Month: January 2019

Treyarch has rolled out another update for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. This week, the developer brings Gauntlets and new Elixirs for Zombies mode to Xbox One and PC following their release on PS4 last week, while Sony’s console receives a new event and Black Market loot.

On PS4, Treyarch has kicked off a special four-week event stream in the Black Market dubbed Barbarians. As part of this event, the developer has added 25 new tiers of loot below the Operation Absolute Zero stream, meaning players can unlock more loot than usual per tier. Among the new rewards are outfits, gestures, Reactive Camo, and the KAP 45 pistol.

The developer has also introduced a new Featured playlist on all platforms: Chaos Domination. This mode features two teams of six players and three-second zone capture time. Team Tactical Moshpit, Mercenary Deathmatch Moshpit, Mercenary Hardcore Moshpit, and Mercenary Capture Moshpit have also been added to the Featured category.

On Xbox One and PC, Gauntlets are now available for Zombies mode. These are 30-round challenges that have unique rules for each round, and players can earn medals and rewards depending on how many rounds they’re able to complete. There are also three new Elixirs, with even more set to arrive in the coming weeks.

Finally, rounding out the update are a handful of improvements and bug fixes across platforms. Among other things, Treyarch has fixed an exploit that allowed players to get a full equipment charge when they switched classes. You can find the full patch notes on Reddit.

Beginning January 23, the Down But Not Out limited-time mode in Blackout will expand to Xbox One and PC, following its debut on PS4 last week. Meanwhile, Black Ops 4’s ongoing free Blackout trial is scheduled to end on January 24.

Before he played the title role in DC’s Shazam!, actor Zachary Levi was Fandral in both Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World and (oh so briefly) Thor: Ragnarok.

Levi had replaced Josh Dallas, who played Fandral, one of the Warriors Three, in the first Thor movie. But from what Levi told the press on the set of Shazam! last year, Fandral getting (quickly) killed off in Thor: Ragnarok was a blessing. Indeed, Levi appeared thankful to no longer be tied to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“When I got cast as Fandral in

, though I wasn’t able to do it, I knew that the Warriors Three could be really fun characters if they ever developed them,” Levi said. “They just didn’t. They didn’t.”

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BOOM! Studios is taking a fairly risky approach to its first Buffy comic. Buffy the Vampire Slayer #1 isn’t a continuation of the long-running sequel saga Dark Horse published from 2007 through 2018. Nor is it a tie-in to the original TV series. It’s instead a complete reboot that overhauls the Buffy mythos for 2019. While that approach threatens to alienate long-time Buffy fans, the new series actually strikes a very delicate balance. It retains the spirit of the old Buffy while also giving newbies an easy jumping-on point to the franchise.

It helps that there’s nothing radically different about this rebooted Buffy. Writer Jordie Bellaire and artist Dan Mora aren’t attempting to reinvent the Slayer wheel here. Even describing the new series as “Ultimate Buffy” overstates the differences. This is still the story of Buffy Summers moving to Sunnydale and trying to balance the pressures of high school with her vampire-hunting responsibilities. The characters all still closely resemble their respective actors. This first issue makes it clear that the new series will follow its own path in terms of plotting and the order in which certain major characters are introduced, but also that it won’t be making changes simply for the sake of change.

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Every January, the Royal Rumble stands out as one of WWE’s biggest and more important events of the year. It’s the beginning of the road to Wrestlemania and helps to set the tone for how the rest of the year will play out. The annual spectacle has some serious competition this year, though, thanks to NXT. Each time the developmental brand airs one of its TakeOver events on the WWE Network, it has the chance of surpassing the main roster’s product in terms of excitement and quality–and the next event, TakeOver Phoenix, is no different.

This is the third time NXT has presented a TakeOver the night before the Royal Rumble, and with all of the brand’s championship titles on the line, it has the makings of a historic event. Among the high-profile matches on the card is Tommaso Ciampa defending the NXT Championship against Aleister Black, and Bianca Belair attempting to best reigning NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler.

Also in action are Kyle O’Reilly and Roderick Strong of the Undisputed Era, defending their NXT Tag Team Championships against the War Raiders, as well as Johnny Gargano fighting Ricochet for the NXT North American Championship. Interestingly, there are some major names missing from the TakeOver card, including Velveteen Dream, Matt Riddle, and Undisputed Era leader Adam Cole. While that might be a hint at their involvement in the Royal Rumble, it’s entirely possible they’ll make some sort of impact during TakeOver.

NXT TakeOver Phoenix airs live on the WWE Network on Saturday, January 26 at 7 PM ET/4 PM PT. A kickoff show will begin one hour prior. Make sure to check out the full card for the event below, as well as our predictions for who will walk out of the Royal Rumble victorious.

NXT TakeOver Phoenix Match Card:

• Tommaso Ciampa (c) vs. Aleister Black — NXT Championship Match
• Shayna Baszler (c) vs. Bianca Belair — NXT Women’s Championship Match
• The Undisputed Era (c) vs. War Raiders — NXT Tag Team Championship Match
• Ricochet (c) vs. Johnny Gargano — NXT North American Championship Match
• Montez Ford vs. Kassius Ohno