Vitamins and Supplements That Should Not Be Mixed

My friends, it finally happened. Just as the prophets foretold, Elden Ring will get an expansion at some point in the hopefully-near future. We don't know much (or, let's be honest, anything) about it just yet, save that it's called Shadow of the Erdtree, but it's hard not to be a little excited about more of our 2022 game of the year.

And hey, just because there's no real info out there doesn't mean we can't speculate wildly. The announcement of the expansion was accompanied by an absolutely massive image, which seemed to include Elden Ring's Miquella riding atop Torrent, the game's trusty steed. If it is Miquella, that raises the question as to whether Shadow of the Erdtree will take place within The Lands Between at all. Might FromSoft pull another Painted World on us, chucking us into some kind of alternate reality?

Much to think about. Plus, of course, it could be that none of that is true at all, and the figure on the horse is Marika, or a cut character named St. Trina, or none of the above. All I know for sure is that it's time to replay Elden Ring.

In a perfect example of tried-and-true FPS ingenuity, please observe as this Overwatch 2 player wins a match by hiding in a bush. In a moment of brilliant improv, Mercy player Gladowl used an emote to lie down in a bush near next to the payload, obscuring them just well enough to hoodwink five enemy players and buy time for their team to return.

Before I fully barreled my way onto the PC hardware scene, I was rather partial to a chiclet keyboard--now hear me out. They were bouncy and felt faster to type on than any standalone keyboard I'd previously had my hands on. Of course, I now understand that past Katie was objectively wrong, and that mechanical keyboards are superior in every way to membrane boards. And yet, as I tapped away on my Razer clicky greens (I know, I've got my flaws), a part of me still pined for the short actuation of a chiclet board.

Bandai Namco and Fromoftware have announced Elden Ring's first expansion is in development. Named Shadow of the Erdtree, the announcement comes with a piece of concept art which I'm going to rampantly speculate on, and not much else. Here's the official blurb: "Rise, Tarnished, and let us walk a new path together. An upcoming expansion for #ELDENRING Shadow of the Erdtree, is currently in development. We hope you look forward to new adventures in the Lands Between".

At its heart, Phantom Brigade is a solo small-scale squad tactics game. You command up to four Gundam-esque mechs in small skirmishes against larger forces. While often outnumbered, you have the huge advantage of knowing what the enemy will be doing in each five-second turn. You plan your actions on a timeline, while projections show you where enemies are moving and who they're targeting, like a more granular take on Into The Breach.

Journalist Kyle Orland is writing an entire book on the history of Minesweeper, which I suspect is a much more fascinating topic than it may at first appear. Minesweeper is one of those games that feels somehow omnipresent now, always there no matter which PC you're on, though its roots are in early '90s Microsoft and specifically the Windows 3.0 era. As part of the book's launch campaign Ars Technica features a chapter about those early days, and one particularly big fan of the game.