CoD: Warzone And MW3 Season 3 Reloaded New Party Operator Skin Bonuses Explained
The Season 3 Reloaded update arrives to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone on May 1, bringing new maps, modes, and operator bundles. Some of the season’s wackiest bundles will also include another way for players to earn additional XP with party pack bonuses.
How party pack bonuses work
Party pack operator bundles are Call of Duty’s new shop packs that offer players the ability to level up faster. These select operator skins won’t give anyone a competitive edge, but it will give a boost to the amount of XP earned.
Players will receive a double XP bonus for player progression and double weapon XP, if they are partied up with at least two other players wearing these select skins, and double battle pass XP is earned in parties of three or more players wearing the party pack skins.
Season 3 Reloaded party pack bundles announced
At the moment, there is only one party pack bundle available in the in-game shop for MW3 and Warzone. The Killer Serial Creep party pack, which features the “Rave” operator skin for Swagger, is priced at 1,600 CoD Points ($15). In addition to the operator skin, the bundle comes with two weapon blueprints, a large decal, sticker, and weapon charm.
Activision has announced that Season 3 Reloaded will include the Tracer Pack: Wubz and Friends and the Tracer Pack: Hare-raiser party packs. While we don’t have full details on the bundles yet, the two bundles are previewed in the image above. The Wubz and Friends pack includes skins that give the vibes of off brand Teletubbies, and the Hare-raiser skin is a murderous-looking bunny.
Devin Booker and other skins included for Season 3 Reloaded
Other bundles were announced that won’t include the new party pack bonuses, including an operator bundle for Phoenix Suns shooting guard Devin Booker. Booker is dressed in a black tux and beanie, and his bundle will include two animated weapon blueprints with tracers, plus a host of other cosmetic items. Devin Booker is not the first NBA star to receive their own operator skin, Kevin Durant was introduced as an operator in last year’s Modern Warfare 2.
The Trash Talk 2.0 Ultra Skin: Tracer Pro Pack is a new operator skin for Ripper, featuring a robotic body with a television for a head. This bundle includes two animated weapon blueprints with Trash Talk Tracers and the Bodied 2.0 Death Effect, additional cosmetic items, and 2,400 CoD Points to spend.
The Echo Endo: Vibrant Vixen Tracer Pack includes a cyberpunk-style fox operator skin, two weapon blueprints, large weapon decal, and more.
The bioluminescent-looking Phyto Fighter Tracer Pack comes packed with the “Lucifern” operator skin, which is described as being “built of translucent skin over an animated and blue nervous system.” Additional items include two weapon blueprints, a large weapon decal, weapon charm, a double battle pass XP token, and a consumable item for Zombies mode.
For more on the midseason update, make sure to check out all the major announcements for Season 3 Reloaded, including a new weapon to unlock, more MP maps, and new Warzone features.
Ereban: Shadow Legacy Review – Way Of Shadow
In what feels like a spiritual successor to 2016’s Aragami, Ereban: Shadow Legacy transforms you into a deadly shadow that can become one with the darkness–the ultimate stealth operative. The game doesn’t quite deliver the necessary challenge to make for a successful stealth game, however, as the first trick you learn will get you through the entire game without a hitch. It does far better on the platforming front, and though its cast of characters could have used some fleshing out, the futuristic sci-fi world they inhabit is cultivated with colorful sights and intriguing snippets of lore.
As its name implies, Shadow Legacy’s main gimmick is its use of shadows. You play as Ayana, the last of the titular Ereban, a people who possess the innate ability to become one with and manipulate shadows. Using her shadow merge ability, Ayana can sink into shadows to creep past enemies, slink up walls, and dispose of bodies, encouraging you to stick to the shadows where your toolbelt is at its strongest. Alongside these shadow abilities, Ayana has an assortment of advanced gadgets–some are always useful like a recon pulse that marks enemies and items through walls, while others are more situational like mines that stun targets–which work regardless of the lighting situation.
I initially thought that this would present plenty of opportunities and strategies to sneak past enemies, most of whom will take out Ayana in a single hit. There’s a healthy variety of foes who want to take her down–standard enemies don’t pose much threat beyond the flashlight they carry to take away your darkness, but the more adept snipers can spot you from afar and the stealthy droids who can go invisible can ruin your day if you’re not taking time to look for the telltale shimmer. And then there are the human enemies who present a moral quandary rather than a gameplay one–while the mechanical droid-like enemies that dominate each level can be killed with impunity, murdering the living and breathing human workers will negatively impact Ayana’s morality and others’ perception of her (which I’ll touch on a bit more later).
Unfortunately, Ayana’s natural ability to merge into the shadows and traverse unseen is very powerful–so powerful, in fact, that you don’t really need to rely on anything else. The enemies aren’t very smart either, so they’re easy to avoid even if you solely rely on shadow merge. This means that it’s actually quite easy to go through the entire game without being seen or resorting to lethally cutting down humans, making for a stealth game that doesn’t quite give you enough opposition to challenge you to think critically when it comes to circumnavigating a threat. There aren’t any difficulty settings to make the enemies smarter or more plentiful either–though you can adjust how many environmental guides show up in each level (purple lamps or purple paint that point you in the general direction you have to go, for example).
Shadow Legacy teases you with a tantalizing view of what it could be in its third chapter, briefly breaking free from its otherwise linear stealth levels to give you a playground in which you can tackle an assortment of missions in any order within an open area. Within this open space, you have more of a choice in how you approach each assignment instead of being funneled through a more linear challenge. Mistakes have a more drastic impact because you’re not moving from one area to the next–it’s all one big connected location, where your actions can snowball into unintended effects. Ayana’s assortment of abilities and gadgets also have way more utility in this level. The binoculars used for scouting and mapping enemy movements are way more valuable in a giant open space than in an enclosed laboratory or city street, for instance. The game never opts for this format again, however, and in doing so it leaves me wishing for what might have been.
To the game’s credit, the back half of Shadow Legacy has some creative set pieces from a platforming standpoint, with one section in particular that I adored for how well it challenged and encouraged me to utilize all I had learned up to that point in one fast-paced gauntlet. Shadow merge can be used to eject out of shadows to make otherwise impossible jumps or interact with the environment to solve simple riddles–skills that apply to challenges that steadily get more complex as the game goes on. Even if Shadow Legacy falls short of being a great stealth game, it’s a good platformer. The environmental elements create an assortment of shadows–some oddly shaped, others that move, and still more that can be altered–and figuring out how to reach an out-of-the-way platform is sometimes a puzzle within itself, made trickier and more rewarding to solve given the stamina meter tied to Ayana’s shadow merge. Not only do you have to figure out which shadows to move or follow or jump between, but you also usually have to do it in a timely manner.
In service of these platforming challenges, Shadow Legacy features a colorful diversity of locales, ranging from an outpost in the desert to an autonomous factory. My favorite is an urban street that hints at the human life that once populated it, now devoid of any movement save for the autonomous drones that patrol the streets and promise that this is for the best. Sporadic graffiti and text logs hint at the growing loss of autonomy among the human citizens leading up to the corporate takeover that promised everyone a better life. It’s such an eerie level, framed against the setting sun that’s causing the street to slowly be encroached by shadow. It feels fitting that Ayana uses those same shadows to sneak her way past the guards searching for her, paralleling how the oppressive regime’s efforts can’t stop the resistance–they squeezed so much life out of this one city block that now there’s no living soul to report Ayana to the authorities, just dumb, easily-fooled machines.
Guiding Ayana through these challenges is a story that never quite gets room to breathe. Initially trapped by an AI-controlled entity hellbent on using her powers for some unknown purpose, Ayana finds herself quickly working with the resistance seeking to free themselves from corporate tyranny. Ayana is hesitant to work with them, having heard they’re nothing more than terrorists but agrees to use her unique skillset to help on the condition that the group gives her everything they know about the Ereban people. There are some interesting, albeit familiar, narrative themes here, but Shadow Legacy rushes through them–Ayana buys into the resistance’s cause remarkably quickly, for example, despite being given no catalyst to do so.
In the game’s third chapter, Ayana is warned to spare humans so as to help alleviate the accusations that the members of the resistance are terrorists. This is the game’s morality system, shifting the coloring of Ayana’s design toward shining white or sinister purple depending on how bloodthirsty you play her. As far as I can tell, the ramifications of this only impact one small moment in the final level of the game–it’s not much of a narrative payoff.
At certain points in the story, Ayana can upgrade her shadow powers and you have a choice of whether to unlock new branches on one of two skill trees. One branch leans toward non-lethal abilities, like cushioning your footsteps, while the other opts for skills that make you a better killer, like making it easier to hide bodies so your deeds aren’t discovered. This creates some fun replayability as it’s impossible to fully unlock both branches in a single playthrough, but, again, shadow merge is just too strong. The new powers are cool, but I never had to use them, as shadow merge makes it fairly easy to sneak through a level without being spotted. Granted, I opted for a nonlethal run. It’s possible that if I had aimed for a playthrough where I killed everything that moved, I’d have needed to rely on more of the powers that hide bodies or kill multiple enemies at a time in order to not alert guards that something was wrong.
Ereban: Shadow Legacy sits in a weird place for me. As a stealth game, it rarely challenged me, reducing protagonist Ayana into a one-trick pony that could sneak past any target with the same shadow merge skill every time. But as a platformer, Shadow Legacy incorporates some entertaining puzzles that grow increasingly complex and rewarding to overcome. I never quite managed to connect to Ayana’s journey against the autonomous overlords planning to doom an entire civilization, but I had a lot of fun slinking up walls and exploding out of the darkness, striving to time my jumps with the movement of a windmill and the rotating shadow it was casting. Those nail-biting moments are the ones that stuck with me, not the dozenth time I slunk past an unsuspecting droid.
Elisabeth Moss Broke Her Back Filming New Show, Worked The Next Day
Elisabeth Moss, the Emmy-winning actor who starred on West Wing, Mad Men, and Handmaid’s Tale, has revealed she sustained a serious injury when filming the new Hulu show The Veil. Speaking to Variety, Moss revealed that she broke her spine when filming a scene where her character, an undercover MI6 agent named Imogen, was running on a rooftop to evade an attacker. The scene was filmed on location at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.
The scene, as it’s shown on the series, was the second time it was filmed. The first time it was filmed, Moss smashed into a wall “the wrong way” and she “ended up lying on the roof for a couple hours.”
Denise Di Novi, a producer on The Veil, was with Moss when the mishap took place. Di Novi said Moss “fractured a vertebra really badly,” but wanted to continue filming.
“We actually shot the next day at the airport, those are the Paris airport scenes you see [in the episode], and I actually have, like, a broken back,” Moss said. “I tried to get them to put a green blanket over me, and just VFX me out. I was like, ‘Look, just put the green blanket over me and you can scrub me out in post.'”
As for the rooftop scene, Moss said she was concerned the team wouldn’t be able to return to the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul to try again, but FX made it happen. “It’s not like that is an easy thing to accomplish,” she said.
The Veil premieres April 30 on FX. In addition to Moss, the show stars Yumna Marwan and James Purefoy. The show was created by Peaky Blinders’ Steven Knight.
Stellar Blade Day One Update Will Remove Unintentional Racial Slur Reference
Sony will remove a piece of in-game graffiti in Stellar Blade that created an unintentional reference to a racial slur, and the fix will come in a day-one patch.
Spotted by IGN, there’s a shop in Stellar Blade called the “R Shop” owned by the character Roxanne and its sign is placed next to the word “hard” in graffiti. When placed together, the two separate phrases seem to accidentally form a reference to the racial slur.
“The placement of two graphics near each other in Stellar Blade resulted in an unintentionally objectionable phrase,” PlayStation said in a statement. “Shift Up had no intention of creating offensive artwork and will be replacing the graffiti for the Day 1 patch.”
IGN also asked PlayStation if future prints of physical copies for the game will include the patch. PlayStation reiterated that the issue will be addressed in the day-one patch. However, it looks like the issue has already been patched out, with the word “hard” replaced with “crime.”
This isn’t the first time that unintentional racism occurred in a game. Back in 2021, Back 4 Blood developer Turtle Rock Studios addressed an issue during the game’s open beta of zombies saying what sounded like a racial slur, especially when multiple zombies were saying the line at once. The developer fixed the problem prior to the game launching.
Stellar Blade launches on April 26, exclusively on PS5. In GameSpot’s Stellar Blade review, we said, “A strong battle system and exciting moments make Stellar Blade more than just an imitator.”
Fortnite – A Grassy Island In The Center Of Everything Location
Fortnite‘s latest Snapshot Quests, also known as story challenges, are live in the game, and a few of them are trickier than you may be used to as of late. If you need to know where to find the location referred to when Cerberus says he left a chew toy “on a grassy island in the center of everything,” we have your solution here.
On a grassy island in the center of everything in Fortnite
Each of these Cerberus chew toys you’ll be finding for this week’s snapshots require you to head to landmarks across the island, then dig up the toy. The nice thing to note is that once you get to the right spot, you’ll receive a marker for where to dig, so you won’t have to guess so long as you’ve arrived in the correct location.
For this one, you’ll want to head to the lake southeast of Restored Reels. However, there are two small (and seemingly grassy) islands there, and in a firefight, it may be annoying to head to the wrong one and fail to complete your quest. For this challenge, you’ll want to head to the smaller and more eastern island of the two there. We’ve marked it on the map below.
Once you arrive, hit the marker with your pickaxe to dig up the “chew toy” and you’ll have completed one of three related challenges. We also have guides on where to find the chew toy near the snow where people bury yummy bones and the one under the windmill with a view of the Styx. You can even find them all in one spot by using our Cerberus Snapshot gallery.
Fortnite – Under The Windmill With A View Of The Styx Location
Fortnite‘s latest Snapshot Quests, also known as story challenges, are live in the game, and a few of them are trickier than you may be used to as of late. If you need to know where to find the location referred to when Cerberus says he left a chew toy “under the windmill with a view of the Styx,” we have your solution here.
Under the windmill with a view of the Styx in Fortnite
Each of these Cerberus chew toys you’ll be finding for this week’s snapshots require you to head to landmarks across the island, then dig up the toy. The nice thing to note is that once you get to the right spot, you’ll receive a marker for where to dig, so you won’t have to guess so long as you’ve arrived in the correct location.
For this one, you’ll want to head to the red windmill northeast of Grim Gate–hence how it overlooks to river Styx, known in Greek mythology to be the entryway to the underworld, Hades. We’ve marked it on the map below, so you don’t get it confused with The Other Windmill–and yes, that’s the actual landmark name of the island’s identical windmill more to the south.
Once you arrive, hit the marker with your pickaxe to dig up the “chew toy” and you’ll have completed one of three related challenges. We also have guides on where to find the chew toy at the grassy island in the center of everything and the one near the snow where people bury yummy bones. You can even find them all in one spot by using our Cerberus Snapshot gallery.
Somebody Once Told Me Shrek Forever After Is Coming To 4K Blu-Ray
The world might be ready to roll you, but you don’t need to be the sharpest tool in the shed to appreciate a good Shrek movie. Shrek Forever After fits that bill, and for the first time, it’s getting a 4K Blu-ray release. Preorders for the fourth Shrek film are now live ahead of its release in June.
In case you missed it when it first came out, Shrek Forever After pits the surly ogre against Rumpelstiltskin. After he makes a deal with the magical being, Shrek’s entire history is rewritten and he has only 24 hours to assemble his gang and restore the original timeline. The only problem? Only Shrek remembers his past. Donkey can’t remember his best friend, Fiona has become the warrior princess of a tribe of ogres, and Puss in Boots really needs to go on a diet.
For bonus features, there’s quite a bit here to enjoy after the end credits have rolled. You’ll get deleted scenes, documentaries, a look at the technology behind Shrek, commentary tracks, and much more. Like most Blu-ray releases, this version comes with a standard Blu-ray disc and a digital copy of the film. The other Shrek movies are also available on Blu-ray, and in case you’re looking to assemble a jolly green collection, these can be purchased individually or in bundle deals.
For more Blu-ray deals, preorders for 4K Blu-rays of Team America: World Police and South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut have just gone live. Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s films are definitely not for kids, as these puppet action and animated movies held nothing back to earn their infamous R-ratings.
Review Roundup For Stellar Blade
Developer Shift Up’s Stellar Blade is right around the corner, introducing itself as a character-action game in a sci-fi story starring Eve, a human arriving in a futuristic depiction of Earth filled with all sorts of monsters to take down. If you tend to pay more attention to combat set pieces than story beats, this is a game that should be on your radar.
Available as a PS5 exclusive, Stellar Blade will have you facing increasingly dangerous threats while investing points into large skill trees. Fights often demand precision and lots of parrying, with boss fights in particular being quite memorable in the smackdown they offer. It also has quite a lengthy campaign with side quests and hidden corners to wander off to.
Reviewer Imran Khan wrote in GameSpot’s Stellar Blade review that he “came away from Stellar Blade having enjoyed the game quite a bit despite its foibles on the back of its incredibly strong systems. That its biggest weakness is that its tribulations can go on too long is perhaps praise from another perspective not my own.”
GameSpot also has a preorder guide for PS5 for the upcoming action-RPG:
- Game: Stellar Blade
- Platform: PS5
- Developer: Shift Up
- Release Date: April 26
- Price: $70 for the Standard Edition, $80 for the Deluxe Edition
Check out more reviews for the game below:
IGN — 7/10
“Stellar Blade is great in all of the most important ways for an action game, but dull characters, a lackluster story, and several frustrating elements of its RPG mechanics prevent it from soaring along with the best of the genre.” — Mitchell Saltzman [Full review]
VG247 — 4/5
“Stellar Blade, ultimately, is a pleasant surprise. It is a better action game than I expected, with better art, audio, and action than I had hoped for. As far as first attempts at making an action game go it’s a damn good effort. I don’t know what Shift Up’s sale expectations are for Stellar Blade – the part of my brain that reads video game industry news on the regular is worried that they’ll compare the income they get from Nikke to the profits they’ll make from Stellar Blade and decide it’s not worth it. I hope they decide against that. There is gold in these hills.” — Connor Makar [Full review]
VGC — 4/5
“Stellar Blade is a visual treat throughout, boasting glistening sci-fi environments and pleasingly detailed mechanical enemy and humanoid character designs. While much has been made of the lecherous male gaze underpinning EVE’s design – a fact made worse every time you unlock a more revealing costume – the pervy perspective feels more embarrassing rather than offensive, a cringe-worthy bid to capture the fanservice-loving anime crowd.” — Tom Regan [Full review]
Inverse — 8/10
“Looking back at my time with Stellar Blade, I believe it has the potential to turn into a franchise instead of just a one off deal. There is still a good deal of story to tell involving Mother Sphere, potentially even a prequel so we can see how things got so bad on Earth in the first place. With Stellar Blade being just the second game from this South Korean studio, the future looks incredibly bright.” — Brandon Hofer [Full review]
Game Informer — 8.75/10
“The further I played into Stellar Blade, the more it surprised me with the depth of its action and the breadth of play experiences. The story never clicked for me, but the world-building, top-notch art, and silky animation certainly did. Even when certain devastating bosses made me curse, it was always because I made a mistake and was left eager to dive back in for another shot. I loved the gradual mastery I developed as I explored its many interlocking systems of combos and special moves. Stellar Blade is unabashed in its titillating approach to sex and violence, but unlike so many games that use those appeals as a crutch, it’s also a top-notch action experience that can easily stand with the big girls.” — Matt Miller [Full review]