The first season of The Mandalorian on Disney Plus renewed the Star Wars franchise as a source of quality water-cooler conversation. There were rousing speeches, emotional pleas, and battle preparations intercut with Baby Yoda drinking soup. But, it feels like everyone discovered Baby Yoda together over the same shared week. Mando says goodbye to Nick Nolte’s Kuiil, bonds with Baby Yoda, gives him away, has a fight with his fellow Mandalorians, has a change of heart, saves Baby Yoda, and escapes

The easiest way to think of The Witcher’s story, in the first season, is as a series of flashbacks. The “present” time is always Ciri’s storyline, which begins just before the invasion of Cintra by Nilfgaard. Geralt of Rivia’s stories, which take place in the fairly recent past, all lead up to his meeting with Ciri. Ciri: the present (during the invasion by Nilfgaard)Flees from Cintra as Nilfgaard attacks, using her magical powers to defend herself during her escape. Ciri: the present (days afte

Pokémon Go’s January events will include the addition of Shadow Moltres to the game, as well as the return of Legendary Pokémon Heatran. The January Research Breakthrough reward will be Lapras with the moves Ice Shard or Ice Beam. Both Ice Shard and Ice Beam are legacy moves from 2018, and this is the first time they’ve been available since then. Switch out either of these moves for Ice Shard or Ice Beam to satisfy your rare Pokémon collection needs. Special Pokémon wearing party hats will also

Renowned industrial designer and futurist artist Syd Mead has died at age 86 due to complications from lymphoma cancer, Polygon can confirm. Mead is best known as a concept artist on science fiction films like Blade Runner. After working in the motor vehicle industry for some time, Mead worked as a production illustrator on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, on which he famously designed V’ger. In his decades long career, Mead worked on films like Aliens, Mission: Impossible 3, and Blade Runner 2049

Everybody and their mom is pouring over fan theories about Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker this holiday season. But in order to explain fully, we have to talk about the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise. Which brings us to 2018’s Darth Vader #25, in which Darth Vader goes on a sort of spiritual journey to try and bring Padme’s spirit back to the realm of the living. “There was no father,” reads the page, a quote from Shmi in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. It’s part of my job to ensure the stor

But, with this season 1 finale titled “Redemption,” creator Jon Favreau and director Taika Waititi deliver the goods. Taken all together, the eight episode season evokes the feeling of a Hollywood epic and an intimate miniseries at the same time. The finale also manages to set the stage perfectly for season 2, revealing many — but not all — of the mysteries that have perplexed fans for months. In a lore dump that actually makes sense in context, Moff Gideon finally clues us all in to Greef’s tru

Despite disagreements on both sides, Kutaragi designed the console, and a couple hundred prototypes were produced of the Super NES CD-ROM System, colloquially known as the SNES-CD or Nintendo Play Station. After shuttling the console around to gaming conventions for years, Diebold is now ready to part with the Nintendo Play Station. None of the games created specifically for the console prototype have ever been found, but the device is able to play games. Grid View Nintendo Play Station Prototyp

Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red and toy manufacturer McFarlane Toys signed a three-year licensing deal to create Cyberpunk 2077 action figures, and the first wave includes two Keanu Reeves figures. McFarlane Toys is releasing two Johnny Silverhand action figures — that’s Keanu Reeves’ character — in seven-inch and 12-inch figures. Each of the seven-inch figures has 22 points of articulation and will cost $24.99. Grid View Male V figure McFarlane Toys12-inch Johnny Silverhand statue McFar

Fallout 76 has been rocked by yet another major bug that played out just before Christmas. Bethesda has responded on the Fallout 76 subreddit on Dec. 24, with a post entitled “An Update on the Current PC Exploit”. Fallout 76 has had a very unstable December, even by the game’s usual standards. Item dupers are offering legendary armor and weapons to players who have lost their inventory to this Christmas exploit. The next major patch for Fallout 76 is Wastelanders, a major expansion that will bri

Fortnite’s map often experiences chilly weather. Visibility on the map gets reduced so much that you can only see a few feet in front of you. After just a few minutes, the snow relents and the storm disappears, leaving behind the normal Fortnite winter map. As with any surprising, game-wide event in Fortnite, players are already searching for the greater meaning. Regardless, the blizzard is a fun addition to Fortnite, and should lead to some interesting, albeit difficult to see fights.

That’s all fine and good, but when it comes to absolutely terrifying rides, Disney should just call it quits. The parks team already achieved the single scariest experience ever with their 1998 attraction, Dinosaur. During a recent trip earlier this month, I rode it again and can confirm: it is still the scariest ride in all of Walt Disney World. The dark ride opened during the Animal Kingdom launch in ’98 was originally entitled Countdown to Extinction. Dinosaur is faster than most Disney dark

A whole slew of top-selling indie games are on sale in the Nintendo Switch eShop. The sale, which includes 12 games, began on Dec. 25 and continues until Dec. 28 at 11:59 pm PT. Cuphead, Slay the Spire, and Baba Is You are some of the games headlining the sale. Games like My Time at Portia, Dragon Quest 2, and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle are on sale right now, too, among plenty others. A ton of games are available for under $5.

The Pokémon Company is bringing the franchise to Facebook with two new games: Pokémon Tower Battle and Pokémon Medallion Battle, both of which are available now (depending on where you live). Pokémon Tower Battle, developed by Bombay Play, is available to play now worldwide. Described as a “unique take on the Pokémon franchise,” the game tasks players with stacking Pokémon against other Pokémon to create the tallest tower. Pokémon Medallion Battle, a “digital card battle strategy game” developed

Action-platformer Dead Cells has been updated yet again by developers Motion Twin and Evil Empire, adding new gameplay elements and tweaking others. But if you’re the type of Dead Cells player that resists change (or is simply nostalgic for the early days of Dead Cells), the developers have a nice surprise for you: The Legacy Update. The Legacy Update will make every previous “major iteration” of Dead Cells available to play, if you’d like to revisit an older build of the game. “The Legacy Updat

In Destiny 2’s Season of Dawn, players fought to save the legendary Titan, Saint-14, from the clutches of time. But players discovered that something very silly happens if you walk up to Saint-14 wearing a certain piece of gear. Saint-14 is best known for his helmet, the Exotic Helm of Saint-14, that players started using back in the original Destiny. If you stand next to Saint-14 wearing the Helm of Saint-14, he’ll laugh at you and say “you look like me, let’s confuse Zavala like this.” The mom

The sheer number of podcasts being made right now, it can be hard figuring out where to start. To make things easy, we’ve chronologically catalogued the best podcast releases of 2019 — based on their first episode — so you can check out the best of the best based on timeliness. Polygon Essentials is a collection of persistently updated lists of the best of the best games for each platform — from the hardware’s launch to its end of production — as well as the best entertainment across virtually e

Last week Microsoft made available the last two titles in 2019’s Games with Gold lineup, closing out the year with another 46 offered to Xbox Live Gold subscribers. All Xbox 360 games in Games With Gold are compatible with Xbox One. Gears of War 4 is a good get, but it’s also Microsoft-published and available in the Xbox Game Pass library, meaning Microsoft gave up very little in this bargain. Not only is Friday the 13th a bad game (Metacritic 53), a lawsuit forced it to cancel all plans for DLC

You have less than a week left to claim the last two games PlayStation Plus is offering to subscribers in the ninth year of its Instant Game Collection. What publisher did PlayStation Plus use the most? However, these figures don’t really compare well in light of the fact PlayStation Plus dropped support for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita after February 2018. In all, it was a very strong, very well balanced year of offerings for PlayStation Plus. Lowest rated PlayStation 4 game: Darkside

Crusader Kings 3 is coming next year, and before Paradox Interactive clocks out for the holidays, developers shared this update on what they’re doing with the grand strategy game. Overall, what you get up to in Crusader Kings 3 will follow you around. If that doesn’t work, the court chaplain can cook up some shit against the counties with a new, deliberate “fabricate claim” action; this sort of thing was random in previous Crusader Kings. Bishops, an uber court chaplain, can emerge as powerful a

Continuing its streak of steady surprises releases, Apple Arcade has one more goodie for its subscribers before the holidays: Lego Builder’s Journey, a more meditative take on the Lego universe. Where most Lego games adapt existing properties into an action romp, Builder’s Journey tries for a more artistic approach. Lego Builder’s Journey is “poetic” puzzle game about “connections,” according to the App Store description. Related Apple Arcade gets a discounted annual subscriptionNotably, Lego Bu