Pokemon Day brought a flurry of news, including details on Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket, Pokemon Unite, and more

Today is Pokemon Day 2024, and it kicked off with a Pokemon Presents presentation full of news on everyone’s favorite Pocket Monsters.

Tsunekazu Ishihara, the president and CEO of The Pokemon Company, hosted the presentation, and if you missed it, you can watch it below.

Alongside the announcements of Pokemon Legends: Z-A and Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket, we were given news on an event coming to Pokemon Go, information on a new series of Tera Raid Battles for Scarlet and Violet, and something fun for Pokemon Cafe ReMix. Additionally, there were updates about Pokemon Masters EX, Pokemon UNITE, and Pokemon Sleep.

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Pokemon Go to celebrate the release of Pokemon Horizons: The Series with a new event in March

A new event kicks off in Pokemon Go next week to celebrate the release of Pokemon Horizons: The Series in various countries and regions.

The event will also debut a Pokemon new to the game: Gen 9’s Charcadet. Introduced in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, the Paldea region Pokemon is a Fire-type that evolves into two different forms. One is Armarouge, a Fire/Psychic-type, and the other is the Fire/Ghost-type Ceruledge.

To evolve Charcadet into these forms, you will need to make the Pokemon your buddy and battle other Pokemon. To evolve Charcadet into Armarouge, you will need to defeat 30 Psychic-type Pokemon, and the Ceruledge evolution requires you to defeat 30 Ghost-types.

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Princess Peach Showtime is obviously for Nintendo's younger players, but it’s still delightful – hands-on

It’s pretty crazy to think how in the four decades of the Mario series, Peach has only ever been a central playable character on a handful of occasions. In most cases, even when playable, she’s been part of an ensemble, like in party games, Mario 2 USA, or Mario RPG. But in Princess Peach showtime, she takes center stage - literally.

Something of Peach’s showtime adventure calls to mind Yoshi’s Story on N64, in fact. That game had a storybook aesthetic, with the game’s narrative framed as a bedtime story told to restless Yoshis. Showtime’s core conceit is that everything that takes place does so within a theater – as part of a series of plays, something that lives up to an age-old Miyamoto philosophy.

Each ‘level’ the game offers is a different show, which leaves Peach able to change into a variety of costumes and take on a variety of different abilities. This is basically a game about role-play, in the traditional non-gaming sense.

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Good news, angry players, Helldivers 2's farmers don't look to actually be actively aiding enemy factions

Ok, it looks like someone from Arrowhead has finally stepped up to give the Helldivers 2 community an unequivocal answer as to whether people abandoning operations because they’re only interested in farming is actually resulting in losses for Super Earth, hopefully helping end an era of confusion and heresay.

If you’re out of the loop, now that the game’s servers are faring pretty well, a large sect of the game’s community looks to have turned its attention to the issue of some players farming certain missions over and over again in order to reap certain rewards. As we covered yesterday, there’s a lot of confusion around whether this approach could be actively hindering the efforts of other players to take over planets and accomplish the game’s main goals.



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PlayStation announces plans to lay off 900 people, will close London Studio

PlayStation has announced plans to lay off 900 people from its global workforce, as part of a reduction of the company's overall headcount by 8%. Several PlayStation-owned studios - including Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, and Guerilla Games - will be affected, with PlayStation Studios' London Studio set to be closed entirely.

This news is the latest to break in what's been a terrible year for games industry layoffs so far, with Microsoft having laid off 1,900 staff from its video game division in late January, and Until Dawn developer Supermassive Games having joined an ever-growing list of individual studios letting staff go just yesterday.

In a blog post on Sony Interactive Entertainment's website, SIE President & CEO Jim Ryan confirmed: "We have made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan to commence a reduction of our overall headcount globally by about 8% or about 900 people, subject to local law and consultation processes. Employees across the globe, including our studios, are impacted."

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The Nier: Automata anime is finally coming back later this year

After a long wait of no news, it's finally been confirmed that the Nier: Automata anime is finally returning some time this year.



The Nier: Automata anime started last January, adapting the popular RPG into animated form for the first time, later finishing in July. It then wasn't until November that we got confirmation the anime would return at all with a second cour, but there's been dead silence from the anime's official English Twitter since then, and the Japanese Twitter appears to have just been sharing news about… postcards? In any case, there's actually some good news, as it was confirmed yesterday that the second cour of the anime will begin in 2024. You can see in the tweet below that this announcement was paired with 2B in not the most comfortable looking of positions.



Those that have played the game probably have an inkling as to what this particular visual is referencing, but for the presumably three of you that have only watched the anime, I won't spoil anything for you. Outside of that, though, details are incredibly slim. As of right now, the release window really just is any time in 2024, so sorry to those of you that are desperate to watch more of it.


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Tekken 8 has a strong start as its first month sales outpace Tekken 7

It sure is looking like Tekken 8 has a bright future ahead of it, as the fighting game has managed to hit two million copies sold in its first month.



Tekken 8 is the first new mainline entry in the long-running fighting series in about a decade, so it had a lot to live up to. Thankfully, it turned out to be very good, actually, and as it turns out that quality has translated into some strong sales figures too. Earlier today, Bandai Namco announced that the game has managed to sell two million copies since its launch a month ago. "The sale of over 2 million copies in the first month of release greatly outpaces its predecessor, 'Tekken 7,' which is still being played and has the series’ total highest sales record of over 11.8 million copies worldwide," reads a press release on the news.



For context, Tekken 7 only managed to sell two million units more than two years after it launched, so honestly saying that the sequel "greatly outpaces its predecessor" is a bit of an understatement. Why Tekken 8 has sold so much faster than 7 is hard to say, though it will definitely be in part because more people are gaming than ever before, in no small part because of COVID lockdowns. With a start like this, it certainly looks like Tekken 8 is well prepped to overtake 7's lifetime sales records, though we've obviously got a while to go before that happens.


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Switch 2 still isn't confirmed, but here are details on its delay into 2025

While we're still yet to get an official Nintendo Switch 2 reveal, recent reports suggested it's been delayed out of 2024, and the latest word says it's because of hardware shortage concerns.



Earlier this month, it was reported that the still unconfirmed Switch 2 had been delayed internally, pushing it out of 2024, and into Q1 2025. At the time, it was believed that the delay was in part to ensure that the follow-up console had a strong launch line-up that featured as many titles as possible. Now, thanks to a new report from Japanese news publication Nikkei (paywalled, thanks VGC), a bit more light has been shed on the delay. According to Nikkei, "priority was given to ensure the initial inventory of the successor console and a lineup of software titles at the time of its launch," i.e. Nintendo wants to make sure it actually has enough consoles to sell to avoid scalpers reselling them at ridiculous prices.



It's a fair concern to have, both PlayStation and Xbox had severe supply issues with the PS5 and Series X/S respectively for almost their entire first two years, with scalpers selling the PS5 in particular for way above retail price. One thing to note though is that while Nikkei's report claims that Nintendo is aiming for a March release window for the Switch 2, or whatever it ends up being called, it is still possible the console could be delayed further, depending on how manufacturing goes, as well as what software is ready at launch. Meaning, don't expect to have a new console in your hands in just over a year's time - and be cool when all those rumours about supposed Directs and reveals don't pan out as reported.


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Yes, Baldur's Gate 3 mod support will be a thing, please don't be a jerk to Larian in the interim

If you weren’t aware, Larian is currently working on bringing mod support to Baldur's Gate 3, but it seems that - when it comes to mods - it's recently had to deal with some unpleasant behaviour that the game’s developers and community staff shouldn’t have to put up with from a few folks within the community.

Yep, following the reveal late last week that the studio is putting together “a robust, cross-platform plan for [BG3] mod support”, which it hopes to release later this year, Larian’s publishing director, Michael Douse, has had to address how Larian might have to change its approach to comms if folks don’t play nice.

“We’ll be talking in-depth about what our mod support will look like soon. Been working on it since launch,” Douse posted, “As always, we’ll discuss it in our way with our community. Threats & toxicity against our devs & community teams will only harm the conversation. Please stop that.”

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Uh oh, Helldivers 2 players are accusing reward-hungry farmers of "actively sabotaging the entire war effort"

While Helldivers 2 has just enjoyed its first weekend without any major server issues leading to massive log-in queues, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows in Robot Vietnam. The issue of farming is currently causing a big ruckus within the game’s community, although there’s still a lot of confusion as to exactly how or whether it’s affecting campaign efforts.

Yep, now that folks trying to keep their server spots by leaving the game running while AFK are no longer a big problem, there’s a new type of Helldiver earning ire, with this one being the kind that’s just keen to bag as many goodies as possible. That said, it’s still unclear whether folk just running the same kinds of missions repeatedly is actually handing the community as a whole Ls.



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The problem with Xbox is that you don’t need an Xbox, and that's a hard circle to square

This week The Shiitake Show asks: what's the point of Xbox? That's not us being sarcastic or snide. It's a question that everyone in the industry, not least Microsoft themselves, needs to find an answer to. A conflicted, convoluted vision for the platform has left it struggling for an identity at the dawn of a future it is trying to forge for us all, one where the console itself no longer matters. And yet, Xbox still needs us to buy Xboxes. It's a tricky position to be in, compounded by the perception that Xbox doesn't have any compelling exclusives. Watch below.



That’s not to say the Series X and S aren’t fine machines. They absolutely are – yes, even the “underpowered” and much maligned Series S, which I’ve been a big advocate for in the past and will continue to be because, in a nutshell, it’s the most bang-per-buck deal in gaming. A lot of people pointed to the Baldur’s Gate 3 fiasco as a big indicator that the Series S was Bad Actually. As things stand right now, the plucky machine is by a considerable margin the cheapest place to play Baldur’s Gate 3. And Cyberpunk 2077. And Starfield. And every existing or future current-gen only game, excluding PS5 exclusives and the odd rarity that never makes it off PC. For a box that costs half as much as a decent low-mid range GPU, that’s incredible.



But if you already have a halfway decent GPU sitting inside a halfway decent PC, you simply don’t need an Xbox. Not even the cheap one, such is the business model of Xbox Everywhere. PC Game Pass essentially delivers the entire Xbox experience as a handy little Windows app. Hell, you don’t even need a proper PC: if you own a Steam Deck and have ten minutes of free time, you can get Game Pass running via Xcloud, and very nicely too. Microsoft provides an official guide for the procedure. It even includes bespoke artwork.


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Uh oh, Marcus Lehto has reportedly left the Battlefield studio he founded with EA

In another knock for Battlefield, Marcus Lehto has reportedly left the very studio he founded to lead the shooter franchise.



Earlier this week, various social media users noticed that Lehto had seemingly scrubbed all mention of Battlefield and EA from his Twitter bio, leading some to suspect that he was no longer with Ridgeline Games. VGC has since been able to verify that a post was shared to Lehto's Facebook account this weekend where he confirmed that he has left EA, though no reason was provided as to why this might be the case. Lehto, co-creator of the Halo series during his time at Bungie, was a founder of Ridgeline Games, a studio setup under EA specifically to work on the Battlefield series.



At the time of its announcement, Lehto said that it "is a great honor to have the opportunity to collaborate with DICE and Ripple Effect and lead the charge on expanding the narrative, storytelling, and character development opportunities in the Battlefield series." Last February it was announced that another team was being set up just to support Ridgeline in its development of a single-player campaign of Battlefield. With Lehto seemingly having left EA, the status of Ridgeline's Battlefield game is obviously a bit in the air, but there doesn't currently seem to be any kind of indication that it has been cancelled.


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Naruto's live-action movie bags a Marvel director, but there's still no reason to be excited about it

Believe it or not, the live-action film adaptation of Naruto presses onwards, having now attached a director to the upcoming movie.



While a Naruto movie has been in the works as far back as 2015, not much headway has been made on it until last year, when it was confirmed that Tasha Huo (Red Sonja) is attached to the film as a screenwriter. Now, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter, it appears the film has a director in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' Destin Daniel Cretton. Obviously this is quite a big development for a project that's been in development for so long, and certainly makes it seem like we'll actually see the film within the next few years.



Creator of the original manga Masashi Kishimoto actually shared a statement on the announcement, saying, "When I heard of Destin’s attachment, it happened to be right after watching a blockbuster action film of his, and I thought he would be the perfect director for Naruto," Kishimoto said. "After enjoying his other films and understanding that his forte is in creating solid dramas about people, I became convinced that there is no other director for Naturo. In actually meeting Destin, I also found him to be an open-minded director who was willing to embrace my input, and felt strongly that we would be able to cooperate together in the production process."


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Seven years after Nier: Automata, it looks like Yoko Taro might be teasing a sequel

After a long wait for a full-on sequel to Nier: Automata, it seems that the series' director Yoko Taro might have recently teased a third entry.



It's been seven years since Nier: Automata was released, and outside of the 2021 mobile game Nier Reincarnation (which is Nier 3 if we're being honest), we haven't heard any news of a console-release sequel. But, earlier this month the Nier orchestra concert made an appearance in London, where according to fans that attended the event, Taro made an appearance and appeared to tease a new entry. As shared in a comment from Resetera user SanTheSly discussing the fact that Automata has sold eight million units, at the end of the performance Taro took to the stage and "told the audience that the Square Enix president was in the crowd and that if we wanted an Automata sequel to give the loudest applause of the night. The room immediately erupted into claps, cheers and yells."



Of course, this could just be a way of Taro trying to convince Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu to greenlight a sequel, but there was a bit more to the concert that pointed towards a sequel. Apparently during a story segment in the orchestra, the word "repent" was "shown repeatedly as part of some dialogue. The final instance was spelled as R3PENT." With Automata hitting eight million copies sold, a strong figure considering Final Fantasy 15 only managed a couple million more in roughly the same time frame, a sequel wouldn't be particularly unsurprising.


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Two years on, it turns out Elden Ring still has one small secret yet to be discovered

Elden Ring is a game chock full of secrets, and it turns out that there might be at least one more left to find.



It might have been released over two years ago, but I feel like I'm still getting over just how much there is to discover in Elden Ring. I know for a fact I haven't completed every storyline there is to experience, though I thought that thanks to cultural osmosis I generally had a strong idea of most of what the game had to offer. Yet, as shared in an interview with IGN, Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki has said that there's still one thing in the game he hasn't seen any player discover just yet. "For me personally, there is a small element that I feel has not yet been discovered," Miyazaki said.



"So, whether that’s up to user interpretation or up to just further investigation and playing, that’s something I’m looking forward to." Thankfully, though, he doesn't think it's the kind of thing that will go unfound forever, as he did add "I think it’s a question of when and not if, but there may be something small still missing." Unsurprisingly, in typical Souslike fashion, Miyazaki left it at that cryptic comment, not pointing towards any kind of direction players might want to look towards.


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Stay tuned - more 2XKO updates are set to come "over the coming weeks"

2XKO is due to have various information updates "over the coming weeks", according to 2XKO editor in chief Ben Forbes. The current topics of these community-facing updates is currently unclear, but those interested in Riot Games' upcoming fighting game are being encouraged to reach out with questions via 2XKO's newly revealed social media channels.


This comes mere days after the game had it's official name reveal, where we not only left Project L behind but learned that at-home testing is planned for this year. After years of occasional updates, it appears that the output of information about 2XKO is picking up major momentum.


Topics raised and acknoledged include monetization, which stands out as somewhat of a key topic right now given Tekken 8's recent implimentation of a in-game store. 2XKO will be free-to-play, so the question of how exactly the game will fund itself has remained a big question mark hanging over the game. Other Riot games like Valorant keep the cash rolling in with pricey but lush looking cosmetics. We know 2XKO will have chroma skins (recolours of fighter models), and the characters themselves have years-worth of League of Legends skins to pull through for inspiration.


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New Star GP preview - A V12 roar-infused F1 racer riding the racing line between arcade and sim

“We tried to make something that we were going to enjoy,” New Star Games Design Director John Dennis says of New Star GP - the F1-style racing game from the studio behind the likes of Retro Bowl and New Star Manager that’s finally set to emerge from Early Access via a full release on March 7.

He goes on to outline that the studio’s original vision for its racer arced a little more towards the arcadey end of the great arcade-sim spectrum all modern racing games seem to sit somewhere on.

While New Star GP was always planned to have some more sim-style aspects to it, such as tyre wear, a lot of the extra features that have a similar effect on the experience to that one have been added to the game based on feedback from players who’ve been jumping into the early access and beta versions of it since August last year. For example, an entire new difficulty setting, Pro Mode, has been dropped in alongside the default difficulty setting the game started off with, in order to offer some extra realism and challenge for those who fancy it.

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Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown players can look forward to new content in the future

Ubisoft has announced new content updates are coming to Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.

News of additional content coming to the game was shared by its director Mounir Radi, who thanked players for “all the love" shown to The Lost Crown since its release earlier this year.

According to Radi, players can expect a free update soon, but what it entails wasn’t shared. In the meantime, Radi said players should visit Artaban to train a bit more and also try to beat the game in Immortal mode (thanks, Nintendo Life).

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Mortal Kombat 1 players on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S can enjoy crossplay with next week's patch

NetherRealm Studios has announced crossplay will come to Mortal Kombat 1 with next week’s patch.

The feature will be supported between PC (Epic Games Store, Steam), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. The studio said that more details on the feature will be shared early next week.

Included in the update, as you know, is John Cena's Peacemaker, available through early access on February 28 for those who purchased the Kombat Pack. The pack is also included with Premium Edition and Kollector's Edition.

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Warner Bros. disappointed with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League for falling short of expectations

Warner Bros. Discovery has published its fourth-quarter and full-year 2023 results, noting that its latest game release, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, has failed to meet company expectations.

Because of this, according to Warner’s chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels, it has set the company’s Q1 2024 games business up for a “tough year-over-year.” Highlighting the same period in 2023 when Hogwarts Legacy was released, Wiedenfels said the wizarding action RPG had a “very positive financial impact” on Warner’s first quarter (thanks, Seeking Alpha).

“A couple of items to consider for the Studios segment during the coming quarter. We are lapping the release of Hogwarts Legacy in February last year, which saw the largest portion of its very positive financial impact in the first quarter,” said Wiedenfels.

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Helldivers 2 showed me how badly live service gamification has broken my brain

I didn't realize how badly live services had altered my enjoyment of games until I really sat down with Helldivers 2. It hit me when I noticed neither the basic assault rifle or SMG had a progression bar attached to them. How would I be able to show off my dedication to my favourite gun without it? Wait a minute, when did I become so dependent on shiny lights and ticky boxes?


On paper, Helldivers 2 is everything I've wanted from a multiplayer shooter for years! It's stripped out all the unnecessary BS that you see spread around in live service games these days. No needy progression trackers, no lengthy grind to unlock all the weapons and equipment I want. No crafting - thank god. There are battle passes, but they don't expire. Helldivers 2 has no artificial FOMO, which is ironic, as literally thousands of people are suffering from good ol' fashioned organic FOMO thanks to oversaturated servers.


Sure, you can log in everyday and complete a daily task, but all you get is a big chunk of XP and some currency you can earn through regular gameplay. It's like someone dug up Helldivers 2 from a 2010s time capsule, but without the drab brown and grey colour scheme that would entail. Compare that to another game I play daily: Honkai Star Rail. Now look, I'm as big a fan of anime slot machines as the next guy, and Star Rail is one of the best. But with the current story content finished, I'm logging into Star Rail to wrap up dailies, use up my resources, and fill up a battle pass. On the other hand, I'm sat in the Helldivers 2 queue every time because Super Earth needs me to fight off Automatons, y'know?


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Good news, Baldur's Gate 3 is set to get "robust, cross-platform" official mod support this year

If you like the idea of playing Baldur's Gate 3 with mods - and why wouldn’t you, even if they can currently sometimes be a source of post-patch issues - then you’ll probably be glad to hear that Larian’s currently working on “a robust, cross-platform plan for [BG3] mod support” that it hopes to release later this year.

Yup, no matter whether you’re in the mood for some fresh character classes or a bit of extra companion chatter, mods have been delivering that for plenty of PC players since the game came out, but it looks like Larian could well be planning to let console players in on the fun in some fashion. The studio’s also continuing to whack the minor in-game issues that’ve popped up for some players following the arrival of Patch 6.

In a tweet following the deployment of Hotfix 19, Larian’s publishing director, Michael Douse, wrote: “We generally don’t talk about things [until] they’re ready, but as you may have read, we’re making an exception. We’ve been working on a robust, cross-platform plan for mod support to be released later in [the] year. We love our modding community and we want to support them. It’s coming.”

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The Sims 4 Crystal Creations Stuff Pack will allow your Sim to unleash their inner jeweler and mystic

EA and Maxis have announced the newest Stuff Pack for The Sims 4, which will find you creating jewelry and charging crystals in the moonlight to add varied properties.

Releasing February 29, Crystal Creations features the Gemology Skill. Once learned, the skill will allow you to collect different crystals and metals to create jewelry and other creations that can affect Sims’ moods, relationships, careers, and more.

You can collect crystals and cut them beautifully to display or charge these crystals in the moonlight to uncover unique properties. From designing engagement rings or custom jewelry to producing unique collectibles, there are 1,000 ways to create bejeweled items to sell for Simoleons.

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Skull and Bones sets sail for Season One: Raging Tides on February 27

The first season of Skull and Bones kicks off on February 27 and will run for 12 weeks, as will the others, during which you can expect plenty of opportunities for high-sea pirate shenanigans.

Titled Raging Tides, Season One introduces Legendary Pirate Battles, the first of which is Philippe La Peste. As the season's main villain, La Peste will send his ships to attack, and each run-in with his fleet will increase in difficulty, culminating in a boss fight with La Peste at the season’s end.

During your Indian Ocean adventure, you will run into sea monsters. Season One features the Tylosaurus, a predatory marine reptile from the Late Cretaceous. How it survived into the golden age of piracy is anyone’s guess, but here we are.

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Casey Edwards - composer on DMC5's banger soundtrack - is working on 2XKO's soundtrack

It's a massive news day for 2XKO! Not only have we finally found out the fighting game's proper name, the team working on the game's soundtrack has also been revealed. One name in particular from the list may catch your eye...


One Casey Edwards, known for his work on the soundtrack for Devil May Cry 5, is part of the 2XKO OST team. The musician behind such songs as Bury the Light, Devil Trigger and more, his presence on the team was announced on Twitter by audio lead for 2XKO Eugene Kang.


While Edwards being involved is rad news, he's obviously not working alone. Alongside him are a collection of Riot Games composers including Mike Pitman, Richard Thompson, Joe Ford, Jesse Zuretti, Tre Watson, John Scherer, and Tauseef Anam. From the music we've heard in the name announcement trailer, and tracks we heard back in the Evo 2023 demo, it's something to look forward to.


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Peacemaker wants to get naughty with Mileena in his debut Mortal Kombat 1 trailer

Mortal Kombat 1's second guest character is almost here, and it's none other than Peacemaker from The Suicide Squad (2021) and the Max TV series of the same name, complete with John Cena's iconic voice.

The beloved DC character arrives after Invincible's Omni-Man and before The Boys' Homelander. More importantly, his feathery sidekick Eagly and elseworld MK character Janet Cage are with him. The new DLC pack (which is included in the Premium Edition of the game) arrives on February 28 in early access and on March 6 as full release, so we're less than a week away from playing the air guitar over our enemies' bloody remains!

The juicy gameplay trailer has Peacemaker pulling off all the lethal tricks and using all the gadgets you'd expect from him and then some. It also has him trying to flirt with tragically monster-faced Mileena before smacking and shooting the s**t out of her. You know, the usual Mortal Kombat showdowns.

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Last Epoch's big 1.0 launch runs into dreaded server issues, but its devs have a gift for everyone

Last Epoch, the latest ARPG coming for Diablo 4’s crown, officially ended its years-long Steam Early Access journey overnight. The launch has been a success, and the game managed to set new Steam player records, breaking its previous concurrent figures.

Unfortunately, as it’s almost always the case with big launches, server gremlins and other errors have caused a few hiccups for the big night.



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Bad at Elden Ring? Ahead of the DLC, here's some expert advice from streamers who've beaten it in wacky ways

FromSoftware’s games are pretty hard, aren't they?

I think so, even if there are plenty of people who don’t, and I wasn’t even trying to play through Elden Ring using my mind.

“I went in completely blind,” streamer Perrikaryal says of her first time trying the game as a Souls newbie, which was actually with the EEG tech she used to become the first person to finish off a mind control run through it. “I had seen others play it and knew a little bit about the mechanics, but I went straight in for the challenge.”

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Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection comes to Nintendo Switch this year

Following its inclusion in today's Nintendo Direct, we now know Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection is coming to Nintendo Switch on March 14, 2024, and will also hit both PS5 and PS4 on that same date.

The game is a nice jamming together of the first two Star Wars Battlefront games from back in the day, done to celebrate the fact this year marks the 20th anniversary of the series, because what better way to do that than by reminding yourself how funny some of those old character models looked? Although, to be fair, Chewbacca still looks as cool as ever.

As detailed in a PlayStation blog post, featuring up to 64 player online multiplayer across all of the classic modes you'll be used to, as well as some single player goodness in the form of modes like Galactic Conquest and campaigns revolving around key events from the first six films, the collection looks like it'll have something for every old-school Star Wars fan.

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Contra revival Operation Galuga gets a demo and a release date

Contra is back with the upcoming Operation Galuga, and as announced during today's Nintendo Direct, there's a demo coming that lets you try out the game.



First revealed at Nintendo's September Direct last year, Contra: Operation Galuga is a return to the iconic run-and-gun series, offering a reimagining of the classic 80s action game. It comes complete with updated graphics and sound, new stages, enemies, and bosses, as well as some new mechanics, an updated weapon system, and two player co-op in the game's story mode, or up to four players in its arcade mode.



The demo is available today, and the game finally has a release date too: March 12, just a few short weeks away. Pre-orders go live today too, so if you're itching to get your hands on it, you can already set yourself up for success. Outside of the Switch, a release is planned for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC too, so your options are plenty if you're looking to play elsewhere - it should be noted that if the Switch isn't your bag, the demo is available on all other platforms too.



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Desperate to try Unicorn Overlord? Good news, there's a demo, and it's available right now

If you're desperate to get your hands on Unicorn Overlord, there's some great news for you: a demo has just been announced at today's Nintendo Direct!



Unicorn Overlord is due out in just under a couple of weeks, but having such a short time to wait now makes it even harder. Luckily, developer Vanillaware announced today that you'll be able to try out its latest RPG yourself in a brand new demo. The demo is available right now, on Nintendo Switch, and takes place at the start of the game. It's a good chance to get a head-start on the game ahead of its March 4 release date.



If you've not heard of Unicorn Overlord, it's the latest title from Odin Sphere and 13 Sentinels developer Vanillaware, this time offering a strategy game somewhat in the vein of Fire Emblem. It mixes gorgeous looking pixel art with intricately detailed 2D drawings, and sees you playing as the exiled prince Alain as he rounds up an army to reclaim his throne.


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Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree first trailer is finally coming – and it's much sooner than you think

Wake up, Tarnished. It's time to venture back to the Lands Between and uncover the secrets of the Erdtree.


Elden Ring developer FromSoftware – now fully in control of its most recent, ground-breaking IP, by the way – announced tonight (Tuesday, February 20) that it will release the first trailer for Elden Ring’s DLC expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, on Wednesday, February 21 at 3pm UTC (that's 3pm, UK time).

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree’s first official reveal trailer goes live on Bandai Namco and FromSoftware’s YouTube channels at 10a. EST/7am PST/3pm/ GMT/4pm CET. It will be three minutes long, and there will be a 30 minute countdown leading up to it. You can be there will be a lot of people waiting for those final numbers to drop.


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One of my favourite RPGs of all time just turned 21 years old – and it’s as good today as it was in 2003

It introduced one of the most interesting RPG battle systems outside the ‘golden era’ of Final Fantasy games. It had a soundtrack by Shoji Meguro inspired by both rock and metal from the 1980s, and hardcore dance and techno from the 90s. It had a mature, nihilistic story that drew from Gnosticism, Buddhism and other world philosophies. It presented cel-shaded graphics with style and confidence, and committed wholly to a minimalistic art style that has barely aged a day. It was the first Shin Megami Tensei (or MegaTen) game to release in Europe, and it remains one of the best games I’ve ever played.

Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne – or Lucifer’s Call, in Europe – hypnotised me from the second I saw the PS2 case in a rental shop one evening in 2005, when it first made it to these shores. A half-human teen boy, arms crossed in front of him and decked out in body decoration like something from Cyberdog, took the foreground, and Dante (from Devil May Cry, as the memes will have you know) stood behind him. I was hooked. It looked edgy, I’d just got into DMC, and I was really into all that mythological stuff because I was a teenage edgelord. I flopped my fringe out of my face and took the box to the cashier. I’d be back in just a few days to buy it outright.

Nocturne was a revelation. More mature and messed up than any of the other Japanese RPGs I’d played by that point, the game introduced a whole new continent of players to the brooding, gothic aesthetic that had, previously, been exclusive to Japan. This wasn’t your average ‘twink saves the day!’ RPG – it’s dour tone was underscored by a high difficulty ceiling, bosses that acted as skill checks and would mercilessly impede your path unless you learned how to play properly, and dungeons that delighted in your (literal) downfall.

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Swing and a miss: Madame Web is as bad a box office flop as everyone predicted

Yes, just as everyone thought it would, Madame Web is a box office bomb - in fact it's doing so bad that it's set a new record for Sony's Spider-Man films.



That record, you won't be surprised to hear, is not a good one, as the film is actually a record-low debut for Sony's attempt at a connected Spider-Man universe that doesn't have Spider-Man in it. The film only managed to gross $17.6 million in the US in its 3-day opening weekend, for a total of $25.8 million over a six-day period, as reported by Variety - somehow even lower than Morbius, which saw a $39 million domestic debut. Bear in mind, Morbius, much like Madame Web, was critically panned, so this is an even bigger blow for the film, especially one that has attempted to set up more Spider-Man films going forward (even if it does so in the most groan-worthy way possible).



According to sources that spoke with The Hollywood Reporter, the film is doing so badly that Sony likely won't consider another Madame Web movie "for another decade-plus." Personally, I think Sony making a film based on a character that honestly hasn't had that big of an overall presence in Spider-Man's history is the first mistake that was made, not to mention the fact that it is just continuing to make Spider-Man films that don't even have the web-slinger in them. It is such a baffling decision that continues to prove itself as a bad one, and I don't have much faith in the upcoming Kraven the Hunter solo film starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson.


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For its 50th anniversary, Dungeons & Dragons and Lego are... putting bricks in slime?

Look out, lovers of Dungeons & Dragons and Lego, as to celebrate the tabletop game's 50th anniversary, a new set is in the works.



The official Lego Twitter account released a teaser for the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons themed set yesterday, showing a short, honestly slightly ominous trailer of a gelatinous cube containing things like a key, sword, treasure, and even a wand-wielding skeleton. You know, your standard stuff you'd find in a gelatinous cube. "Time to party up," reads an accompanying caption to the short trailer. "We’re oozing with anticipation! Are you ready to build awesome adventures?" There's not much more of a tease than that, but I'm sure there'll be a proper reveal soon enough.



The collaboration actually comes from Lego's Ideas branch, a site that lets users submit their own Lego set ideas, which others can vote on to try to get made. A contest was held by Lego and Wizards of the coast back in 2022 asking Lego creators to come up with a design that will be made into a full set - the winner ended up being a set called Dragon's Keep: Journey's End, which will be just under 3000 pieces in size, a very fun set that features a dragon that wraps around a castle, with various characters attempting to fend it off.


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Helldivers 2 queue times are driving players so out of their minds that they're now squatting servers

Though its numbers may be nowhere near as large as something like Palworld, the popularity of Helldivers 2 somehow appears to be more tangible. The game continues to break its concurrent player record, with the most recent (on Steam) being 411,359 - reached just nine hours ago.

The game has long had server problems, which affected everything from delayed/failed mission rewards, matchmaking headaches, all the way to preventing players from being able to log in at all. It’s no surprise, then, that this continued rise in popularity has caused more troubles.



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Loving Helldivers 2? You need to check out this 90s classic, then

You've probably been seeing a lot of space marines on your timeline recently. That'll be in no small part thanks to the surprising, and slightly overwhelming, success of Helldivers 2, which has certainly adorned my timeline with numerous clips of human on bug-stroke-automaton action. It's a classic case of word-of-mouth, and funny and cool clips propelling it higher than any kind of ad campaign possibly could. Ironically, it's also all over the internet right around the same time that there's discourse (deep sigh) about Starship Troopers. Ironically still, Starship Troopers just so happens to be the perfect film to watch if you're loving Helldivers 2.



If you know the premise of Helldivers, then you pretty much already know the premise of Starship Troopers, but I'll run it down for you anyway. Set in the 23rd century, the Paul Verhoeven directed film follows teenager Johnny Rico and his friends signing up to join the military. This specifically involves going off to fight alien bugs that supposedly want to wipe out the human race, described as both intelligent enough to purposely launch asteroids at Earth from lightyears away, but stupid enough to only live off the instinct to kill and nothing else - the contradictory nature of those two things being very much on purpose, of course.



You see, while the protagonist of the film is the strong-chinned Johnny, he is not what one might call a good guy. He initially signs up to join the military simply because his girlfriend does, he has no real purpose in life, he's just there because that's what his hormones told him to do. A short way into the film his family is culled by the bugs (supposedly), and lo-and-behold, there's his motivation! He hates bugs now and wants to wipe every last one of them out.


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RTS sensation Stormgate devs want you... to invest in its company

Stormgate, the RTS Steam sensation from former Blizzard devs, is looking for you to invest in the company to help fund the game's marketing campaign.



Kickstarter campaigns are kind of a dime a dozen these days, though it is a bit rare to find one that's a big new title from some well-known devs. That doesn't mean fundraising isn't still a thing for some devs, though, as Frost Giant Studios actually did so with Stormgate through a very successful Kickstarter - and now it has just announced its crowd-equity campaign for the game on StartEngine. In a press release, Frost Giant explains that this is in order to "funds to support marketing efforts for Stormgate's upcoming Early Access launch on Steam," which is definitely a little bit odd, but if the needs must.



Where Kickstarter offers things like physical rewards and the like, StartEngine "invites potential investors to 'own a piece of Frost Giant' by investing in the studio, becoming shareholders with a personal stake who can share in the studio’s potential future successes." Yes, essentially you'll become a shareholder at StartEngine and can reap some of the financial benefits, assuming the game continues to be successful when it launches.


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Helldivers 2 weekend patch made defence missions easier, but Suicide, Impossible and Helldive a lot harder

Helldivers 2 just can’t stop growing, and developer Arrowhead Game Studios continues to work diligently in the background to keep up. Part of that work goes to addressing the most common concerns, and it usually takes the form of patches.

The game received several of them already, with the most recent dropping on Saturday, just as Helldivers 2 doubled its all-time concurrent record on Steam - which lead to Arrowhead temporarily capping player totals.



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Palworld devs can't keep up with cheaters, but it's working on a solution

Palworld is slightly struggling with cheaters at the moment, which developer Pocketpair has acknowledged it's failed to deal with so far.



If you're one of the numerous players unable to log in to Palworld at the moment due to server issues, you won't be the only one, as apparently cheaters are making it difficult to play the game across the board. This is something Pocketpair is aware of, and in a recent Steam post it has admitted to the problem, and while it doesn't have a solution just yet, it does have a plan on how to deal with it. "First of all, we plan to release a player list function for servers in an update at the end of February," reads the post.



"Through this, we will strengthen the identification of players who engage in cheating and the suspension of their use by the development team. Following this, we plan to introduce an external anti-cheat solution to take measures against particularly frequent fraudulent activities and cheating… In addition to the above measures, we will continue to take thorough measures against further cheating and fraudulent activities."


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Is Naraka Bladepoint worth playing in 2024? I went to China to find out

When you look down the most-played games on Steam, not a lot’s surprising.

Some competitive Valve games? Cool, fair enough. Palworld? Slightly depressing, but I understand it. GTA 5? It’ll be Trevor and the cockroaches left after nuclear war strikes.

But nestled consistently in the top performers with hundreds of thousands of players every single day is Naraka Bladepoint, a melee-focused battle royale developed by the relative newcomer 24 Entertainment and published by NetEase Games.

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Bandai Namco has apparently cancelled five games, but don't worry, Elden Ring's DLC is still on the way

Oh dear, things don't appear to be doing the best over at Bandai Namco, as the developer and publisher has apparently cancelled five games.



As reported by VGC, Bandai Namco recently shared its latest financial report for the third quarter of this fiscal year. The company reported that it had a 96.5% drop in income, a number so high I don't think you need to be an expert to understand how bad it is. Bandai noted that Dragon Ball and One Piece titles are still stable in Japan and overseas, and Armored Core 6 was "popular," but the drop mostly came from the fact that Elden Ring sold so many copies the previous fiscal year that it wasn't able to be replicated by another title this year.



Because of this, it appears that Bandai has had to cancel some of its titles, sharing that "in the digital business, in addition to valuation losses related to new online game titles and other titles introduced this fiscal year, we recorded a loss on disposal due to a review of title organisation with a view to the next mid-term plan. In the future, we will build an optimal and well-balanced title portfolio, examine our development system carefully, and strengthen development with an emphasis on quality."


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Warframe is making the leap to mobile when it comes to iOS next week

Warframe is expanding its horizons next week, as the free-to-play third-person shooter makes its way to iOS.



It seems that more and more, having some kind of mobile presence is the future for the biggest games out there, with even giants like Elden Ring potentially getting the Genshin Impact treatment. Right now, though, Digital Extremes has announced that Warframe is coming to iOS, and it's not actually very far off its release - you'll be able to play the long-running live service title on iOS devices February 20, now just a couple of days away. As detailed by Digital Extremes in a blog post, this port offers "more than 10 years of Warframe content," in a "faithful mobile format you need to experience to believe."



Important to note is that if you're a longtime Warframe player, and you want to make the jump to mobile, you won't need to start over - Warframe has cross platform save, meaning if you like to play it on say PC and PlayStation, you can switch between the two platforms while retaining your progress. This cross platform save feature is staying with the mobile port too, so you'll be able to play the game pretty much anywhere now (unless you were already playing it on Switch, which kind of let you do that anyway).


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What are you playing this weekend?

Once again the weekend has come, along with a sense of security knowing we can idle through life for a couple of days before reality creeps through the door. It’s a shame it’s so cold out. Otherwise, we’d all plan something for the weekend that didn’t involve being crestfallen and cooped up due to inclement weather. Yet, fear not dear hearts: earlier in the month, news out of the US claimed we will soon kick frigid air in its backend and welcome sweet rays of warning sunshine. At least, that’s what a strange, but fun tradition tells us.

The US has some strange traditions. Well, I suppose every country does, but I’m not familiar with many outside of my home country that may seem odd to a non-native. But anyway, case in point: every year on February 2, people around the US are glued to TV, news outlets, radio stations, or any other form of public communication because of a large, furry meteorologist with an innate perspicacity to predict the weather.

Yes, I’m talking about Groundhog Day. The day in which a pampered, rather rotund, ground-dwelling, Pennsylvanian rodent named Pawtucket Pat (it’s actually Punxsutawney Phil), is pulled from his den at the local library (he must be very well-read), and shuttled to a temporary den in a rural area known as Gobbler's Knob (you can’t make this stuff up). It is here, where a group called the Inner Circle and an excited crowd are waiting for Phil to emerge from this temporary den and predict whether we can expect an early spring or are destined to suffer through six more weeks of winter.

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Elden Ring DLC needs to steal this underrated mode from Assassin's Creed

Have you ever clicked on a suggested YouTube video only to have it ruin your algorithm and spam you with the same stuff over and over for weeks on end?

It happens a lot with baby animals, Apple Vision reviews, and sad-eyed men eating expired military rations or camping in the bushes next to a roundabout.

But a bout of algorhythmia I’ve actually been enjoying recently has seen my feed flooded with Elden Ring lore videos.

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Disco Elysium is never getting a sequel or spin-off, says final original writer to be laid off at ZA/UM

The last writer who worked on the original Disco Elysium to be laid off by ZA/UM has said that he believes that it “will forever stay a one-game studio”, amid layoffs that are reportedly coming as part of the cancellation of an expansion for the game.

It’s been a turbulent time for those working at the studio that released the very unique and interesting detective game back in 2019, as a documentary released by People Make Games in May last year explored.

Now, according to a report from GLHF, ZA/UM is planning to make somewhere in the region of 24 staff redundant after the studio cancelled a standalone Disco Elysium expansion. This project, codenamed X7, was reportedly “one to two years away from completion”, and if it’s been called off, it would join a Disco Elysium sequel and an unnamed new sci-fi game on the list of projects that ZA/UM has either abandoned or paused in recent years.

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Helldivers 2 players are getting stomped out by the new Automaton defense missions

As you may know, Helldivers 2 players are being thrust into a new frontier of robotic warfare, as new defense missions have been added to the game alongside a community-wide call to action. However, while these warriors for liberty had previously been scoring win after win on the galactic map, this recent hurdle is proving troublesome.


The reason why is simple. Rather than take out a certain number of robots, or destroy various buildings in the name of democracy, these new defense missions require players to evacuate 30 scientists from a human colony. This starts off easy enough, however soon waves upon waves of Automatons swarm the base, making the process a whole lot more difficult.


There's also somewhat of a learning curve. Unlike other missions, landing close to the objective is a good idea, as landing too far out can waste valuable evacuation time. Second, fresh recruits may not know where the scientists are located, or how to actually prompt them to leave their bunkers and rush to the escape shuttle. All this results in progress slowing, and more robots rushing you.


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Helldivers 2 is not afraid to kill you often, and that's one of the best things about it

I’ve often been fond of how two seemingly identical games can rely on similar elements, yet produce entirely different feelings. There’s a lot to be said about presentation, in-game resource scarcity, damage models, mechanical complexity and so on, but one thing that tends to tip the scales one way or another is how high the stakes are.

Helldivers 2 is the latest reminder that you can have a bunch of different currencies, several crafting materials, a quasi-loot system, and an always-online requirement - but still manage to create a solid co-op game that isn’t, well, like any of the other mediocre live service games we can’t seem to get rid of.

There’s a lot to like about Helldivers 2. Its commitment to lifting Starship Troopers’ thematic schtick is only one facet of its presentation; its robot faction owes a lot to Terminator, and its armour and weapon designs have their roots in Star Wars, Halo and half-a-dozen other sci-fi staples.

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Helldivers 2's Automatons are now the major threat, and everyone is asked to quell their invasion

Helldivers 2 is proving yet again that it has more than a few clever ideas to turn what are otherwise mundane concepts in live service games into exciting, and maybe even unexpected developments.

Like its predecessor, Helldivers 2’s campaign is driven by the community, so all efforts tend to go towards a single goal. Since the launch of the game, the focus has been on liberating the eastern sectors from the Terminids, but the situation now dictates all attention to be diverted to the opposite end of the galaxy to deal with the robots.



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If the best Xbox exclusive of this generation comes to Nintendo Switch, everyone should be excited

Do you know why Obsidian’s latest obscure RPG is called Pentiment? The word (not a real one) comes from the term pentimento, which refers to a change an artist makes to their work as progress on the project continues. Pentimento, in turn, comes from the Italian pentirsi, which means to repent or change your mind. Given the game is about history, and what we do or do not believe in the recorded annals of our shared past, it’s a very fitting word to sit atop the whole thing.

And now, roughly 18 months after Xbox’s most peculiar exclusive first came to Series X/S, the history of Pentiment is very likely being altered again as its status as a Microsoft-only game hangs in the balance, with the hand of fate aching to ink the words ‘PlayStation’ and ‘Nintendo
https://www.vg247.com/platforms/switch’ beneath its title plate. How fitting. How poetic.

It shouldn’t work. A hand-painted, 2D detective thriller about a sequence of brutal murders set in the bucolic countryside of 16th-century Bavaria – no one is going to want to play that, are they? It’s the sort of game you’d read about on Eurogamer on a Sunday, or that your grandad would ask you about next time you head over for a last-minute Easter lunch. Against its Xbox-exclusive stablemates (Hi-Fi Rush, Halo, Forza, Starfield), it seems wholly out of place.

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