Over the weekend, hundreds of pro players and streamers were invited to partake in a secret alpha playtest for VALORANT, Riot’s upcoming tactical shooter. On Monday, the company revealed the closed beta for players in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Russia, and Turkey. But before the beta kicks off, a number of streamers who took part in the playtest will be handing out beta keys for the lucky viewers who watch their streams on Friday, April 3.

A Reddit user showcased what a VALORANT anime opening would look like by animating various agents with their own cutscenes.  VALORANT has drawn inspiration from anime in the past with their skin line VALORANT GO!, which took several agents and turned them into a more anime style for their own weapon skins. There were even chibi gun buddies made of the agents, furthering the inspiration from Japanese culture.  Working on a little fanmade anime opening for VALORANT 🙂 Hope everyone enjoys 😀 from VALORANT Now, Reddit user emikoyaki has taken that inspiration to another level by creating an anime opening featuring several of the agents.

Let’s hear it for the Ghost. Although by no means the most powerful gun in VALORANT, it’s low-cost, highly efficient, and gets the job done to secure those all-important early-round leads.  If you enjoy the Ghost and are looking for something a little fancier than the base skin, you have a wide array of options to choose from to spice up your sidearm. And even better, a lot of the Ghost’s skins are available for free through completing agent contracts.

Popular League of Legends streamer Michael “imaqtpie” Santana commented on the current state of AD carry and explained how farm-dependent the role has become during a Twitch live stream today.  At 13 minutes into the game, imaqtpie, playing as Twitch, took the tier-one tower in bot lane while his mid laner and jungler pushed the enemy team’s mid lane inhibitor. And while doing so, he had a few comments on his role as an AD main.

It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t know Pikachu, a cute and round yellow Pokémon. But for Americans, things almost went differently. The Pokémon Company president Tsunekazu Ishihara revealed in a recent interview, translated by Dr. Lava in collaboration with Did You Know Gaming?, that Pikachu could have looked different from what fans of the franchise know and love today.  Nintendo had to translate Red and Blue, the American version of Pokémon Green, to Western consumers, including the designs and names of all 150 first-generation Pokémon, so players could relate better with the game.

In simple terms, VTuber is just a combined term for a digital YouTuber or a creator who uses a digital avatar of some kind to take the place of a normal webcam when they go live in front of their viewers.  VTubers aren’t new, but especially in the Western media market, more and more content creators are slowly starting to create their own digital characters and personas to try to hop onto the rapidly expanding type of entertainment.

Fortnite’s newest season launched on March 20 and brought changes to fundamental parts of the game. One of the most significant is the temporary removal of the build mode that’s become a core mechanic in Fortnite. The reason for the removal of the ability is a result of the Imagined Order’s invasion of the island. However, while the Seven work to return the feature, players will need to learn how to fight without it.

Earlier this week, Windows 11 began rolling out to users in some regions of the globe. While some could manually install it themselves, there were issues caused by the new operating system’s minimum requirements. Systems that want to upgrade to Windows 11 would need TPM 2.0 support, a component that improves the overall security of a system running the new Windows OS. But many modern PCs still lack the TPM 2.

Summit1g used his stream yesterday to apologize for comments made by his girlfriend, streamer LilChiipmunk, regarding fellow streamer Sweet Anita. After seeing a clip from Sweet Anita’s stream earlier this week, LilChiipmunk expressed her displeasure with Twitch allowing Anita, who has Tourette’s syndrome, to stream after a clip arose of her saying the n-word on her channel.  The since-deleted tweet by LilChiipmunk said that by allowing Anita to stream, Twitch as a platform is “promoting this hatred.

From going through a fulfilling store mode to becoming the general manager of your own club, NBA 2K21 has it all when it comes to engaging game modes. Regardless of how fun they can be, the main focus of each NBA 2K title tends to be the MyPLAYER experience. Creating your own player and hitting the city or neighborhood makes NBA 2K21 a lot more like real life. Going up against random players and making it clear you’re the best player in your neighborhood may be enough of a motivation for most of the player base, but each game requires some type of achievement to make the whole experience more engaging.