I couldn’t understand him. I wonder if that’s the language all the giants speak? He doesn’t seem very interested in us right now. I wish I could talk to him… I have so many questions! Where did he come from? What does he do all day? What does he eat? Maybe we can find another way to talk to him… Aesir BALDUR Baldur… He’s one of the Aesir. Odin’s son, Thor’s brother. He came to our house and fought Father and Father killed him. Or… so we thought. Supposedly he can’t feel pain. And now he’s hunting us with his nephews, but we don’t know why. MAGNI The older son of Thor. He had a huge sword, could use the power of lightning, and was really mean. Father killed him. MODI The younger son of Thor, and a relentless creep. He also can shoot lightning, and uses a mace and shield. He ran off after Father killed his brother, Magni, but I bet we haven’t seen the last of him. I’ll kill him next time I see him. Trolls BRENNA DAUDI This is the second Troll we’ve seen so far. I had no idea they were so close to our house! They’ve never bothered us before… but I guess we never bothered them either. Mother said if I ever saw a Troll, I should run the other way. Guess she never said that to Father. DAUDI KAUPMADR I think the troll we just fought was Daudi Kaupmadr. Mother used to always tell me stories about him to try and scare me if I wandered off too far. I think she’d be proud of me, but Father thinks because I got a little angry that I’m “not ready?’ Whatever. I just helped him kill a troll; I know I’m ready! Mother told me a lot of stories about trolls. This one’s name translates to Death Merchant. With a name like that, I think it’s safe to assume he was pretty evil. I’m glad we killed him. DAUDI MUNR We killed this one while trying to restore the Jotunheim Tower to the Lake of Nine in all the realms. When the doors opened to Muspelheim, I guess he wanted to see what was happening. Why is every troll’s first and only instinct to attack? GRENDEL OF THE FROST Grendel of the Frost was the stuff of legend. Even Mother thought he was just a myth. It was said that Grendel was the strongest and most feared among the Stone Troll Tribe. They hold the name “The Frost” in the highest regard, and only give it to someone who is to be honoured and revered. And now he’s dead. Serves him right for trying to kill us! GRENDEL OF THE ASHES This must have been the other Grendel’s brother? Or maybe “The Ashes” is a different kind of title that the Fire Trolls use to honour their kind. There’s so much we don’t know about trolls… but I guess the most important thing to know is that they are all trying to kill us, so we have to kill them first. That’s what Father would say, anyways. JÁRN FÓTR Mother said this troll lived in the Heart of the Mountain with the Giants, but there was a falling out one day and they cast him out. Makes sense to me; I wouldn’t want to live with a troll. Guess he moved back in when they left. MÁTTUGR HELSON Máttugr Nelson, known as Helheim’s son and bridge keeper. Apparently, he was actually born and raised in Hel. Growing up in a troll tribe can’t be an easy life, but growing up in Hel must be even worse. STONEBEARD KING Mother said Stonebeard King earned his title “King” simply because no one could take it from him. If you are arrogant enough to call yourself a king, you better be able to back it up, and Stonebeard could. He never lost a fight… until now. Enemies Odin Odin appeared in heroic literature as the protector of heroes; fallen warriors joined him in Valhalla. He had a mythical horse called Sleipnir, who had eight legs, teeth inscribed with runes, and the ability to gallop through the air and over the sea. Odin was one of the greatest wizards among the gods and was associated with runes. He was also the God of Poets. His outward appearance he was an old man, with flowing beard and only one eye (the other he gave in exchange for wisdom). He was usually depicted wearing a cloak and a wide-brimmed hat and carrying his spear Gungnir. Baldur Most legends about him concern his death. After he and Frigg had a dream in which they saw his death (with dreams being prophetic in Norse mythology), Frigg asked everything in creation to promise to not harm Baldr, only forgetting to ask mistletoe, as she thought it was "too young" to swear an oath. Icelandic stories tell how the gods amused themselves by throwing objects at him (knowing that he was immune from harm). The blind god Höd, (Baldr’s twin brother) deceived by Loki, killed Baldr by hurling mistletoe, the only thing that could hurt him. Magni Magni's father is Thor and his mother is the giant named Járnsaxa while his brother Móði's father is Thor and his mother is Sif. Both brothers have the same father but different mothers making them half-brothers. The two brothers are mentioned among the survivors of Ragnarök in the Poetic Edda Vafþrúðnismál. In the Prose Edda book Skáldskaparmál, Magni plays a role in the myth of Thor's battle with the giant Hrungnir. During the battle of Ragnarök when Magni and Modi's father Thor kills the world serpent Jörmungandr their father dies from its venom. After the death of their father, both Magni and Modi became the new owners Mjölnir. Modi Modi is the demigod son of Thor and his wife Sif. He is the grandson of Odin, the nephew of Baldur, and the younger half-brother of Thor’s first son, Magni. God of War (PS4) Developer: SIE Santa Monica Studio Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment Released: April 20, 2018 MSRP: $59.99 REVIEW FROM MULTI RESOURCE

Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales is a role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red. It is a spin-off of The Witcher video game franchise, and acts as the standalone single-player component for Gwent: The Witcher Card Game. It was initially concieved as a single-player campaign for Gwent: The Witcher Card Game, but repurposed as a standalone game in August 2018. Thronebreaker was released on 23 October 2018 for Microsoft Windows and on 4 December 2018 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. And it’s more than just missing out on another drinking buddy. Access to powerful hero cards is contingent on that hero remaining in your service, and many party members can offer special solutions to certain story events and quest dilemmas that allow you to come out of them with much less blood on your shirt than you would otherwise. Having the monster slayer Sir Eyck lets you bypass having to sacrifice the lives of your men to rid a treasure-laden cave of nasty fiends, for instance. And still more cards and story paths can be unlocked by using shrewd diplomacy and your party members to broker alliances with various factions you meet. I adored the organic-feeling reactivity of this system and how it rewarded or punished me for the values I chose to stand for. Though I only played through once, it seems like the number of possible outcomes available for various quests could be vast. Give Me a Hand The quests themselves and accompanying dialogue are written every bit as well as The Witcher 3, presenting moments of supreme emotional satisfaction and crushing sorrow. And the card-based battle system it all revolves around is a lot of fun as well. Far from playing a couple hundred rounds of standard rules Gwent, nearly every encounter has some kind of unique twist that’s satisfying to overcome. Some commanders have the ability to immediately resurrect any cards you kill, so the only way to win is to whittle them down with non-lethal attacks so your side comes out ahead at the end of a round. Certain story battles require you to destroy a heavily-armored gatehouse before you can attack the units behind it. And the level of deck customization, especially later on once you get the ability to recruit special cards like dwarves and Skellige mercenaries, means you can always change things up if you’re bored or a particular battle is giving you a really hard time. One of the biggest things I missed was a way to save and load decks for specific situations. This was most bothersome in some story battles that had special rules heavily favoring or disfavoring a specific type of card – like a lieutenant who could strengthen his units based on the strength of my strongest unit, encouraging me to only use lower-tier cards.The only way to prepare for such encounters is to manually swap in and out the cards you need one by one. And you have to undo it all afterwards to get back to your “standard” deck. This also discourages experimentation to some degree, since I’d have been much more likely to field some radically different decks if I knew I could easily go back to what I had before if I didn’t end up liking them. Card Conundrums Particularly interesting were the various optional puzzle fights scattered around Thronebreaker's lovely, hand-painted world maps, which require you to accomplish some unorthodox goal using a specific set of cards in a limited number of turns. You might be asked to get a specific card to a certain side of the board using movement abilities, or to raise a card’s power to a target number. Some of them were really, legitimately tough, taking me close to an hour to come up with the right solution. Some were a bit frustrating, but it was always so, so satisfying when the solution clicked. And since they all use pre-made decks, they get around the lack of a deck saving feature. Share Autoplay setting: On Each of the five maps (six counting a brief epilogue) are full of character and style, creatively using parallax background vistas to make you feel like you’re in something bigger than a mere 2D isometric RPG. I especially loved getting to see the snow-swept peaks of the dwarven realm Mahakam, which are unlike any area Geralt’s adventures have taken us to before.The sprites and environments are bursting with character and capture the essence of the Witcher world down to the mud puddles and marauding monsters just as well as those in Thronebreaker’s fully 3D big brother games. And it’s all tied together by an attractive, responsive, easy-to-navigate interface that plays well with either a controller or the mouse and keyboard. The Verdict It’s much quicker to list the few things Thronebreaker gets wrong than the many, many things it does delightfully well. Aside from being one of the best-written RPGs I’ve played in years, the varied ways it keeps its card-based combat from stagnating across a 40ish-hour campaign are admirably clever and well thought-out. Deck building and some light RPG elements that allow upgrading specific cards give a feeling of progression to your two-dimensional army, and expertly crafted companions that aren’t shy about leaving you out in the cold create a satisfying, meaningful feedback system for your actions. If you like a good fantasy RPG at all, even if you’re not normally a collectible card game person, do yourself a favor and treat your inner card-slinging monarch to this one. IN THIS ARTICLE Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales Releases October 23, 2018 PC PS4 XBOX ONE AMAZING Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales is one of the best-written RPGs in years, with exciting card battles that are kept cleverly fresh throughout. 23 OCT 2018 9.4 i BUYING GUIDE POWERED BY IGN DEALS Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales $29.99 GOG SEE IT WIKI GUIDE THRONEBREAKER AND GWENT THE WITCHER CARD GAME ACHIEVEMENTS AND TROPHIES Universe Beta 58 PAGES FROM AROUND THE WEB Sylvester Stallone Becomes War In First Official Rambo 5 Photo Sylvester Stallone Becomes War In First Official 'Rambo 5' Photo Romantic Tips You Shouldnt Take From Video Games Romantic Tips You Shouldn't Take From Video Games This is Why Hollywood Stopped Casting David Schwimmer This is Why Hollywood Stopped Casting David Schwimmer The Top 10 Most Tragic Deaths in Gaming History The Top 10 Most Tragic Deaths in Gaming History Sarah Jessica Parker Doesnt Remember Much Of Hocus Pocus Sarah Jessica Parker Doesn’t Remember Much Of 'Hocus Pocus' Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom May Get Hit with a 10M Lawsuit 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' May Get Hit with a $10M Lawsuit Powered By ZergNet IGN RECOMMENDS Diablo Immortal Reveal Met with Negative Response by Community Diablo Immortal Reveal Met with Negative Response by Community All the News and Trailers from BlizzCon 2018's Opening Ceremony All the News and Trailers from BlizzCon 2018's Opening Ceremony Is Disney's Streaming Service to Blame for Netflix's Marvel Cancelations? Is Disney's Streaming Service to Blame for Netflix's Marvel Cancelations? Avatar Sequels' Titles Reportedly Revealed Avatar Sequels' Titles Reportedly Revealed Overwatch Hero 29 Is Ashe, Here's What She Does Overwatch Hero 29 Is Ashe, Here's What She Does Destiny 2 on PC Available as Free Gift This Month Destiny 2 on PC Available as Free Gift This Month Warcraft III: Reforged Announced Warcraft III: Reforged Announced 13 Confusing Things Stumping Players in Red Dead 2 13 Confusing Things Stumping Players in Red Dead 2 Gameplay : Gwent is a turn-based card game between two players, with each game taking three rounds. Each player must play one card each turn from a deck of at least twenty-five cards. Each deck belongs to a faction that offers different play styles. Each faction has different "leaders" who each have individual abilities. As Gwent does not use a mana system like most traditional CCGs, card advantage is often what wins the game. The Homecoming Update, which was released in conjunction with Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, changed the game in a number of ways. The leader is no longer a playable card; it now gives the player an ability, and dictates how many mulligans are available to the player throughout the course of a match. The limits on how many gold and silver cards can be in a deck has been removed. Deckbuilding now uses a Recruit Cost system. Decks have a Recruit Cap of 165, with each card in the game having a Recruit Cost associated with it. The update also removed the siege row from the play area, leaving only the melee row and the ranged row. A new card type, artifacts, was added to the game. These do not contribute points to your side of the board but offer varying abilities. The goal is to win two of three rounds by playing cards and spells to gain points called "power" on the board. A player wins a round by having more points on board than their opponent. Rounds end when either both players pass to the next round, or when both players run out of cards. The first to win two out of three rounds wins the game. Round wins go toward daily rewards, awarding players with card packs known as "kegs", scraps, meteorite dust, or ore. Players can gain additional cards by buying kegs with ore or through microtransactions; each keg contains five cards, with the upside that the fifth is rarer than the rest and a choice between three is offered. Cards can also be crafted with scraps. Premium versions of cards can be crafted with meteorite dust. Ore is used to buy kegs. The game features several modes of gameplay. The standard Casual Play mode allows players to challenge one another, whereas in Rank Play players compete in order to increase in a tier-ladder system. Ranked takes place across a month-long season, where players aim to increase in rank to increase end-of-season rewards. Player ranks do not degrade once earned, and work on a numerical system from 1-21, before entering into the top 1,000. Players are also assigned an matchmaking rating, which respectively increases or decreases as a player wins and loses games. Gwent has also had multiple seasonal events, inviting players to take part in themed events with premade decks. These events functioned like puzzles, where exact moves had to be made to win. Seasonal events normally award a player profile picture, border as well as a title. Arena Mode Arena Mode functions as a draft mode, where players must build a deck from random cards. The player will pick one of four cards of identical rarity randomly shown. Twenty-six cards are drafted, and then a leader is chosen from 3 randomly shown leaders. The cards shown are from a pool of all cards, meaning decks can contain cards from all factions. There is no limit on how many gold cards or silver cards can be in the deck, and any number of duplicates can be drafted. Arena Mode is themed around The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt character Gaunter O'Dimm, who offers contracts in the arena in exchange for rewards. A maximum of nine wins will award players with a gold card, as well as other rewards including ore, scraps and/or meteorite dust. The arena will guarantee players at least one keg as a reward, even with no contracts completed. Players have three lives and lose a life when a game is lost. The arena run will end when either a player quits and breaks the contact, when all three lives are lost, or when all nine wins are achieved. There are also periodic 'special event' arena modes occasionally available. These have unique drafting rules, such as the Gold Rush, where all cards drafted are Gold cards or Law of the Jungle, where all cards drafted are from the Monsters faction. The special events generally last 1 week, and the regular arena mode is also available to play during the event. Development The game had an estimated 100 staff members working on it. It was released for Windows on 23 October 2018, and for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on 4 December 2018. The standalone single-player game Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales was released on the same dates. In Thronebreaker's 30-hour long campaign, the player takes the control of Queen Meve, the ruler of Lyria and Rivia, during the events that precede The Witcher. As the leader of one of the northern kingdoms, Meve leads a small opposition force who must battle and build alliances to take the north back. The game has a system of choices and consequences that will shift the story (fully voice acted and narrated by an entity called Storyteller) in a different direction, or affect the gameplay. The game world consists of five regions never explored in The Witcher franchise before: Rivia, Lyria, Angren, Mahakam and Aedirn. Exploration happens across a number of large maps with an isometric perspective similar to Baldur's Gate. Queen Meve’s army is represented by a customizable deck of cards and combat takes place in matches similiar to "Gwent" with a few differences. Each player takes a turn to play a single card from their hand, or pass and end their turn. Different cards have different values, some have special abilities that interact in many ways. Whoever has the highest total value on the board after both players hit pass wins the round. After a single round, all played cards are discarded and new cards are drawn instead. The goal is to win two of the three rounds. Maintaining alliances is crucial to the gameplay. The hero cards are present only as long as allies are with Meve and will leave the deck as soon as they depart the party. But Geralt isn't the star of Thronebreaker - that honor belongs to Meve, the sword-savvy queen of Lyria and Rivia who's only been mentioned here and there in Witcher games past. She's the kind of regal hero anyone can love: noble, stubborn, never suffering fools but still exhibiting a sharp sense of humor. It is a time of high fantasy war: Meve's kingdoms in the North are being overrun by the ruthless forces of the Nilfgaardians, and she's taken it upon herself to fight back against her people's oppressors despite her army being hopelessly outnumbered. You start with only your trusted commander Reynard (not to be confused with Hearthstone personality Reynad) at your side - but over the course of a sizable campaign lasting 30+ hours, you'll amass a party of quirky, lovable characters who rival any BioWare cast and will constantly be chiming in exactly when you want to hear their take on something. Thronebreaker echoes the gut-wrenching decisions and impactful losses of The Banner Saga, chronicling a Lyrian army that's increasingly beleaguered by overwhelming odds, while Meve's closest confidants offer up conflicting counsel regarding the tough calls she has to make on a regular basis. Your options are never explicitly labeled as morally good or bad, or with clear outcomes for those involved; the only certain repercussions pertain to the resources you collect around the isometric overworld, used to upgrade your troops and craft new cards, and a simple morale scale that can strengthen or weaken your forces during the next fight. Oftentimes, judgments you make will come back to haunt you, or result in some unforeseen boon that helps make you feel like you did the right thing. Thronebreaker is constantly autosaving after each and every incident, so you'll need to live with your decisions no matter how much you regret them. For instance, that time I unwittingly turned down a charismatic party member who could've - should've, even - been with me for the entire game. Part of what makes Gwent so fun in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is how it is contextualized within the latter’s fictional world. Plotlines have you building your deck across multiple matches, and occasional dialogue branches let you settle disputes with cards instead of swords. Thronebreaker, a new Gwent-based campaign set in the world of The Witcher, takes this concept to its logical conclusion, telling a new tale using Gwent as its core. It works surprisingly well, as the story delivers strong political intrigue, character moments, and tough moral choices. These all hold Thronebreaker together as the standard card-slinging gradually falters across dozens of hours. Gwent retains its back-and-forth gameplay (which has since spun off into its own free-to-player multiplayer game) in Thronebreaker, though it’s undergone several changes from its minigame iteration. Although the objective is still the same (build up an army one card at a time to win two out of three rounds), there are several more card interactions and abilities to consider, and spies are no longer the terror they used to be. Thronebreaker uses these rules as its foundation, but alters cards to fit the campaign (and even lets you skip battles on the easiest difficulty). Many of the cards from the free-to-play multiplayer have completely different abilities, and several new cards offer some great new challenges. A fight against a griffin involves lopping off its individual limbs (represented as different cards on the board); fending off a group of thieves has one of them invading your side of the board. These battles further cement the importance of certain story beats, it was great to see that facing an opponent the story long foreshadowed didn’t lead to a straightforward match. The wide array of medieval problems Meve needs to solve as she explores the varied realms will likely feel familiar - nobles quarreling over land, thieves with a righteous cause, civilians forced to commits crimes in desperation, and so on. But you'll be listening in rapt attention to how these events unfold, as each is grippingly told in ways you're simply not used to. I've encountered plenty of high fantasy racism in my time, but Thronebreaker is the first game to really make me think deeply about my own biases and those of my council. You'll find yourself staring at some decisions for what feels like ages, unsure of what will ultimately sit right with you. It's telling that Thronebreaker's version of Telltale's "They will remember that" recording of major decisions is "You've chosen one evil in favor of another." Not every RPG can make you think long and hard about the ethics of sympathy, vengeance, and the greater good; Thronebreaker does. Yet, for the many somber moments, there's also an impressive array of laugh-out-loud exchanges, including some of the best comeback lines you'll ever hear. Meve's saga is detailed by a narrator simply known as the Storyteller, who serves as the beating heart of Thronebreaker's immensely enjoyable narrative. The writing in Thronebreaker is immaculate, with the kind of beautifully descriptive language that so clearly sets the scene in your mind, aided by the occasional still image and a masterful ambient soundscape. Everyone's fully voiced, from the cast of characters to the cards themselves, but its the narrator's perfect articulation, impassioned delivery, and warm, rhythmic voice that do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to main story beats and the many memorable sidequests. Listening to the Storyteller spin a yarn recalls all those times your grandparents would read to you when you were a child, and you always wanted to hear just one more chapter. That same desperate need to find out what happened next makes Thronebreaker almost impossible to put down. It's paced in such a way that you can easily dip in for just a few minutes, but that'll often turn into hours as you excitedly guide Meve to the next hard-fought duel, critical decision, or intriguing oddity sitting just off the beaten path. Several fun puzzles find more creative uses for Gwent’s rules – or break them altogether. I love the way these they tie gameplay to story, like one that has you moving a character across the board to sneak past guards. I ended up liking the variety of these puzzle-oriented tasks more than the standard battles, since it’s easy to build unstoppable decks after a few hours. This makes your victory in traditional encounters a forgone conclusion, which gets dull as the campaign goes on. Although you spend a lot time playing Gwent in Thronebreaker, the narrative does a great job of propelling you from battle to battle. You play as Meve, Queen of Lyria and Rivia, as she attempts to fend off an impending Nilfgaardian invasion. Meve is a fantastic lead, a defiant ruler who refuses to back down from the overwhelming obstacles she faces even as her subordinates cower before Nilfgaard. Between her steely resolve and her tense, harsh moments with her son Villem, I was captivated by her tale. She’s joined by a strong cast of supporting characters, such as the conniving-but-lovable Gascon and Brouver Hoog, the strict king of the Dwarfs who forces Meve to play neutral with the Nilfgaardians within his realm. Although conversations play out in visual novel fashion, the animated comic-book style looks fantastic, and the performances and character animations are strong enough that I never felt like I was just reading text. Choice also plays a large role in how your adventure plays out. As you explore a handful of large maps for resources that let you build up your deck, you come across plenty of moral quandaries. Some are simple, like deciding whether to spend money to bury a peasant to raise your troops’ morale. Others can have major ramifications on how the story plays out, and even if certain party members (and the powerful cards they add to your deck) leave your side. These decisions can play out in various ways, and I was pleasantly surprised when some decisions I was adamant about came back to bite me. Thronebreaker is a great alternative for fans of Gwent who’d rather not dive into the multiplayer arena. Although some unique twists can’t hold off some late-game tedium, it’s a diverse campaign that emphasizes the strong characters and tough decisions that define the Witcher series, and emphasizes clever twists over turning newcomers into solid Gwent players. Whether you just want to play more Gwent or are simply a fan of The Witcher, playing Thronebreaker is an easy choice. resentation, are wonderful. All are adorned with colorful, evocative artwork, and many are animated into such lively, captivating scenes that, when paired with feels-like-you're-there sound effects, simply put Hearthstone's golden cards to shame. The collection is rife with delightful signature phrases when a card enters play that only get better with time (a personal favorite of mine: "Got any vittles? Hungry like a wolf I am"). There are many more small details that make Thronebreaker's aesthetic shine, from the way characters subtly sway and breathe during cutscenes (as opposed to the static cutouts of a visual novel), to the points of interest that dot every environment, and even the synced-up mouth movements during dialogue. It's all so wonderful that I can easily forgive the minor moments that made my inner editor cry out, like when a typo would crop up, or there was an errant extra space, or the spoken lines didn't perfectly match up with the subtitles. It's as if the folks at CD Projekt Red weaponized a game to specifically target my interests, despite the fact that I've not spent a single minute playing as Geralt. Thronebreaker calls to mind the supreme polish of Hearthstone; Diablo 2's rich isometric worlds; ethereal writing a la inkle's 80 Days; upgrading my base camp in Darkest Dungeon; the hard choices and heartbreak of Telltale's The Walking Dead. I've done my best to avoid any spoilers for Thronebreaker's story and surprise puzzle elements for this review, because you deserve to experience them for yourself. Thronebreaker isn't just a great spinoff of The Witcher, or just an excellent card game - it's a spectacularly crafted RPG that'll delight anyone who loves a good story wonderfully told.

Welcome To CSBD

Welcome To CSBD

The AMD Ryzen™ Embedded R1000 SoC provides a new class of performance for the embedded industry with 3X performance per watt vs. previous AMD R-Series SoC1 and 4X performance per dollar compared to the competition2 TAIPEI, Taiwan 04/16/2019 At the Taiwan Embedded Forum, AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced the Ryzen™ embedded product family is growing with the new AMD Ryzen™ Embedded R1000 SoC. Building upon the success of the Ryzen™ Embedded V1000 SoC, the AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 SoC provides embedded customers with dual core, quad-threaded performance, as well as the ability to run fanless, low power solutions for 4K displays; while providing leading-edge security features. The AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 is perfect for applications in digital displays, high-performance edge computing, networking, thin clients and more. Customers like Advantech, ASRock Industrial, IBASE, Netronome, Quixant and others are already working on Ryzen Embedded R1000-based products. As well, Atari© is using the high-performance Vega 3 graphics and ‘Zen’ CPU architecture in the AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 SoC to power the upcoming Atari VCS™ game system. “The AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 builds out the Ryzen Embedded family and provides a compelling option for customers that want access to the powerful ‘Zen’ and ‘Vega’ architecture and are looking for a highly competitive power/performance solution,” said Stephen Turnbull, director of product management and business development, Embedded Solutions, AMD. “The Ryzen Embedded R1000 can support rich multimedia environments for digital displays and casino gaming, enterprise class security features for edge computing, networking and thin clients, and, most importantly introduces a new class of performance while providing customers with software and hardware compatibility with the extended Ryzen Embedded family.”