Technologies

How to Get Free Marvel Rivals Skins With the College Perks Program in Season 4

Crush your fall classes and style on your Marvel Rivals opponents at the same time. Here’s how the noble pursuit of higher education can net you free skins.

You might be subsisting off ramen noodles and Red Bull, but that doesn’t mean you need to look broke while you’re playing your games. NetEase has introduced Marvel Rivalsperks for college and university students that let them wear some of the coolest in-game costumes for free.

All you need is a valid student email and the know-how to navigate the in-game menus. Linking your NetEase account with your college’s domain is a simple process that doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes. Most US schools should be on NetEase’s list, qualifying their students for the program, but keep reading to see how others can petition for their own skins.

The currently available college perk lets you get free loaner costumes and MVP animations, but there are no details about how the program will evolve in the future. This is a good way to earn some free loot outside of events, Twitch drops and other promotions.

Here’s all the information about how to join NetEase’s college perks program — and what skins you’ll be able to wear throughout Marvel Rivals season 4.

What Marvel Rivals college perks are available right now?

The current Marvel Rivals college perk allows you to link your student email with your NetEase account to temporarily unlock 10 free costumes (and their associated MVP highlights) for use throughout Season 4.

Activating college perks right now will let you use the following skins until the end of the season:

Thor Love and Thunder
Luna Snow Mirae 2099
Spider-Man Spider-Punk 2099
Magik Eldritch Armor
Psylocke Blood Kariudo
Mantis Jade Maiden
Loki Presidential Attire
Mr. Fantastic The Maker
Peni Parker Yatsukahagi
Hela Yami No Karasu

It’s unclear whether additional college perks will be available in the future, though you’ll at least be able to unlock a rotating wardrobe of trial skins through the program during future Marvel Rivals seasonal updates.

How to unlock Marvel Rivals college perks

Accessing the college perks is fairly straightforward and doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes of your time, but it’s tucked away in a menu you probably don’t access all that often. Here’s a step-by-step guide to unlock college perks on your Marvel Rivals account:

Open Marvel Rivals and navigate to the main menu
Click the gear icon at the top right of the screen to open the game’s settings. The gear icon is located near your profile picture and player level.
Click the «community» button in the drop-down menu.
Navigate to the third tab for college perks, then click the «details» button.
Enter your student email address and get a verification code.
Find the verification code in your college email and copy and paste it into the in-game text box beneath your student email.
Click the «verify» button.

That’s all there is to it — once you’re done with this process, you should have access to the Marvel Rivals college perks, and all 10 of the loaner costumes and MVP animations should be available for you to equip.

Detailed guide: Getting free Marvel Rivals skins and MVP animations through college perks

In order to activate Marvel Rivals college perks for your NetEase account, you’ll have to verify that you’re in possession of an active student email address for a supported academic institution.

To begin this process, you need to navigate the same in-game menus that allow you to link your Discord account and become a NetEase Gamer Premium member — you’ve likely poked around here in the past to claim a handful of free units, Marvel Rivals’ premium costume-buying currency.

When you’re in the main menu, click the gear icon at the top right of the screen. It’s one of the buttons next to your account picture and profile level. Then, click the Community button that appears on screen. Navigate to the College Perks tab and click the details button to start verifying your student email.

All you need to do is enter your student email address, request a verification code to be sent to your email and then input that verification code in-game. Voila — just like that, you’ll have access to college perks on your Marvel Rivals account.

If your email doesn’t work, it might be because it isn’t on the list of domains currently supported by the college perks program. You can see which school emails work here (PDF). If you go to school in the US, you shouldn’t have a problem signing up for the program — it’s on the list of countries that have generally accepted academic email domains.

Even still, if you’re having trouble registering and it looks like your college or university is missing from the list, you’re not completely out of luck. NetEase is having the Marvel Rivals support team field requests from students to add more domains to the program.

To send in a support request to get Marvel Rivals college perks for your school, click the customer support link under the in-game settings. If you provide your country, university name and student email domain, NetEase will work to ensure that your school is added to the program. The list of supported colleges and universities is updated weekly, so don’t fret if your verification doesn’t work right away.

If you’re interested in what other free skins you can (permanently) unlock in Marvel Rivals, we have a comprehensive free skin guide too.

Reverify your email to keep college perks

Even if you signed up for the college perks reward system upon its release in season 3, you may have missed a crucial season 4 announcement that revealed that you won’t keep these benefits indefinitely. Instead, to keep the college perks and the new suite of loaner costumes, you’ll need to reverify your student email.

This isn’t especially difficult, though it is rather annoying. In order to re-up your college perks access, you just need to follow the above guide’s steps once again. Still, it’s worth keeping an eye on whether or not you have access to the current perks, because NetEase retains the right to remove them from your account and ask you to reverify your email at any time.

It’s currently unclear whether or not this email reverification process will need to be completed each season, but we’ll have more information during the ramp up to Marvel Rivals season 5. Stay tuned for more information as it comes down the pipeline.

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Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Dec. 25 #662

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Dec. 25, No. 662.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle has a holiday theme, and if you know a certain Christmas carol, you’ll quickly determine which words to hunt down. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Carolers count.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Five golden rings.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

RIMS, HIMS, MARS, CHIME, CHIMES, MADS, DATE, DIAL, WAIL

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

LORDS, MAIDS, SWANS, LADIES, PIPERS, DRUMMERS

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is CHRISTMASDAYS. To find it, look for the C that’s three letters down on the far-left row, and wind across.

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Toughest Strands puzzles

Here are some of the Strands topics I’ve found to be the toughest in recent weeks.

#1: Dated slang, Jan. 21. Maybe you didn’t even use this lingo when it was cool. Toughest word: PHAT.

#2: Thar she blows! Jan.15. I guess marine biologists might ace this one. Toughest word: BALEEN or RIGHT.

#3: Off the hook, Jan. 9. Similar to the Jan. 15 puzzle in that it helps to know a lot about sea creatures. Sorry, Charlie. Toughest word: BIGEYE or SKIPJACK.

Technologies

Judge Blocks Texas App Store Age-Check Law

A preliminary injunction found the Texas law, set to begin Jan. 1, is «more likely than not unconstitutional.»

A new Texas state law set to take effect on Jan. 1 would have required app stores to implement age verification processes. But the law has been put on hold, at least temporarily, by a federal court judge.

As reported by the Texas Tribune, Senate Bill 2420, also known as the Texas App Store Accountability Act, is the subject of a temporary injunction issued by US District Judge Robert Pitman.

Pitman said in his decision that the law as written is broad, vague and «more likely than not unconstitutional.» However, he also wrote the court «recognizes the importance of ongoing efforts to better safeguard children when they are on their devices.»

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The Texas law, signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott in May, requires app store operators — including Apple, Google, Nintendo, Steam and more — to build age verification processes for the storefronts and to only allow downloads to minors who obtain parental consent. The injunction is a ruling in an October lawsuit filed by the Computer & Communication Industry Association.

CCIA senior vice president Stephanie Joyce said in a statement, «This Order stops the Texas App Store Accountability Act from taking effect in order to preserve the First Amendment rights of app stores, app developers, parents, and younger internet users. It also protects parents’ inviolate right to use their own judgment in safeguarding their children online using the myriad tools our members provide.»

Other individuals and the advocacy group Students Engaged in Advancing Texas also filed suits over the law, the Texas Tribune reported.

App Store Accountability Act

The bill author, State Senator Angela Paxton, said the bill was meant to give parents «common sense tools to protect their kids and to survive court challenges by those who may have lesser priorities.»

The language of Texas Senate Bill 2420 does not only include mobile app stores from Apple or Google, but any «website, software application, or other electronic service that distributes software applications from the owner or developer of a software application to the user of a mobile device.»

By that definition, websites with links to browser games or mobile game consoles with download options would fall under the Texas law as written. The law also defines mobile devices as including phones and tablets, as well as any other handheld device capable of transmitting or storing information wirelessly.

The parental consent aspect of the law requires those under 18 to have an app store account affiliated with a parent or guardian to purchase or download applications.

Age verification elsewhere

In an effort to keep adult materials out of reach of minors and to protect children from potentially harmful content and interactions, tech companies have been compelled by law or through legal action to verify the age of users.

Roblox, which has a huge audience of minors, began rolling out stricter age verification after investigations and lawsuits hurt its reputation as a safe gaming space. Australia is perhaps the most large-scale example of a government restricting access to online content. In December, Australia began restricting social media access to those 16 and older. Reddit recently challenged that law.

In the US, age verification laws have primarily targeted adult sites. Texas already has a law on the books that requires adult sites to age-block their content. The Supreme Court upheld that law in a June ruling. The UK has also enacted age restriction rules for adult sites as have other US states.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Thursday, Dec. 25

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Dec. 25.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Of course, there’s a very Christmassy clue involved. And once you solve the entire puzzle, look at the letters used in all the answers and see what they have in common. (5-Across will tell you!) Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.