Technologies

Save $1,000 in League of Legends with Xbox Game Pass

The new partnership with Riot Games starts Monday, Dec. 12.

League of Legends, the wildly popular multiplayer online battle arena, is coming to Xbox Game Pass. It’s a behemoth of a partnership: League has been around since 2009, has spawned an unbelievably successful esports scene and has even turned into a Netflix animated series. And Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is CNET’s pick for the best deal in gaming. This new partnership makes that already great deal even better.

The presence of League (and Riot Games’ other titles, like Valorant and Legends of Runeterra) in Game Pass isn’t a huge deal in itself. League of Legends is free to play, so you don’t save money by getting access to the game through Game Pass. You do, however, get access to every single League of Legends champion for free for as long as you keep your Game Pass subscription.

I did the math: There are currently 162 champions in League. They cost, on average, about $6.50 to unlock. That means you’d save more than $1,000 with Game Pass, compared with paying to unlock each champion individually. For context, that would pay for more than five years of Game Pass Ultimate. You also immediately unlock new champions when they’re released, typically about five times per year.

A few caveats worth mentioning: First, paying for champions isn’t the only way to unlock them — the game lets you unlock champions for free over time. Players can use Blue Essence, which they acquire just by leveling up and earning the first win of the day. There’s also a rotation of 16 free champions to play each week, which lets you sample other champions for a week at a time. So you can unlock the whole roster without paying for champions — just very slowly over time.

Second, Game Pass technically doesn’t grant you ownership of all 162 champions, according to Riot’s FAQ. It unlocks them for play, but the game doesn’t consider you an owner, which means you won’t be able to buy skins for the champions you’ve only unlocked with Xbox Game Pass. You’ll still need to buy the champion if you want to buy skins (using paid Riot Points or free Blue Essence). Champions and other content that you’ve unlocked with Game Pass will have a special indicator as a differentiator from content you own.

That means if you end your Xbox Game Pass subscription, or if the partnership dissolves in the future, you’ll no longer have access to the champions you’ve only unlocked through Game Pass. But champions you own will still be available to you.

Still, this partnership is a steal if you’re new to League of Legends or Valorant, especially if you already have Game Pass. (Valorant agents can also be unlocked for free over time but cost $10 to unlock immediately. Players will save about $140 compared with paying to unlock new agents, not to mention future ones.) You’ll have the ability to try out new champs and agents at will, and still have the ability to permanently «buy» the ones you really like for free, just by playing the game.

You can link your Riot Account to your Xbox profile by going to the Xbox sign-in page and signing in to both your Xbox and Riot accounts. If you already have Game Pass, you should get a notification when you sign in to the game once the content has been unlocked. Riot says this process may take up to 24 hours.

If you aren’t already subscribed, Xbox Game Pass for PC costs $10 per month, and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which combines the console and PC passes and also includes cloud gaming, costs $15 per month.

Technologies

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Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for May 17, #1428

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle No. 1,428 for May 17.

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

Today’s Wordle puzzle isn’t super easy, and there’s only one vowel, so you’ll have to chip away at guessing the consonants. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has no repeated letters.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

There is one vowel in today’s Wordle answer.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with the letter G.

Wordle hint No. 4: Past tense

Today’s Wordle answer is in the past tense.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to being an adult.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is GROWN.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, May 16, No. 1427 was FIFTH.

Recent Wordle answers

May 12, No. 1423: BICEP

May 13, No. 1424: AWARE

May 14, No. 1425: BONGO

May 15, No. 1426: EAGER

Will Wordle run out of words?

When Wordle began, creator Josh Wardle used a list of five-letter words he’d shared with his partner, picking only the words they recognized. While that’s more than 2,000 words, more than half of them have already been used.

Wordle editor Tracy Bennett admitted that the game will eventually have to come to grips with the fact that the word list is not eternal.

«One possibility is that we could recycle old words at some point, like when we get close to the end,» Bennett told a Wordle player on TikTok.

She also said the editors might throw all the words back in and reuse them, or allow plurals, or past tense, something that’s not done now.

Bennett hasn’t commented on it, but it seems possible Wordle could expand to six-letter words, too. Options abound.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for May 17, #440

Here are hints — and all of the answers — for the NYT Strands puzzle No. 440 for May 17.

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 is a fun one. It relies on you knowing a bit about a certain sport. 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: She’s got game.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Caitlin Clark.

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:

SOME, TOME, TOMES, MEET, SEER, TEES, GAMS, GEAR, MAST, TROT, MART, MARTS, RALLY, MALL, RICE, MICE, MAGE

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’ve got 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:

LYNX, DREAM, FEVER, STORM, WINGS, LIBERTY, MERCURY.

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is BASKETBALL. To find it, start with the B that’s four letters to the right on the very bottom row, and wind up.

Quick tips for Strands

#1: To get more clue words, see if you can tweak the words you’ve already found, by adding an «S» or other variants. And if you find a word like WILL, see if other letters are close enough to help you make SILL, or BILL.

#2: Once you get one theme word, look at the puzzle to see if you can spot other related words.

#3: If you’ve been given the letters for a theme word, but can’t figure it out, guess three more clue words, and the puzzle will light up each letter in order, revealing the word.