Star Wars is once again descending on Fortnite. This time, it’s through the Star Wars-themed Galactic Battle, a new Battle Royale season that starts May 2nd and features Darth Jar Jar and the debut of Force Lightning, a new in-game ability. The news was appropriately revealed at Star Wars Celebration in Japan. As with most Fortnite seasons, this one had been heavily rumored in the runup.For the uninitiated, Darth Jar Jar is a goofy fan theory that holds that Jar Jar Binks was secretly a Force user and possibly the real villain of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Ahmed Best, the voice of Jar Jar Binks since Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, said on stage at the event that he improvised some Darth Jar Jar lines for the portrayal. When asked to list any of his favorites, he said, “‘I am the phantom menace’ was totally [improvised],” adding that the line was something he’s “been meaning to say for over 20 years.” Galactic Battle will include X-Wings and TIE Fighters that players can pilot, themed maps, and “all-new Item Shop offerings including Mace Windu.” Players will also be able to buy put their hard-earned Fortnite V-Bucks towards a Star Wars-themed Battle Pass with characters like Emperor Palpatine and Wookiee Cuddle Team Leader. Galactic Battle will play out over five weeks with different themes leading up to a narrative live event. Here’s the schedule, from StarWars.com:Imperial Takeover – May 2, 2025The Pull of the Force – May 8, 2025Mandalorian Rising – May 22, 2025Star Destroyer Bombardment – May 29, 2025Death Star Sabotage – June 7, 2025Of course, this is far from the first collaboration between the two pop culture behemoths. There have been Star Wars skins in the game dating back to 2019, and last year Star Wars elements spread throughout the entire Fortnite ecosystem, including its Lego and rhythm game spinoffs.Fortnite’s current season has a heist theme, and has featured celebrity cameos from the likes of Shohei Ohtani and Sabrina Carpenter.

Though the larger Star Wars franchise has seen better days, Disney Plus’ Visions animated series has been consistently excellent for the past two seasons, and the creative teams behind its next chapter make it sound like it’s going to be another knockout. The anthology series will see three storylines from previous episodes continue in this third volume — not only that, but Visions Volume 1 episode “The Ninth Jedi” is getting its own spinoff series, under a new Star Wars: Visions Presents label.Star Wars: Visions Volume Three is set to premiere on October 29th, 2025, Disney and Lucasfilm announced as part of Star Wars Celebration in Japan. Visions executive producer James Waugh said during a panel at the event that the show’s third season will have nine episodes, three of which will continue the storylines from popular Volume 1 episodes “The Duel,” “The Village Bride,” and “The Ninth Jedi,” reports The Hollywood Reporter. The third volume will be followed up in 2026 with Star Wars: Visions Presents — The Ninth Jedi. “The Ninth Jedi” story showed lightsabers that derive their color from the wielder’s alignment with the Force — red is bad; blue is good. Kenji Kaniyama, who wrote and directed “The Ninth Jedi” will serve as supervising director for the spinoff. According to THR, that’s just the start; more Visions Presents spinoffs are planned, giving storytellers a chance to tell longer, deeper stories than the anthology approach has allowed, so far.Like the first season, Volume 3’s stories are produced by different Japanese creative teams. Studios Kamikaze Douga, Kinema Citrus Co., Production IG, and Trigger are all returning to Visions. But we can also expect to see fresh takes on the Star Wars universe from newcomers Anima, David Production, Polygon Pictures, Project Studio Q, and WIT Studio.Waugh and filmmakers working on Volume 3 episodes talked about what’s coming and showed off character designs and artwork. THR described, for instance, an AT-AT — the gigantic, four-legged walkers armed with lasers that first showed up in The Empire Strikes Back — with a Japanese building on top.Masaki Tachibana from the anime studio Kinema Citrus previewed an “especially kawaii” episode called “Yuko’s Treasure,” according to THR, while Hiroyasu Kobayashi of Project Studio Q discussed an X-Wing-focused episode called “The Song of Four Wings.” ”We’re a studio that specializes in the creation of mechanisms,“ Kobayashi said, ”so we really focussed on the essence of the old Joe Johnston designs and featured a lot of droids and mechs.“

I used to think I was a pro Notion user. I had my workspaces set up, my pages linked, and I felt like I was getting the job done. But then I stumbled upon a few lesser-known features, and it completely changed how I interact with Notion. These aren't your basic blocks and templates; these are the little tweaks and functionalities that can seriously elevate your organization and efficiency.

With plenty of documentation, thousands of container images, and a solid ecosystem, Docker is the most popular container runtime in the home lab community. That said, it’s far from the only platform you can power your container fleet with. For folks who prefer better security and Kubernetes-like pods, you can’t go wrong with the rootless, daemonless Podman.

Sometimes it can get stressful when it comes to managing your data, which is why it's always a good idea to have a simple and reliable way to back up your files without spending a ton of money. While cloud storage is an option, we think local storage is a better solution, which is where this Samsung T5 Evo portable SSD comes into play.

On a surface level, Steam Deck and its SteamOS 3 may not appear to truly offer anything better than gaming on Windows. When considering issues like anti-cheat compatibility and the existence of higher-end Windows-based gaming handhelds like the Asus ROG Ally, does the Steam Deck have anything to offer over its competitors? It turns out that there are several reasons I prefer SteamOS 3 to my Windows installation on my gaming PC, and these boil down to the following gaming-centric features.

It’s wild to say this, but Assassin’s Creed Shadows might just be the most hopeful I’ve felt about the series in almost a decade. After so many bloated diet-RPGs that felt more like chores than adventures, Shadows somehow managed to stick the landing. It’s not perfect — far from it — but in some ways, that’s exactly why it hit me harder. It’s a game that finally feels like it's trying again.

A while back, I wanted a smarter way to manage all the gadgets around my home without shelling out for expensive hubs or closed ecosystems. I had a Raspberry Pi 5 sitting around, and after some research, I decided to install Home Assistant on it. Since then, it’s become the brain of my smart home — automating lights, monitoring sensors, controlling smart plugs, and even keeping tabs on energy use.

Henk Rogers at the Tetris movie premiere at SXSW in 2023. | Photo: Rick Kern / FilmMagic<br>When Henk Rogers first read the script for the Tetris movie, he was shocked. “There was so much Hollywood in the movie,” he tells The Verge. “It just drove me nuts.” The film largely follows a pivotal period in Rogers’ life, when he traveled to the Soviet Union to navigate the complex rights issues for Tetris to bring it to platforms like the Game Boy. There, he connected with game’s creator Alexey Pajitnov, with whom he eventually formed a lifelong friendship, and turned Tetris into a global phenomenon.The movie turned this experience into something resembling a high-stakes spy thriller — and while Rogers ended up loving the final product, that initial experience inspired him to tell the story of what really happened. “While reading the script I said, ‘I have to set the record straight,’” he says.That story now exists in the form of the book The Perfect Game. While Rogers originally sat down to write about the events that transpired in the movie, he soon realized the story was much bigger than that. “I started writing it, and somebody looked at it and said, ‘That could be a book, it’s just not big enough,’” he explains. “I didn’t want to re &hellip;Read the full story at The Verge.

There are many different ways to take a screenshot on every OS, but third-party screenshot applications have never been more popular. The stock Snipping Tool and Screenshot tools on Windows and macOS, respectively, are functional, but sometimes you need something a little extra. Two of the most popular options for third-party screen capture are ShareX and Flameshot, and while the former is lauded for being feature-rich, Flameshot is probably a better choice for most users, and here are 4 reasons why.

Amazon's Echo hardware served my household well enough over the years, but it's time for us to part ways. I'm removing Amazon's assistant from the home and replacing it with better speakers, more intuitive audio commands and processing, and full integration by putting Home Assistant front and center. Home Assistant is a completely free and open-source platform that will control everything within our home, including lights, audio, plugs, and all other smart equipment.

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 79, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, RIP your free time, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve been reading about dire wolves and Neuralink and the history of the Xbox, watching The Last of Us and Your Friends and Neighbors, underlining a lot of things in Graydon Carter’s book about magazines, setting up a Brick to see if it’ll help me manage screen time, refining macrodata in Rift, and writing down a million tips from this Reddit thread about internet life hacks.I also have for you the game that will both improve and take over your life, a new season of a favorite show, an AirTag competitor worth checking out, a fun new organizer for your desk, and much more. We were off last week, and I missed you all terribly. Let’s get back into it.(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into right now? What should everyone else be playing / watching / baking / eating / listening to / downloading this week? Tell me everything: [email protected]. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installe &hellip;Read the full story at The Verge.