Tag: tales
Start Exploring The Long Dark: Tales from the Far Territory on Xbox Today
Therese Poletti’s Tech Tales: In Silicon Valley, a boom era feels like it’s ending
Return of the Jedi’s Anniversary Anthology Collection Will Tell Tales of Wicket, Sarlaccs, Palpatine, and More
Like A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back’s 40th anniversaries before it, Return of the Jedi is celebrating its landmark year in style with its own From a Certain Point of View collection—and the authors include some familiar Star Wars faces, some new ones, and perhaps of most interest to us, a co-founder of io9!
Minecraft 1.20 Update is now the Trails & Tales Update
The Trails & Tales Update will be released to Minecraft players later this year, Mojang has announced.
Previously known as Update 1.20, it is about “self-expression through representation, storytelling, and world-building.”
You can already try out the Trails & Tales features in Bedrock betas, previews, and Java Snapshots. You can sniff for seeds with the sniffer, trim your armor, perform archeology, run around in the cherry blossom biome, ride a camel, hang signs, organize your bookshelf, use bamboo to craft, and more.
Minecraft 1.20 Update Titled Trails and Tales, Gives Us Camels
Minecraft’s Camel-Filled Update Finally Has A Name: Trails And Tales
After announcing a game-changing update was headed our way late last year, Mojang has finally revealed the name of the new 1.20 update for its survival game Minecraft. The upcoming update will now be called Trails and Tales.
Per Minecraft tradition, the content Trails and Tales adds to the game will be themed around the name, similarly to how the Caves and Cliffs update introduced new aquatics and caves for players to explore. The 1.20 update aims to do the same by telling “unique stories” and having players “riding towards the horizon on a camel.”
According to the official Minecraft blog, the Trails and Tales has no release date, but is scheduled to arrive “later this year.” The blog explains that the new update is meant to encourage players to go out and explore so that they can come up with their own stories as they encounter mobs and mine materials.
Minecraft 1.20 now has a name: the Trails & Tales Update
We already know all the major features of the Minecraft 1.20 update, including the audience-voted Sniffer mob, plus cherry blossom biome and archaeology activities. We didn’t previously know its name, though: the Trails & Tales update.
Minecraft Update 1.20 Gets a Title: The Trails and Tales Update
Magic: The Gathering Lord of the Rings Tales of Middle-earth Cards Are Up for Preorder
Here’s some good news for any crossover fans of both Magic: The Gathering and The Lord of the Rings. A new LotR-themed MTG card set is up for preorder. It’s called The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, and you can preorder the cards in a number of configurations, including Commander decks, set boosters, jumpstart boosters, collector boosters, and more (see on Amazon). They’re all set to release June 23. There’s a lot to cover, so let’s take a look at what’s available.
Collector Booster Packs – MTG Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth
Collector Booster packs are pricy, but they come with the best cards of any packs. Each Collector Booster pack includes 15 cards, with 5-7 Rare or higher rarity cards, plus 8-10 Foils.
Set Booster Packs – MTG Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth
Set Booster packs are meant to be fun to open, with a wider variety of cards on offer. Each Set Booster pack comes with 12 cards, including 1 Foil and 1 Art card. These packs also include between 1 and 4 cards of Rare or higher rarity.
Draft Booster Packs – MTG Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth
Draft Booster packs are designed for people who want to play a match with new cards quickly. The idea is that everyone opens 3 packs and passes them around to draft cards for a deck. Then you add some Land cards and play. Each Draft Booster pack comes with at least 1 Rare or Mythic Rare card. You also have a one-in-three chance of getting a Traditional Foil card in a pack.
Jumpstart Booster Packs – MTG Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth
Jumpstart Booster packs are particularly cool for people who just want to hop into a game without any fuss. To do so, just open two Jumpstart packs, shuffle them together, and you have an instant randomized deck you can play with. This includes the proper mix of spells, creatures, and lands for a well balanced deck. Each pack contains one thematic Rare card exclusive to these Jumpstart packs, one Rare or Mythic Rare from the main LotR set, and two shiny foil Land cards.
Commander Decks – MTG Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth
Four new Commander decks are also available to preorder. These are meant to be played in multiplayer free-for-all Commander matches. You can buy them individually or in a 4-pack that gives you all of them at once. Also as usual with MTG preorders, the Commander deck box art is not yet available, so you’ll have to use your imagination.
Each Commander Deck comes with a 2-card Collector Booster Sample pack containing 2 special treatment cards from the main LotR set, including 1 Rare or Mythic Rare, plus 1 Traditional Foil.
Starter Kit – MTG Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth
I suspect this Lord of the Rings-themed Magic set will bring in lots of new (and long-lapsed) players. If that’s you, this is the bundle to pick up. It comes with two ready-to-play decks of 60 cards each (including 1 foil Mythic Rare card and 4 Rare cards), a How-to-Play guide, two boxes for deck storage, and codes to unlock both decks to play online in MTG Arena.
Bundles – MTG Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth
These bundles offer an assortment of items from the Lord of the Rings MTG set. You get 8 Set Booster packs, 4 Traditional Foil alternate-art cards, 40 Land cards (including 20 foils), plus a “spindown” life counter, a card storage box, and two reference cards.
The gift edition of the bundle includes the same as the standard one, plus one Collector Booster. The price difference is less than a Collector Booster pack, so you might as well pick up the gift edition if you’re going for a bundle.
If that’s not enough for you, check out the new Magic: The Gathering Commander Master series, which is also available to preorder on Amazon.
Chris Reed is a deals expert and commerce editor for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed or on Mastodon @chrislreed.