InZoi, Krafton's life simulator that could serve as the first real competition for The Sims, is finally arriving in early access on March 27, but the party is starting a little bit early with the launch of inZoi Creative Studio, which allows players to try out the game's character creation and build mode tools in-depth before jumping into this new simulated world.

While many aspects of inZoi will be very familiar to fans of The Sims, particularly as they design their characters, or "Zois." But inZoi goes much further than The Sims in terms of how much you can customize your belongings, and it can be relatively easy to miss some of those options when you're trying the game out for the first time.

There are two specific features we're going to highlight here: that you can craft your own clothing and furniture, and that you can apply your own custom textures and patterns to nearly anything. Essentially, these are mod tools built directly into the game's interface, with inZoi natively providing the means to create your own custom content.

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Wondering about where to find Ise Sadatame and the messenger in Assassin's Creed Shadows? These objectives are part of a larger quest where you need to locate another member of the Shinbakufu group, an arc that will take you all the way to Kyoto. Our guide has all the tips that you need for this portion of the campaign.

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• Where to find Ise Sadatame and the messenger in Assassin's Creed Shadows - The Fool guide
  • Ise Sadatame's location
  Where to find Ise Sadatame and the messenger in Assassin's Creed Shadows - The Fool guide

  Both Ise Sadatame and the messenger are part of a longer arc where you need to hunt down the Fool, one of the villains who's also a member of the Shinbakufu. The NPCs that you have to meet are in the outskirts of Kyoto, albeit in opposite directions. You can see where they're located in the map below:

  Ise Sadatame is southeast of Kyoto, while the messenger is to the west.Ise Sadatame's location

  The first order of business is to find Ise Sadatame. He's in an area called Ogura Pond, which is southeast of Kyoto. Once you've tagged the Ogura Pond fast travel point, head north to Byodoin Temple and have a chat with Sadatame.

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Having a tough time deciding if you should confront Otama or Wakasa in Assassin's Creed Shadows? This segment of the campaign leads you to discover who's the real Golden Teppo, one of the Shinbakufu members who almost managed to kill Naoe earlier in the game. Our guide has the details to help you with this particular dilemma.

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• Should you confront Otama or Wakasa in Assassin's Creed Shadows - Golden Teppo guide

Should you confront Otama or Wakasa in Assassin's Creed Shadows - Golden Teppo guide

The decision to confront Otama or Wakasa happens near the end of the Sakai arc. Prior to this part, you have to meet with various NPCs and learn about the proper manners when participating in a tea ceremony. You can read about all the steps in our Searching Sakai: Tea merchant and kosode guide.

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Are you confused by the instructions on where to find Imai Sokyu and the tea merchant in Assassin's Creed Shadows? What about the task where you need to acquire a kosode? These objectives in the Port of Sakai, which you need to tackle early in the game, can be downright annoying given the quest structure. Don't worry since our guide has all the details that you're looking for, but do take note that there are minor spoilers ahead.

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• Where to find Imai Sokyu in Assassin's Creed Shadows

Where to find Imai Sokyu in Assassin's Creed Shadows

The aforementioned objectives are all part of a broader quest where Naoe has to find a Shinbakufu villain known as the Golden Teppo, the same woman who shot her earlier in the campaign. All the steps need to be completed before you can face the Golden Teppo herself.

Your first task is to find Imai Sokyu in Assassin's Creed Shadows. He's in the town of Sakai, which is at the eastern coast of the Izumi Settsu region.

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Are you curious about how to get more scouts in Assassin's Creed Shadows? These NPCs are more akin to a resource, as they can be used to discover the exact locations of objectives based on clues. Moreover, they can gather materials for future use. We've got a guide to help you with this particular feature so you can have a smoother playthrough.

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• How to get more scouts in Assassin's Creed Shadows
  • Scout uses and utility functions
  How to get more scouts in Assassin's Creed Shadows

  You can get more scouts, or refill your available scouts, via certain buildings in your hideout, like the Kakurega and Study. A couple of helpers also join up as part of an early-game encounter.

  Scout uses and utility functions

  As mentioned earlier, scouts have two key functions:

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Planning to upgrade your weapons and armors in Assassin's Creed Shadows? Your gear pieces, once acquired, are set based on your character's level. As such, they won't be viable as you continue to progress. The damage that your weapon deals, and the bonuses provided by your armor, might not be enough for tougher encounters. Our guide discusses how the blacksmith upgrade mechanic works so you can continue using your armaments in the long run.

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• How to upgrade weapons and armor in Assassin's Creed Shadows

How to upgrade weapons and armor in Assassin's Creed Shadows

Upgrading weapons and armors is fairly straightforward. You simply need to recruit the blacksmith NPC, Heiji, and then build the Forge facility in your hideout.

You'll receive the quest to find Heiji early in the campaign. After the introductory portion, Tomiko tells Naoe that a man named Heiji might be able to help your cause.

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Are you curious about how to increase health in Assassin's Creed Shadows? Having higher HP, naturally, grants increased survivability. You can take more hits before your HP bar gets fully depleted. That, and you won't end up panicking when you suffer damage and need to heal using rations immediately. Our guide discusses a couple of methods to keep your characters in tip-top condition.

How to increase health in Assassin's Creed Shadows

You can increase the health of your characters through these methods:

• Acquiring and upgrading Naoe's or Yasuke's mastery passive perk.
• Equipping high-tier armors and amulets, as well as upgrading them further.

How to improve your mastery passive rank

Naoe and Yasuke have their own mastery passives based on their playstyle/archetype. For Naoe, you want to look at the Shinobi skill tree and, for Yasuke, you have to check the Samurai skill tree. The bottom-center of the panel shows their respective mastery passive.

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Are you planning to get more hideout resources in Assassin's Creed Shadows? The hideout acts as your main hub--your home away from home, so to speak. The buildings you construct there offer a variety of functions and utility effects. Our guide discusses how you can earn these materials so you can have the facilities that you need in the long run.

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• How to get more hideout resources in Assassin's Creed Shadows
  • Acquiring hideout resources as loot rewards
  How to get more hideout resources in Assassin's Creed Shadows

  Hideout resources are readily obtained through the following means:

  • Looting regular chests.
  • Picking up the items found in castles and bases.
  • Completing contract side quests.
  • Sending out your scouts to smuggle caches.
  • Purchasing from the microtransactions store using Helix Credits.
  Acquiring hideout resources as loot rewards

  As you continue to explore feudal Japan, you're bound to get more hideout resources in Assassin's Creed Shadows. These come in the form of bushels of grain, planks of wood, and mineral ores.

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Are you hoping to get more mon in Assassin's Creed Shadows? Acquiring the game's basic money is fairly straightforward, though there are a few caveats to consider. Our guide discusses how you can earn more money/gold in your playthrough so you don't have to worry about purchasing upgrades and gear.

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• How to get more mon (make money) in Assassin's Creed Shadows
  • Earning more mon from loot rewards
  How to get more mon (make money) in Assassin's Creed Shadows

  There are a few ways to get more mon in the game:

  • Obtained as loot/rewards from enemies, chests, and missions.
  • Obtained when you sell valuables (i.e. junk or miscellaneous items).
  • Purchased from the store using Helix Credits.
  Earning more mon from loot rewards

  Assassin's Creed Shadows mon is easily earned as you progress through the game. Several actions and activities net you this currency:

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The extremely cool Optimus Prime Lego set has been difficult to find in stock at any retailer for months, but the Autobot leader has quietly transformed his Amazon listing to in stock with Prime delivery. Considering how scarce the 1,508-piece Lego Transformers kit has been--it was sold out even before the holiday shopping season--it's somewhat surprising that Amazon is also offering a 20% discount that drops the price of Optimus Prime to $144 (was $180). Amazon's deal matches the all-time low price that we've previously seen during big sales events like Black Friday.

Get deal at Amazon

We wouldn't be surprised to see this 2-in-1 build--Optimus can quickly switch between mech and truck modes--sell out again soon. If Amazon sells out, it's worth noting that the Lego Store restocked Optimus Prime, too, but you'll have to pay the full $180 MSRP. Lego officially denotes Optimus Prime as "hard to find." This description combined with the prolonged stock shortages could mean that the Optimus Prime kit, which debuted in 2022, is close to retirement.

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Lego Indiana Jones: Temple of the Golden Idol (1,545 Pieces)

$150 | Recently Retired

See at Amazon See at Walmart

Amazon and Walmart have restocked Lego Indiana Jones: Temple of the Golden Idol. The 1,545-piece set recreates the legendary opening from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Though neither retailer is offering a discount, this particular Indiana Jones set was sold out all throughout the holidays and is no longer carried at most retailers.

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The third season of the Invincible animated series recently wrapped up, and if history is any indicator, it looks like it's going to be a long wait for season four. The good news is that you can shortcut that wait right now with the comics series. There are numerous versions of the comic series available, but the latest is the Invincible Trade Paperback New Editions. These reprints of the original trade paperback releases are slightly smaller and feature new cover art. So far, eight Invincible Trade Paperback New Edition volumes have been released and are available now at Amazon, which cover the events seen up through Season 2, and several more are on the way later this year that will almost catch up to where the TV series left off in Season 3. Invincible Volume 9 releases May 20, followed by Volume 10 on July 15, Volume 11 on September 16, and Volume 12 on November 18. You can preorder the upcoming volumes at Amazon.

Invincible Trade Paperbacks (New Edition)

• Invincible Volume 1 -- $11 ($13)
• Invincible Volume 2 -- $13.50 ($15)
• Invincible Volume 3 -- $19.50
• Invincible Volume 4 -- $12.60 ($15)
• Invincible Volume 5 -- $13.50 ($15)
• Invincible Volume 6 -- $13.50 ($15)
• Invincible Volume 7 -- $13.50 ($15)
• Invincible Volume 8 -- $13.50 ($15)
• Invincible Volume 9 -- $14 ($15) | Releases May 20
• Invincible Volume 10 -- $14 ($15) | Releases July 15
• Invincible Volume 11 -- -- $14 ($15) | Releases September 16
• Invincible Volume 12 -- $14 ($15) | Releases November 18

In case you haven't seen it yet, Invincible follows Mark Grayson, the son of the Superman-like protector Omni-Man. When Mark's own superpowers finally kick in, he decides to follow in his father's steps and he becomes a new superhero, Invincible. However, he soon discovers his father is hiding a sinister past. Throw in teenage romance, a growing rogue's gallery, and homework, and Invincible is a grounded look at modern superheroes that's worth reading.

Artist Cory Walker established the look of Invincible with his first run on the series, eventually handing the reigns to Ryan Ottley who helped elevate the comics to new and often brutal heights. Meanwhile, Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman's writing helped each issue feel real, while also regularly throwing in new twists along the way to keep things fresh.

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Marvel Rivals exploded into existence in late 2024 and hasn't relented in pace since. While codes for freebies in NetEase's hero shooter are scarce, the developer has been known to dish out rewards including free skins in the past.

We've got a full list of the current active Marvel Rivals codes, as well as any that were once active and have now expired. We'll be regularly updating this guide as soon as new Rivals codes drop, so make sure to bookmark it.

New Marvel Rivals codes

There are currently no active Marvel Rivals codes; check back later!

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While Microsoft's Halo TV show did not become a huge success, that hasn't stopped the company from seeking to adapt its franchises for film and TV. The next release is A Minecraft Movie, which comes to theaters on April 4. After that, there's Season 2 of the Fallout TV show on Prime Video. Then there's a Gears of War movie and TV show. You can expect Microsoft to do even more as it relates to transmedia opportunities for Xbox franchises, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has said.

Speaking to Variety, Spencer said not every project will work out, but it's all part of the learning process.

"We learned from doing Halo. We learned from doing Fallout. So all of these build on themselves," he said. "And obviously we'll have a couple that miss. But what I'd say to the Xbox community that likes this work is, 'You're going to see more, because we're gaining confidence and we're learning through this.'"

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When The Elder Scrolls Online first launched in 2014, one of its biggest selling points was Cyrodiil: the MMORPG's large scale, open-world PvP zone where hundreds of players across the game's three factions could lay siege to each other's territory. Cyrodiil was even a major positive note in GameSpot's original Elder Scrolls Online review, with reviewer Kevin VanOrd calling developer ZeniMax Online's MMO "at its best when the PvP action heats up" and its massive battles "good fun."

Flash forward to shortly after ESO's post-launch honeymoon period, and the cracks in Cyrodiil quickly began to show. The huge number of players, and the complexity of the underlying game as a whole, led to major server performance problems that the mode still struggles with today despite numerous attempts by ZeniMax Online to fix the situation. Playing Cyrodiil in 2025 means contending with poor frame rates and extremely laggy battles, ultimately making the PvP sieges unplayable for many--a sad state of affairs for what was once a key back-of-the-box feature. But that may be about to change thanks to Cyrodiil Champions, a new experimental test mode.

ESO's three-faction Cyrodiil PvP battles were a major selling point at launch in 2014.

Cyrodiil Champions is an ambitious open test on ESO's live PC servers running March 24-31 that ZeniMax Online is hoping will definitively identify the core problem behind the mode's frustrating performance. This test campaign will keep all the large-scale siege battles Cyrodiil is known for but massively simplify class abilities and disable nearly everything else (passive abilities, armor types, stats, and more) in order to (hopefully) prove a point--that it is the sheer complexity of each player's stats and abilities interacting with one another that is resulting in server-breaking performance issues, rather than poorly written code or bad server infrastructure.

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Monster Hunter Wilds launched in February and sold more than 8 million copies over its first three days, becoming Capcom's fastest-selling game ever. But how is it selling in the US? Also very well, it seems.

Circana's Mat Piscatella confirmed that sales of the the RPG in terms of dollar sales in the first month in the US were more than 40% higher than those of Monster Hunter: World in January 2018. With more than 21 million copies sold, Monster Hunter World is Capcom's best-selling game of all time globally.

Wilds is now the No. 1 best-selling game of 2025 so far in the US. Another key fact is that launch-month dollar sales of Wilds in the US more than doubled the total of Monster Hunter: Rise for its March 2021 debut. Of note, Rise was initially only available on Switch before coming to PC and console.

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Dungeons & Dragons has spawned numerous fictional settings for players to explore, but one of the biggest and most detailed is Dragonlance. The high-fantasy world, known as Krynn, was crafted by authors Laura and Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis, but rather than just serving as a campaign setting for dungeon masters and players to explore, Weis and Tracy Hickman further developed the universe into a sprawling series of novels, expanding Dragonlance's popularity beyond just D&D players, and cementing it as one of the more prolific fantasy settings ever conceived. If you've ever wanted to get into the series, Humble's new The World Of Dragonlance Book Bundle includes up to 26 Dragonlance novels for $18.

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Like all Humble Bundles, this is a pay-what-you-want deal where the more you pay, the more books you get. A portion of revenue is donated to charity--in this case, Room to Read, which helps children in low income communities learn reading, literacy, and life skills. You can also increase your pledge if you want to contribute more to charity, and the bundle's store page includes a slider so you can adjust the revenue split between Humble, Wizards of the Coast, and Room to Read.

As for the books you get, the base $1 tier includes three books: Dragons of a Fallen Sun, Dragons of Lost Star, and Dragons of a Vanished Moon. These novels were written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, the co-authors of the original Dragonlance series, and comprise the War of Souls trilogy. Like other Dragonlance arcs, the War of Souls Trilogy can be read as a standalone series, making this $1 bundle a great introduction to the fantasy setting.

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Game Informer, the games journalism institution that began in 1991 and ran for 33 years before being shut down by parent company GameStop in August 2024, may be making a comeback.

The previously silent social channels for the magazine and website sparked to life on March 19, all sharing a video that shows something happening to what was once Game Informer's "The Final Level: Farewell" letter before teasing a March 25, 2025 date.

Many former Game Informer editors who worked at the magazine when it was shuttered, including Marcus Stewart, Kyle Hilliard, Brian Shea, Alex Van Aken and others, all shared "Continue? Yes or No" images on social media that prominently feature Game Informer magazines in the background.

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There's a strong case to be made that Futurama is one of the best animated TV shows of all time. The long-running series has been a constant delight since it first began airing in 1999, and late last year, a deluxe art book arrived to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the show. In case you missed it, it's still in stock at Amazon, and it has been discounted from $35 to $20.67.

The Art of Futurama $20.67 (was $35)

This coffee table art book features 176 pages of never-before-seen concept art, sketches, developmental work, and a complete episode guide. The book covers all nine seasons of the show that have aired up until now, making it a great way to prep for the upcoming tenth season that's in development.

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If you've never seen Futurama, then you've missed out on an all-time classic. The show follows Phillip J. Fry, who is accidentally cryo-frozen on New Year's Eve 1999. Waking up 1,000 years in the future, Fry quickly adjusts to his new life and resumes his job making deliveries for his distant relative Hubert Farnsworth, through the Planet Express company, alongside his new friends Leela and Bender the robor. The show quickly became a cult hit thanks to its witty humor and a few surprisingly powerful emotional moments. Just ask anyone who has watched the episode "Jurassic Bark," and they'll probably tear up on the spot.

The Art of Futurama is a great way to go behind the scenes on the series, but if you're looking for more Futurama reading material, you can pair it with Bender's Guide to Life, which was released in September 2024. It's ghost-written by Futurama and Simpsons creator Matt Groening in the style of fan-favorite character Bender, and it serves as a guide on how to live life, according to the chain-smoking robot. Normally $22.50, it's on sale for $19 right now.

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Even though inZoi, the new life sim from Krafton that aims to be the first real competitor to The Sims, won't officially release until March 27, you can get a head start on the creation aspect of the anticipated new game with the free inZoi Creative Studio starting March 20. The Creative Studio won't let you do any of the simulation part of the game, but it will let you dabble with inZoi's character creation and build mode.

There's a little bit of a catch, though. For the first few days--March 20-23--you'll need to unlock access via streaming drop on Twitch or Chzzk, which will require you to link your Krafton account and watch an inZoi stream for 15 minutes, or on Steam itself. Steam will be the easiest option--you just have to watch a livestream from inZoi's product page for 30 minutes, and a key for the Creative Studio will be granted without remembering any additional logins.

There are only a limited number of keys that can be obtained from drops, but if they run out you won't have to wait too long. Starting March 23, the inZoi Creative Studio will become available for anyone on Steam to download for free. And you'll probably appreciate having the chance to go wild on character creation ahead of the release of the rest of the game, since inZoi features a rather intense level of customization built in--you can literally design your own clothing items from scratch, for one thing. It's a lot to absorb even without thinking about the simulation part.

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