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So, busy week in the world of video games, huh? The Nintendo Switch 2 has finally launched and landed in the hands of gamers around the world, eight years after the first Switch revolutionized gaming. The Switch 2 isn’t quite as revolutionary, with Nintendo opting to make an upgrade of its predecessor rather than completely overhaul what might end up being the best-selling console ever. Still, that isn’t stopping plenty of OG Switch owners from wanting to get their sweaty palms on the latest shiny new toy (raises hand).

But do we need it right now? Probably not.

It’s easy to get swept up in the hype surrounding a new console launch and everything that comes with it. Walmart sent snacks with some Switch 2s! Everyone’s playing as Cow in Mario Kart World! Cyberpunk 2077 is somehow launching better on a Nintendo platform than it did on PlayStation and Xbox five years ago! Yet, once the excitement surrounding its launch settles down, the Nintendo Switch 2 will be left with something of a disappointing launch line-up. There’s no must-buy system seller like the first Switch had in the form of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

But what about Mario Kart World?

The Switch 2 has Mario Kart World launching with it, but people have been racing in and enjoying Mario Kart 8 for over a decade now (did you know it originally launched on the Wii U? Wild) and there’s no reason to expect Mario Kart World won’t have a similar runway ahead of it. You’ll have plenty of time to eat mushrooms in the future, when there are more reasons (games) to justify picking up a Switch 2.

Now, what’s deemed a “system seller” is going to be different for everyone, of course. Mario Kart World might be your system seller, and I understand why — great party game and, seriously, Cow? Love it. If Pokémon Legends: Z-A was announced as a Switch 2 exclusive, this would be a completely different story; I’d be opening a Switch 2 now and praying it didn’t have a staple in it. Yet, the game I’m most looking forward to will also be playable on my Switch OLED, so here we are. Sorry, Donkey Kong Bananza, your exclusivity isn’t swaying me in ways a hypothetical Pokémon exclusivity could.

The real draw of the Switch 2, currently, is its role as a port machine for all the games the original Switch couldn’t run. I have no doubt pew-pewing on the go in Star Wars Outlaws will be fun on the Switch 2, and Split Fiction feels like the perfect match for Nintendo’s general vibe. But if you’re a multiplatform gamer, chances are you’ve either played those games or elected not to check them out on your PC, PlayStation 5, or Xbox Series.

All of this is to say nothing about how adopting a console at launch is, in a way, opting in to be something of a beta tester while any bugs get squashed — especially considering the press wasn’t given pre-release consoles or games to review. Mario Kart World could have sucked, for all we knew! (It doesn’t, and actually kinda sounds like it rules. But still. The principle.)

As you stave off the FOMO, just remind yourself the Switch 2 will be here for years to come and, in time, will likely be easier to purchase than PS5s and Xbox Series Xs were deep into their launch cycles. Whether it eventually gets cheaper remains to be seen, owing to the general uncertainty of the world economy and the ongoing US tariff situation, but a $450 price tag is steep enough as is. Plus, holding out on a Switch 2 and its future exclusives will give you all the more opportunity to tackle your never-ending backlog. So, remember to enjoy what you already have, because the shine of that shiny new toy will wear off eventually.


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Krypto Treats in Fortnite are a force to be reckoned with in Chapter 6 Season 3. Throw one of these mysterious treats, and Superman’s Kryptonian pet dog will come crashing down to collect it, leaving chaos in his wake while he flies back to the stars. It’s cute, funny, and most importantly, a great way to win a Fortnite battle.

This Fortnite guide will show you how to get Krypto Treats and how to use them.

How to use Krypto Treats in Fortnite

Krypto Treats are mythic utility items introduced in Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 3. Similar to grenades, they’ll cause a devastating explosion after you throw them, so they’re extremely useful against groups or players hiding in buildings.

To use a Krypto Treat, select the correct item slot and use your aim button to initiate a throw. The landing spot will appear as a small blue dome. Adjust the landing spot as needed, then press the attack button to throw the treat. To throw them faster, select the equipment slot with the Krypto treats, hold the attack button, aim, and release the button to throw.

It takes about two seconds before Krypto crashes onto the ground, dealing damage in an area of effect of roughly two to three meters. A full hit deals up to 100 damage. Proving that nothing can stop a Kryptonian doggo, he’ll fly straight through any buildings in his path.

How to find Krypto Treats in Fortnite

Krypto Treats are found in normal chests (those with a yellow glow) that spawn everywhere on the Fortnite map. They always drop in stacks of two. Krypto Treats are a randomized loot drop, so you won’t find them in every chest, but they aren’t very rare either. A few tries should generally be enough to get them.

Since you’re looking for chests, any map location with a lot of buildings is a good place to find Krypto Treats. Foxy Floodgate, Utopia City, Crime City, and Supernova Academy are all great places to look for more treats.

Although this is hardly the fastest way to obtain Krypto Treats,opening the Suitcase of Patience also has a chance of dropping them.


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The Suitcase of Patience, a new item in Fortnite item introduced in Chapter 6 Season 3, truly lives up to its name. Although this unique loot chest is stuffed with useful things, opening it comes at a cost…

Here’s where to find the Suitcase of Patience in Fortnite, how to open it, and, perhaps most importantly, whether or not you should open it.

Suitcase of Patience location in Fortnite

As far as we know, there’s only one Suitcase of Patience location in Fortnite. You will find it inside a tiny shed in the middle of the map, northeast of the Foxy Floodgate.

The shed is located between the river and the road. Directly after entering, be sure to crouch down and close the door behind you to avoid detection. The Suitcase of Patience is lying on the ground.

How to open the Suitcase of Patience in Fortnite

Once you’ve found the mysterious suitcase, you’re free to collect its contents, but beware: It takes 10 minutes to open a Suitcase of Patience.

You must use the interact button just like you normally would, but you’ll notice that the circular “opening” timer, which normally takes a few seconds to fill up, fill incredibly slowly. If the process of opening the Suitcase gets interrupted, you’ll have to start over. There’s no way to speed up this process — venting your frustration by hitting it with a weapon is understandable, but ineffective.

That begs the question…

Should you open the Suitcase of Patience in Fortnite?

Honestly, you’re probably best off not opening the Suitcase of Patience.

A Fortnite match takes 20 to 25 minutes, so opening a Suitcase of Patience eats up half that time. Apart from the fact that it’s pretty boring to wait for 10 minutes, it’s also quite dangerous, as other players may interrupt you. Even if you survive an initial attack, chances are you’re significantly under-equipped if you’ve been idle for nearly 10 minutes.

Based on that, it’s probably better to open the Suitcase of Patience if you’re playing in a team. That way, someone can keep watch while the other opens the suitcase.

If you do decide to open the Suitcase of Patience, you’ll receive various randomized items, including epic or legendary weapons. A legendary weapon isn’t guaranteed, though — you’d have to be super lucky.


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The Splatoon franchise is headed to Switch 2 with a new game called Splatoon Raiders, Nintendo announced Tuesday. Described as “the first-ever Splatoon spinoff game,” Splatoon Raiders will cast players as a mechanic who explores the mysterious Spirhalite Islands alongside Splatoon 3’s Deep Cut trio: Frye, Shiver, and Big Man.

A short trailer for Splatoon Raiders shows the Deep Cut gang on an exploratory mission, and the helicopter they’re traveling in crash-landing on a remote island. What little gameplay we do see shows the game’s main character exploring the island (with a mechanical sidekick), Frye and Shiver fishing, and Big Man getting hosed down with ink. While Nintendo hasn’t announced much in the way of gameplay details, Splatoon Raiders looks like it may be some sort of survival game, in which players need to build up a base and explore a remote island for food and supplies.

Splatoon Raiders does not have a confirmed release date.

Nintendo also announced Tuesday that Splatoon 3 is getting a free update later this week, which will add 30 new weapons as part of the Splatlands collection, consisting of new guns and gear from the Barazushi and Emberz brands. Urchin Underpass, a stage from the original Splatoon on Wii U, is also being added.

Splatoon 3’s new update drops June 12, for both Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. The update, Nintendo said in a news release, will bring with it “more detailed visuals and a smoother appearance in locations like Splatsville and the Grand Festival Grounds” on Switch 2. Splatoon 3 will feature cross-play between the original Switch and Switch 2.


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Lost in Random: The Eternal Die stuck its hooks in me after just a few rooms. Dashing between enemy projectile attacks and then slicing those enemies up, I quickly got into a rhythm with the roguelike’s combat, which reminded me of Hades in all the best ways. It also has enough fresh gameplay ideas to set it apart as a unique and invigorating addition to a crowded genre.

The Eternal Die spins off from Zoink’s 2021 action-adventure game Lost in Random, which I quite enjoyed thanks to its unique aesthetic and gripping storytelling. It featured a world (the titular Random) divided between six realms (one for each side of a cubic die) and ruled by random chance; each character’s fate was determined by the roll of a die.

I enjoyed The Eternal Die just as much, and new players don’t need to fret — you can fight through The Eternal Die on its own without having played the first one. While the IP has shifted hands and is the first game released from new studio Stormteller Games, the charm, the weird world, and the quirky designs from the original game carry over to The Eternal Die, even as the series shifts genres into a roguelike.

You play as Queen Aleksandra, the ruler of Random. She used The Black Die, an ancient power, to rule the kingdom, but its corruptive powers broke out, dividing the lands. In the process, Aleksandra lost her sister. Now on a path of vengeance, the Queen is trapped by and must fight her way out of The Black Die via pulse-pounding, isometric roguelike runs. Inside, she also contends with characters who’ve suffered from her reign, giving the narrative an air of atonement alongside Aleksandra’s quest for revenge.

Aleks starts with a sword and can acquire a hammer, a bow, and a lance as well. The weapons are somewhat basic at first and play how you’d expect — the hammer is slow but does a good amount of damage, while the lance is the opposite. You’ll be able to upgrade and augment them between runs to fit your preferred playstyle. An early favorite of mine was Aleksandra’s bow as I found success changing its charged attack to an exploding shot that could deal heavy damage to any enemy who happened to be in the wrong place.

While mixing regular and charged attacks is fun on its own, The Eternal Die’s combat is really supported by all the different ways you can use Fortune — a sentient die who aids you in battle and loves terrible jokes — and card attacks in combat. You throw Fortune at enemies to dole out significant damage, giving you the ability to attack from a distance when you find yourself in a bind. Fortune won’t run to your side in a fight, however; his attacks are balanced by the fact you have to retrieve him, meaning you can’t spam your way to victory.

After clearing rooms, you’ll receive various rewards, one being a relic coffer that presents options for passives and augments for Aleks and Fortune. Some of them can make your little die buddy not just more powerful, but more versatile too. Sometimes I’d get a relic that let Fortune rain down volcanic stones on enemies when he was thrown. Others would trigger an effect depending on what number Fortune rolls, like increasing the damage of Aleks’ next charged attack. With the right combination, Aleks will be more than ready for the tough enemies found deep into runs.

Card attacks also add nice variety to combat. There are 15 in the game, and each of the four levels in a run will typically have an encounter room with a new card attack for you to swap for or leave behind. They range from poison daggers to a swirling vortex of ice to a wave of sand that freezes enemies in time. Like Fortune’s throw attack, card attacks can be enhanced by relics as well.

My favorite room to find, one I would explicitly seek out even after finding the exit to the boss’s arena, was a Candyland-like game room. You’ll step right up and roll Fortune to move a game piece around a board. Smaller rolls are better, allowing you to reap more rewards like coins and relic coffers. I attribute a good part of my first successful run to rolling well in one of Rollins’ games; I was able to not just increase Aleksandra’s max health a couple of times, but also top it off in addition to securing some shiny gold coins to purchase items at the shop found on each level.

Luck is a part of every roguelike, with Lost in Random: The Eternal Die, “random” is right there in the name. Sometimes, runs will be aided by the luck of the draw, gracing you with a build playing to your strengths. But during other runs, you may get nothing you deem worthwhile. It’s part of the challenge (and part of the fun) of a roguelike, and winning a run even with a less-than-stellar build is all the more satisfying.

That first successful run felt like a confluence of everything that makes a great roguelite so much fun to play — mastering a weapon, lucking out with some great bonuses, and having as big of a health pool as possible. Typically I close the book on a game after seeing its ending, even if there are additional endings to seek out. However, that’s not the case with Lost in Random: The Eternal Die. Its gameplay is too much fun to simply abandon, and I’m looking forward to what I’ll find over the course of more random runs.

Lost in Random: The Eternal Dieis out June 17 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on PS5 using a prerelease download code provided by Thunderful Publishing.


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Webtoon is deepening its partnership with Dark Horse Comics by bringing five major franchises to its English-language platform. Newly reformatted for Webtoon’s signature vertical-scroll format, the lineup includes Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins, The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077, Plants vs. Zombies, and fresh stories from Nickelodeon’s The Legend of Korra.

Dark Horse Comics’ The Witcher follows Geralt of Rivia on new, mostly original adventures. The Legend of Korra (a Webtoon-exclusive vertical scroll) picks up where Avatar: The Last Airbender left off, following Avatar Korra and her friends on new adventures. Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins (also a vertical-scroll exclusive) brings the beloved tabletop RPG series to life, tracing the high-stakes exploits of a mismatched group of heroes.

Meanwhile, Cyberpunk 2077 dives into the neon-drenched streets of Night City with a collection of explosive new stories set in the universe of the acclaimed video game. And finally, Plants vs. Zombies (another vertical-scroll exclusive) returns with more showdowns between brain-hungry zombies and their unlikely plant foes.

“Webtoon has made it easy for a new generation of fans to fall in love with comics,” said Yongsoo Kim, CSO and head of Global Webtoon at Webtoon Entertainment. “We’re thrilled to work with Dark Horse to bring this new slate of world-class titles to Webtoon. Whether we’re helping new creators build their fandoms or working with marquee publishers like Dark Horse to bring beloved franchises to fans around the world, we’re committed to delivering the highest quality storytelling to our passionate community of readers.”

The new slate joins Webtoon and Dark Horse’s existing partnership to bring Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender comics to the platform, where it has accumulated over 13 million views. The platform is also home to several video game-related comics, like Assassin’s Creed: Forgotten Temple and Dimension 20’s Fantasy High.

These titles are set to debut on the platform throughout the second half of 2025.


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In the days following the Switch 2’s launch, players have discovered a trio of delightful GameCube Easter eggs included in the Switch 2’s Nintendo Classics GameCube catalog, which can only be accessed if you have a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership.

The Easter eggs in question all cause the Switch to replicate the GameCube’s original tinkly (and oftmemed) startup animation, along with a pair of alternative startup sequences that were included with the GameCube. It’s a nice nod to the nostalgia of the GameCube era, which is being revived by Switch 2’s exclusive Nintendo Switch Online game offerings. At launch, Switch 2 owners with a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership can play The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Soulcalibur 2, and F-Zero GX. More are expected to come.

Here’s how to access the three Switch 2 GameCube Easter eggs yourself, if you want to dazzle your friends and family who fondly recall early aughts Nintendo gaming:

Original sound Easter egg

Ensure you have an active Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription. This will give you access to the Nintendo Classics GameCube game catalog.Select the catalog and quickly hold the left joystick in any direction. This will cause the classic GameCube console startup animation and sound to play.

“Squeaky” sound Easter egg

Once again, select the Nintendo Classics GameCube catalog.This time, hold the left joystick in any direction and quickly press the R button (right bumper) once. You can also press Z instead of R if you’re using the official Switch GameCube controller.This will cause the same animation to play, this time with a different sound effect, similar to that of a squeaky dog toy. The sound clip ends with a child giggling.

Hard mode: drum sound Easter egg

To witness this Easter egg in all its glory, you’ll need four players (or at least four controllers).Player 1 will need to select the Nintendo Classics GameCube catalog, but all four players must then press R (or Z) at once.The classic GameCube animation will play, this time with a drum-like sound that ends with a bell ringing.

The Switch 2 may be Nintendo’s main focus at the moment, but it’s clear the gaming giant still has a soft spot for its previous consoles as well — especially the beloved GameCube.


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Donkey Kong flexing his biceps while riding a tiny bike in Mario Kart World

Weight classes in Mario Kart World work much like they do in Mario Kart 8, in that they determine how a kart performs. With no kart customization in World, though, a character’s weight class is the sole influencing factor on your kart’s stats. There’s no quick-and-easy way to see who belongs in what category, and since every character can use every kart, it’s easy to miss some of the stat nuances if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

Below, we explain how weight classes work in Mario Kart World, the difference between lighter and heavier sizes, and which characters belong in which weight class.

How weight class works in Mario Kart World

The kart selection screen in Mario Kart World, showing Bowser in his standard kart

Reddit user VikeStep first posted a chart with character weights in April 2025. There was no way to verify the information at the time, but after comparing it to the stats you can see in Mario Kart World, it turns out VikeStep was completely right. Nintendo used a scale from 1.0 to probably 4.0, in keeping with how World handles its other stats, to determine character size. There are no official weight classes, but you can still broadly group characters together as very light, light, and so on, just like with Mario Kart 8.

Every character can use every kart in Mario Kart World, and a character’s weight class determines their kart’s handling, top speed, and acceleration. You can’t customize kart parts in Mario Kart World like you could in Mario Kart 8, so weight class is the only factor determining a kart’s stats.

Character size influences:

Top speedHandlingAccelerationKart weight

In other words, basically everything. Bear in mind that the weight value shown on the kart stat screen is for the kart, not the character, and shows how easy it is to knock the kart around. Knowing a character’s actual weight value doesn’t matter, though, since you can see the affect their size has on the kart details screen.

Daisy looking nonplussed in Mario Kart World

Mario’s Rally Kart, for example, has better acceleration than Bowser’s, but slightly worse handling than Toad’s. If you’re Rosalina and boost into a monster truck driven by Toad, you’ll likely be able to knock him for a loop, whereas Yoshi driving into Donkey Kong isn’t quite the equivalent of driving a dune buggy into a brick wall, but it’s close.

The value Nintendo assigned for character size remains the same for each of these groups, so you won’t find any variation between characters in, for example, the medium group. You’re free to pick any character in that class without having to worry about performance variations.

All Mario Kart World weight classes

Similar to Mario Kart 8, you can divide Mario Kart World‘s weight classes into three major groups — light, medium, and heavy — with several variations in those for a total of eight groups.

Below, we’ll explain a bit about all eight weight classifications in Mario Kart World, plus show you a running list of all characters in each weight class. As of this writing, we’re missing data on Swoop, Rocky Wrench, Conkdor, Fish Bone, and Cataquack, but we’ll update this guide once we have their data.

Featherweight characters

Baby Daisy doing a trick in the Biddy Buggy in Mario Kart World

These are the lightest characters, the ones whose karts will always have the best acceleration and handling – and the slowest top speeds. They’re also the easiest to push around on the track.

Baby PeachBaby DaisyPara-Biddybud

Very light characters

Cheep-Cheep riding a rail in Mario Kart World’s Cheep-Cheep Falls area

These characters are slightly harder to knock aside and have acceleration that’s just a little worse than their featherweight counterparts. Otherwise, they perform in much the same way.

Baby MarioBaby LuigiBaby RosalinaCheep-CheepGoombaDry BonesSidestepperSpikePeepa

Light characters

Nabbit on Peach Circuit in Mario Kart World

Lightweight characters can reach higher maximum speeds compared to their diminutive counterparts, though they still have a lower speed cap. On the bright side, they recover from accidents more quickly than characters in the heavier classes.

ToadToadetteKoopa TroopaLakituShy GuyNabbitStinger

Medium-light characters

Peach looking surprised as a Toad waves at her on the Koopa Beach course in Mario Kart World

This small sub-category includes racers who perform better than most light characters and are just a smidgeon slower than standard medium characters.

Monty MoleYoshiBowser JrPeachDaisyDolphinCoin Coffer

Medium characters

Luigi on Mario Circuit in Mario Kart World

These are your all-rounders, the characters with solid speed, good acceleration, and reliable handling. They might get outpaced by heavier characters with faster top speeds, but their ease of use and faster recovery times make them competitive anyway.

MarioLuigiBirdoPaulinePenguinPokeyHammer Bro

Medium heavy characters

A snow-covered Piranha Plant in Mario Kart World

Medium-heavy characters are where you start to notice differences in kart handling and how quickly you can reach your top speed. They’re excellent choices when you want to start experimenting with something more challenging.

RosalinaPiranha PlantKing BooSnowman

Heavy characters

Donkey Kong riding a bike at a dangerous-looking angle in Mario Kart World

Heavy characters can reach higher top speeds at the cost of worse handling and slower acceleration. Playing them effectively takes solid knowledge of a course and knowing when to brake, drift, and boost to avoid moments where you have to build up to your maximum speed again.

CowDonkey KongWaluigiWigglerWarioChargin’ ChuckPianta

Very heavy characters

Bowser flying through a lava tunnel and looking rather frightened about it in Mario Kart World

Very heavy characters are the fastest of the bunch, but they’re also the hardest to control and take a long time to reach their top speed.

Bowser

Did you just get a Nintendo Switch 2? Are you trying to unlock every character and outfit in Mario Kart World? Or maybe you’re trying out The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for the first time and you need a walkthrough for those pesky stoplights in the Forsaken Fortress? Either way, we have your back when it comes to helping you sort stuff out.

We have guides explaining how to set up your console (moving data from your original Switch to your Switch 2) as well as guides for things like getting external storage sorted out.


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Animal Crossing: New Horizons had the world in a chokehold during the pandemic, but it’s been five years since Nintendo’s cozy simulator. Even with updates and daily gameplay mechanics, many of us have moved on to newer games. Then there are the people who have diligently cultivated their islands since day one. They’re still playing today, except they’ve upgraded to the latest Nintendo hardware. And the experience is way better on Switch 2, they say.

These are the sorts of players who spend hundreds if not thousands of hours decorating their islands just so, intent on cultivating a specific vibe or style. More often than not, this approach pushes Animal Crossing to its limit as players place so many items on the map, the game starts lagging. The original Switch, after all, was arguably outdated the moment it was released. Switch 2, on the other hand, is a much more capable machine that closer approximates the graphical standards players expect from modern gaming hardware.

While Nintendo doled out enhancements for many of its core titles to mark the occasion, Animal Crossing: New Horizons wasn’t marketed as such. At most, Nintendo ensured that New Horizons players could properly transfer their saves, as the files are tied to hardware. But the new console has still made a difference for players, especially those who have some of the most elaborate islands around.

“I’ve built, torn down, and rebuilt my island many times,” says a content creator named Ash Snap’em, who estimates that she has put over 2,600 hours into the game. Recently, she shared footage of her most recent island, a pastel wonderland akin to a digital Disney World. Every villager’s house is decorated to look like a store or restaurant. The carnival-like landscape is so detailed, rides are layered upon one another. There’s even secret passageways and other flourishes meant to dazzle visitors, like dedicated photo walls where players can pull out their cameras for posed pictures. And it could only be fully realized on the Switch 2.

Previously, as other players discovered over the last few years, elaborate islands could stutter and have severe pop-in, which undermined the brilliance of the meticulously crafted worlds. Some players settled for lesser visions, but others didn’t let the tech deter them.

“The lag was a little disheartening, but as someone who played about 1800+ hours in New Leaf leading to New Horizons where customization was very limited in comparison, I just gave it my all anyways and made it MY perfect island,“ Ash said in a message. ”I feel that many in the Animal Crossing community who have very decorated islands all have just settled with the lag because it was the only way to have our islands the way we imagined and desired.“

“I just decided early on that if that’s what I had to live with so my island could look the way I wanted it to, then so be it,” Ash added.

This type of upgrade is commonplace for re-releases on Switch 2, as its predecessor often required compromises in order to make games run at all. While power does not determine whether or not a game is enjoyable, in cases like that of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the hindrance actively got in the way of the game’s intended experience. Where the developers sought to provide a seamless open world, instead players were relegated to playing a game that seemed to barely keep it together. On Switch 2, however, the improvements make entirely new playstyles possible now.

Similarly, in New Horizons, the upgrades are more than skin deep as evidenced by the game’s wildly disparate loading times on both platforms. Already, Ash is contemplating the possibilities that open up with a more powerful console. Perhaps she’ll build a cityscape, castle ruins, or a tropical paradise.

“I’ve had a lot of people tell me in the last day that if the Switch 2 can handle having a lot of furniture out on Animal Crossing without lag, they’re sold on getting a Switch 2,” Ash says.


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During a series of in-person Xbox demos at the 2025 Summer Game Fest, I got the chance to play Gears of War: Reloaded on the company’s upcoming handheld: the ROG Xbox Ally X. The 7-inch screen looks gorgeous, and the game’s remaster is a stunner no matter what size screen it’s on (I also played it on some much bigger TV screens). But the most noticeable thing about the ROG Xbox Ally X was, unfortunately, how tired my forearms were after just 20 minutes of playing the Gears of War remaster.

Designing a handheld console is a tightrope walk. If I’m playing at home, I want a device that’s powerful enough to compete with my TV or gaming PC. If I’m lounging on the couch playing your Switch 2 or Steam Deck, there needs to be a reason why I’m not reaching over for the remote and just playing a game on the TV instead. For me, a handheld console also needs to be light enough that it feels truly portable — something you can throw into a purse or backpack and bring with you to a place where it won’t be competing directly with your TV or PC. So it needs to split the difference between being powerful enough to run contemporary AAA games and have them look great in comparison to your TV, and yet not so powerful that it weighs down your travel bag.

Most important of all, no matter where I’m playing it, a handheld needs to be comfortable to hold for hours at a time. The original Nintendo Switch was no trouble whatsoever; it would be ages before you even notice its minuscule weight (although you sure might notice how few contemporary AAA games it can run). On a Steam Deck, I might feel that weight much sooner, the impressive processing power aside. And if it’s the ROG Xbox Ally X — well, I haven’t played it for long enough to know for certain, but I have held it and played a game on it for about 20 minutes, and it was already an issue even in that short time.

Let’s talk ROG Xbox Ally X specs

The Xbox Ally comes in two versions, just like the Xbox Series X and S consoles: There’s a little one and a big one. As a proud owner of the Xbox Series S (which I lovingly refer to as “the baby Xbox”), I’ll probably be fine with the smaller Xbox Ally. But the main reason I’m saying that is actually the weight. Let’s get into the numbers, shall we?

ConsoleWeightNintendo Switch + Joy-Cons (2017)398 g (14.03 oz)Switch Lite275 g (9.7 oz)Switch OLED + Joy-Cons420 g (14.82 oz)LCD Steam Deck669 g (23.6 oz / 1.47 lbs)Steam Deck OLED640 g (22.58 oz / 1.41 lbs)Switch 2 + Joy-Cons534 g (18.84 oz / 1.18 lbs)Lenovo Legion Go (base module)640 g (1.41lbs)ROG Ally X (2024)678 g (23.84 oz / 1.49 lbs)ROG Xbox Ally670 g (1.48 lbs)ROG Xbox Ally X715 g (1.58 lbs)

Looking up all of these numbers after the Xbox event was a comfort to me, because it made me feel like I wasn’t imagining that the ROG Xbox Ally X was the heaviest one I’d ever held. It will be the heaviest handheld on the market, once it reaches all of us this holiday season. (I did talk to an Asus representative at the Xbox event and told him my concerns about its weight, but I fully recognize it’s probably too late for them to change it. Let it be known that I tried, though.)

What’s interesting about this is that it might not actually bother that many other people who aren’t me. This is a pretty subjective problem, and I would say it’s somewhat gendered as well. There were lots of other reporters at this event with me, the majority of them men. I overheard many of them praising the way the Xbox handheld felt in their hands — “just like an Xbox controller.” I can’t disagree there; it’s the right shape and absolutely does feel comfortable in terms of size and layout. But I wonder: Did any of those guys notice the weight? Or is that just a problem for somebody of my stature?

The thing is, people of my stature do actually also play video games. And I play a heck of a lot of them in handheld format; I’d say about 50% of the time I’m on a big screen, the other 50% in handheld. I’m still in LA at Summer Game Fest right now, but the first thing I’m going to do when I get home tomorrow night is open my Switch 2 box and play Mario Kart World — probably in handheld mode. And even though the Switch 2 is heavier than its predecessor, I bet I’m going to feel pretty relieved by how light it feels compared to the Xbox handheld I tried out yesterday.

Inside the ROG Xbox Ally X’s Windows OS

All that said, there’s a lot about the Xbox Ally that’s very impressive. Unlike the Steam Deck, it uses Windows, and the Linux users reading this aren’t going to want to hear what I’m about to say, but that’s going to be a preferable operating system for most people because it’s so much more familiar.

Over the years, I have managed to get quite a few games running on my Steam Deck that were not necessarily intended to run natively on that device, but it’s taken some serious fiddling. By contrast, the Xbox Ally has Steam and Battle.net icons that you can just click on, as well as Discord integration. I can already tell it’s going to be extremely simple to play tons of different games on there, without nearly as much fiddling as it took for me to get my Blizzard games working properly on my Steam Deck.

The Xbox handheld is clearly designed with power in mind. It’s heavy because it has a lot under the hood that helps games look great and run smoothly. That’s certainly going to help it compete with the Steam Deck as well, especially as that handheld is increasingly showing its age. Put all of that together and it could make for an impressive holiday launch, even in the same year as the Switch 2.

But every time I think about this device entering my home, I think about how my arms start to hurt when I’ve been playing the Steam Deck for too many hours in a row. I think about how I sometimes have to rest my arms on a pillow and even then, it’s not quite the right angle, and it’s kind of annoying. It’s not something that most buyers are even going to be aware of until they have the device in their hands, but if they’re anything like me in terms of size and arm strength, it’s going to be the very first thing they notice as soon as they take it out of the box. Microsoft can only hope that doesn’t result in them putting that device right back into that box and slapping a return label on it.


From Polygon via this RSS feed

11
 
 

A Harvestborn character from the DnD 5e Crooked Moon setting standing in front of a wicker man from the book’s promotional art

The Crooked Moon, Legends of Avantris’ folk-horror setting for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, became the game’s most successful crowdfunding campaign to date, earning more than $4 million on Kickstarter. Ahead of the book’s June 16 release on D&D Beyond, Polygon spoke with Legends of Avantris lead writer and creative director Mikey Gilder to get some exclusive details on two of the species the Crooked Moon setting will introduce, and hear the latest track in a musical series focused on Crooked Moon’s villains.

The most popular species among Crooked Moon backers and early playersis the harvestborn — constructs crafted by the lords of the rustic province of Enoch to tend to their fertile farmlands.

“There are a lot of standard high-fantasy species options, so when we were going to do a folk-horror campaign, it had to get weird,” Gilder told Polygon in a video call. “Two of the biggest themes and settings in folk horror are agrarian communities and the deep, dark woods, so you had to be able to play a scarecrow.”

A harvestborn’s glowing head might be made from a pumpkin, turnip, or burlap sack, and as constructs, they don’t need to breathe, eat, drink, or sleep. The designers originally imagined them as dark creatures associated with fear, but as they developed the world, they instead opted to connect them more closely with harvests and the cycle of growth, death, and rebirth. That grants harvestborn both a culling power, which can do extra damage to creatures that are already seriously injured, and a healing power, drawing on the strength of the land.

Another spooky option is the ratlike plagueborn from the province of Bubonia, which is covered in a pestilent haze and controlled by competing guilds.

“We really wanted to lean hard into the themes of plague and pestilence and medieval Dark Ages tropes,” Gilder said. “Obviously, people love plague doctors. It’s a classic [thing] that people cosplay as, and also ties into the Halloween vibes.”

Plagueborn are both resistant to poison and able to inflict disease on those they attack.

“This pestilence is part of their soul, and they are able to harness this magic,” Gilder said. “All of these species can be quite dangerous. There’s a lot of different options for plagueborn villains, just as there are for plagueborn heroes.”

Villains are a huge focus for Crooked Moon, which introduces 12 major antagonists for adventuring parties to face, including a group of twisted former heroes based on the player characters of Legends of Avantris’ actual play game Edge of Midnight. One of the many stretch goals unlocked by the wildly successful Kickstarter is a soundtrack composed by The Blasting Company, the band that provided music for the animated miniseries Over the Garden Wall. They’ve put together a series of songs representing these fallen adventurers, each with distinct styles.

“For [the twisted satyr] Gorthos, the Beast of Blight, we went hard into Celtic folk music and classic folk instruments like the nyckelharpa, hurdy-gurdy, and uilleann pipes,” Gilder said. “It very much feels like this wailing song of tragedy. ‘By the Lagoon’ for the magician and trickster Mr. Crossroads is equal parts Delta blues and New Orleans jazz. People make some comparisons to The Princess and the Frogand Dr. Facilier.”

The latest in the series of signature numbers for the villains is “Under Your Shadow,” a haunting song from the perspective of Marius Renathyr, a knight who was tricked by a succubus and transformed into a vampire known as the Crimson Abbott. Performed by Tony nominee Ramin Karimloo, accompanied by a pipe organ and choir, it combines aspects of The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame’s villain song “Hellfire.”

“I used to take singing lessons, and our warm-up song was Ramin’s recording of [the Phantom showtune] ‘The Music of the Night,’” Gilder said. “He was an idol of mine, so he was the first choice for the song. We knew he could capture the spirit of this character who’s so tortured and conflicted. Ramin just absolutely nailed it, and we couldn’t be happier.”

Music has been a key part of Crooked Moon since the project was revealed with a creepy flipbook-style animated short set to a catchy tune from The Blasting Company. Along with the soundtrack, Legends of Avantris is releasing an album of looping atmospheric background music and a combat-music album.

“Music is so important for immersion, and to set the tone in horror and play with your emotions,” Gilder said. “We had no idea that the Kickstarter campaign would do as well as it did, so it’s been a long process to get 45 folk-horror songs, but it’s been a very joyous process.”

The Crooked Moon is available for $69.99 through D&D Beyond, where it will be released on June 16 ahead of an August print release. Physical and digital copies, the albums, and other accessories can be preordered through Backerkit.


From Polygon via this RSS feed

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Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is mere weeks away from official release. As such, video game auteur Hideo Kojima showed off some near-final footage at Summer Game Fest on Sunday at the Los Angeles Orpheum Theater.

Joined by host Geoff Keighley and his own translator, Hideo Kojima welcomed the audience before bringing out several special guests, including Troy Baker, Shioli Kutsuna, and Death Stranding 2’s music producer, Woodkid. Elle Fanning, who plays Tomorrow, also appeared via video message.

After talking about the development of the original game, the inspiration behind the sequel, and conducting interviews with the guests, Kojima at last unveiled some gameplay footage. One includes Tomorrow and Sam (played by Norman Reedus) singing to Rainy (played by Shioli Kutsuna) and her unborn baby. Another cinematic showcased Tomorrow’s feral and fast-paced combat abilities (which also hyper-focused on her feet).

Fans are also treated to the opening cinematics of the game alongside Lou and the game’s open world tutorial section in the rocky desert border of Mexico and the UCA. The graphics are photo-realistic, and the mechanics are just as defined as ever. But something else interesting is the utilization of dynamic music: the score will shift and change to showcase that players are moving in the right direction; if combat becomes chaotic, the music will follow suit.

Lastly, we see a new character, Neil (Luca Marinelli), in a firefight against Sam as fireworks light the night sky, showcasing the enemy intelligence, how they flank players like the original, and alert each other to Sam’s position. But the fight doesn’t actually start before Neil puts on a bandana similar to Solid Snake’s beforehand, eliciting the audience’s cheers.

Neil and Lucy (Alisa Jung) are two new characters featured in a trailer shown earlier during Summer Game Fest. They have a relationship that feeds into the narrative of the sequel, and when pressed for more information, Kojima said Neil will be like playing the role Madds Mikkelson did in the original title.

Like the original Death Stranding, On the Beach blends distinctive hiking-based gameplay with dense exposition, Yoji Shinkawa’s bold character designs, and a surreal sci-fi story about forging human connections in a bleak, isolated world where the boundary between life and death has collapsed.

There have already been a few trailers released that help connect some narrative dots. The first trailer shows Fragile caring for Lou, the BB Sam freed and revived in the original Death Stranding. Sam and Lou are attacked in their bunker, forcing them to flee, but Lou is killed and returns as a BT in her old pod.

In the second trailer, this BT version of Lou accompanies Sam on his new journey as a BB again. The game takes place sometime after the original, with the chiral network now fully operational and human porters no longer essential. Sam’s Bridges team has disbanded.

Death Stranding 2 is slated to launch first on PlayStation 5 on June 26. If the sequel is anything like the first, it will come to Windows PC and Xbox Series X eventually.


From Polygon via this RSS feed

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The first time I saw the Cord End on the ground in Elden Ring Nightreign, I was vexed. The enigmatic item had a simple description: “Gain entry somewhere.”

Where is somewhere, you might ask? Good question. I didn’t find out during that playthrough. Painfully, I relinquished the item on the floor in the waiting area before the final boss on that run to make room for articles with more immediately apparent uses, like healing. Every single teammate stopped what they were doing to inspect the object, which silently exhibited its rarity with a golden hue. Classic Souls experience right there: Something, somewhere, can be interacted with, if only you could figure out the exact conditions. The game will helpfully not tell you. Only your curiosity or willingness to Google the answer can solve the mystery.

I’ve kept an eye out since then, but to some degree, it felt useless. Nightreign’s design forces players to zip through the map from icon to icon in the hopes of building up a character who can withstand a Nightlord on the third day, which the game enforces by periodically corralling players with a Fortnite-like storm. But while Nightreign’s pacing is speedier than that of the original Elden Ring, the intricate level design and secrecy remain. Areas will have winding hallways leading to deep chambers with multiple pathways and doors that you may never see if you have any sense of urgency. One time, I dove deep into the magma area of the map only to find that the level extended so deeply, I couldn’t figure out how to get out before the storm claimed my runes.

In my 60 hours playing Nightreign, I’ve seen the Cord End exactly once. I figured that the likelihood of ever figuring out what to do with it was small, so I recently allowed myself to look it up. Turns out, it opens a door near the castle residing in the middle of the map. In it, there are three Sacrificial Twigs, which prevent you from losing runes or levels when you die.

Looking at a picture of the door itself, it’s evident why I couldn’t figure out where the Cord End might lead to. The area is poorly lit and barely visible. I had probably run by it many times, on most of my runs — the castle is a popular destination — without ever realizing it.

Puzzle solved… kind of. Figuring out what it does, hilariously enough, was the easiest part of the Cord End debacle. Players now know that the Cord End will sometimes drop in churches that house extra flask charges, but hell if anyone can get the item to drop again.

“I found one of these on my very first game and in the fifty-something games since I’ve never seen another one and now I’m going insane,” reads one comment on the Fextralife website detailing the item.

“I want to say I’d looted over 50 by that time, so it isn’t a very common drop at all,” another remarked.

“In 44 hours, I’ve only found 2,” says a comment on a YouTube video about the item.

Sacrificial Twigs are useful items, to be sure, but they’re not necessarily critical to beating Nightreign. Part of what’s driving the interest here is that lore junkies are convinced that the Cord End might do more than simply open a door.

As one player points out, there’s a crypt area in the game where a description reads, “The Ways of Cutting point to the deep woods, bestow branches to those who are worthy and wise.” Another description in the same area says, “The Ways of Cutting point to the deep woods, bestow branches to those who wander and roam.”

Theoretically, both of these text snippets may not only reference specific areas of the map, but they could also be attached to characters in the game. The descriptions are tied to coffins that players speculate belong to each individual class. The Recluse, for example, is described in the game as a witch of the deep woods. Crucially, this area also appears to have something that resembles an altar, and it’s accompanied by text that says, “To atone for the first sin, we elect to become the foundation.”

It could just be stuff to set the ambiance; while Souls games do have distinct narratives, you can’t assume every bit of text is an intentional tie to a wider storyline. Sometimes, descriptions will conflict with one another or plainly not make sense in the larger context of the game. Still, this is a lot of references to branches, all hailing from an apparently important place in the game. The altar is suggestive; is the player supposed to do something there? What happens if players bring the twigs to the areas on the map?

Twigs are obviously useful, but why does it give you three? A single player can only carry two branches, as it is classified as a Talisman, not a normal item. If the game expects you to share the twigs, is there a chance something might happen if specific characters hold those branches in the right area of the map? It’s the sort of thing that sounds like a classic Souls puzzle.

“I think there is some way to get those three branches to these 3 spots within the Roundtable,” muses a Redditor who is convinced there’s a deeper mystery afoot.

Another thing that’s fueling this quixotic search is the knowledge that being given a legendary item merely prevents you from losing runes doesn’t feel like a proper reward for something this unlikely.

“I believe that to solve this Easter egg, you need to have a group with specifically Recluse, Wylder, and Duchess, and happen to get a cord drop and open the secret door,” another Redditor says. “Then everyone needs to equip the branches. After that? Who knows?”

The hunches could be right, and there could be a wilder secret no Nightreign player has figured out yet. Then again, Souls games are not above simply trolling players. Famously, the original Dark Souls offered players a choice to begin the game with a pendant that players convinced themselves must be tied to some other elaborate thing in the game. Later, everyone found out that the developers just wanted to prank players. Nightreign is also slated to get updates, so it’s possible that whatever the twigs do — if indeed they do anything — might not be in the game yet.

We can’t know until someone successfully tests out the myriad theories floating around. Good luck getting the item to drop, though. Even if you do get the twigs, you’ve got to survive long enough to bring the branches to the right locations, or end a run with the items still in your possession. Most runs aren’t successful, and dying is a constant in Nightreign. Woof.

Perhaps one Redditor puts it best when they wrote, “I wish I had a consistent team just to run around the map to try and find cords, but to whoever can do this first and see if there really is more to the secret door, you’ll be a legend!”


From Polygon via this RSS feed

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Cal Kestis stands in a battle pose in front of a dragon

Stig Asmussen can finally breathe. The next game from the director of Star: Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor, one he and the team at his recently formed studio Giant Skull have worked on for more than a year, has been revealed as a giant AAA Dungeons & Dragons adventure. As he puts it, the deal between Giant Skull and Hasbro that finalized the actual direction of his project only just closed.

“It’s a big, big deal for both sides, and it takes a while,” Asmussen tells Polygon out of the 2025 Summer Game Fest. “It’s been a rollercoaster, and I think it was only a week and a half, two weeks ago that the ink was dried. And it was a huge exhale.”

When news broke that Asmussen was breaking out to form his own studio after stints at Sony (directing God of War 3) and Respawn overseeing the Jedi games, fans of his story-forward action RPGs rightfully perked up: a visionary was going off to do his own thing. In 2024, Asmussen founded Giant Skull, with plans to immediately set out to produce a “AAA single-player focused action adventure” utilizing Unreal Engine 5.

Spearheading the deal for Hasbro was Wizards of the Coast president John Hight — who goes way, way back with Asmussen. Hight thinks he met the game developer around 2006, when Asmussen was working on the original God of War. After years at 3DO, ERA, and Atari, Hight came to Sony to work in development on PlayStation Network and indie publishing. He eventually oversaw production on God of War 3, where he forged a creative relationship with Asmussen. When Hight left for Blizzard in 2011, where he worked on World of Warcraft and Diablo III, he always hoped there’d be another chance to work with Asmussen. The chance came when Hight landed at Wizards of the Coast in August 2024, and called Asmussen by December to check out what was cooking at Giant Skull.

“It’s tough when you’re starting a new company to get the team together and come up with an idea — but we had, and still do have, really good momentum,” Asmussen says. “John saw that and he’s like, ‘Hey, can you turn this into Wizards IP?’”

D&D and Gian Skull logos

Hight says there were options on the table beyond Dungeons & Dragons — a Giant Skull AAA single-player Magic: The Gathering game was entirely plausible, if Asmussen had sparked to the idea — but the iconography and possibilities of D&D clicked for the Jedi: Survivor director. Asmussen says he’s felt the constraints of canon and lore working on Star Wars games, and there’s little of that pressure going into the D&D game. After a visit to Wizards HQ in February, to learn about future plans for the D&D brand and how his untitled game could sync up, he walked away feeling like he could do just about anything in “a brilliant world that can be dark, but it can also be whimsical, have levity to it.”

There’s no one way to do a D&D game, Hight says, and while the shadow of Baldur’s Gate 3 looms large (“Don’t get me wrong, we are going to do CRPGs that are going to be as serious as BG3”), the deal with Giant Skull is about unleashing a new set of creatives into the sandbox. Being “faithful” to the property is really about doing right by the imaginations of the players.

“We have 50 years of DMs coming together and creating their own campaigns, and we’ve provided templates for hundreds and hundreds of monsters in D&D,” Hight says. “The things that form the dreams and the nightmares of people, from gelatinous cubes to owl bears. So it’s really important that any manifestation of them in a game be as good as what’s in our own minds. That’s a tall order. And I think about what Stig and Patrick Murphy did on God of War 3, taking that pantheon of both gods and the crazy monsters from mythology and bringing them to life. It’s like, wow, what if we could unleash them on D&D?

So what did Hight see at Giant Skull that inspired a major AAA gamble on a new studio? In his mind, unparalleled precision. While Asmussen’s game is likely years away — and only now will work start on turning it into an extension of D&D —  Giant Skull has already crafted a model for single-player action that has built on all the team’s years honing combat and movement.

“We’re experts at melee combat, so that’s something that John got to see and it translates very well [to D&D],” Asmussen says. For Giant Skull, “momentum” is a philosophy more than a lucky gain — Asmussen is fine to admit that “there’s probably still legacy debt that’s in the Jedi games from bad decisions that we made early on. Some of those bad decisions were based on momentum because we don’t get stuck. We just want to keep on moving forward.” Always refining, always innovating.

“When we started Giant Skull and we started with vanilla Unreal — we couldn’t take what we did with the Jedi games over to a new company,” Asmussen says. “So all of those mistakes that we had made before weren’t there. We had a clean slate and we were able to build very quickly based on all of our learnings over the years before. That’s allowed us to create a motion model that’s so much faster now, so much more fluid. And it doesn’t have points where you get blocked because you don’t understand how to fix jank. It’s buttery smooth.”

Giant Skull has started its new project at the character level, and Hight felt for himself how playing the game would feel in the environments. “It’s this subtlety of control of a character that, honestly, many developers don’t discover until quite late in the finishing process,” he says. “They’ll build out these entire worlds and then you get to move the character around and it just doesn’t feel right. I think from the get go, [Giant Skull] had already been exploring that and it’s amazing.”

Neither Hight nor Asmussen were ready to talk about specific D&D elements to expect from the game or even core mechanics (though Asmussen did promise me you’ll be able to press a button to jump). It’s all too early to say — which is exactly where Hight wants Asmussen and Giant Skull to be at this stage.

“He always goes to find the fun first,” Hight says of his longtime collaborator. “And sometimes people immediately latch on to, oh, here’s the story we have to do and here are all the features that we want in the game. They start building out broadly without discovering: what’s the underlying thing that’s fun?”

In the announcement of their deal with Giant Skull, Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast specifically promised that the untitled game would deliver not just “immersive storytelling” and “heroic combat” but also “exhilarating traversal.” Asmussen can’t help but laugh at the hype-speak, but it’s also true — and fundamental to nailing that underlying fun this early in the development process.

“Traversal is really important to us,” he says. “Giving the player a suite of different ways to probe and interact with the environment, and eventually build their character up to a point where they’re dominating the environment. It all has to feel silky smooth.”


From Polygon via this RSS feed

15
 
 

The bad news: Nintendo and Sony Pictures have delayed the live-action The Legend of Zelda movie. The good? That delay is a mere six weeks, and puts The Legend of Zelda right at the beginning of summer blockbuster season, an indication that Nintendo and Sony are confident in Link’s ability to save the summer of 2027.

The untitled Zelda movie was previously slated for a March 26, 2027 theatrical release. Nintendo announced that date back in March. But on Monday, The Legend of Zelda co-creator (and Zelda movie producer) Shigeru Miyamoto said in a statement that the film had been delayed to May 7, 2027:

“For production reasons, we are changing the release date of the live-action film of The Legend of Zelda to May 7, 2027,” Miyamoto said. “It will be some weeks later than the release timing we originally announced, and we will take the extra time to make the film as good as it can be. Thank you for your patience.”

While the release date is not a make-or-break factor in a film’s success, Hollywood studios love to release a blockbuster in May. This year, some of the biggest box office draws — Lilo & Stitch, Thunderbolts*, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, and Final Destination: Bloodlines — have been May releases.

Sony Pictures may also feel a bit more confident about a May 2027 release, now that Avengers: Secret Wars has been moved from May 27, 2027 to Dec. 17, 2027. That certainly gives Nintendo and Sony a lot more breathing room to give The Legend of Zelda the attention it needs.

Plus, Nintendo and Sony now have a little more wiggle room to finalize Hunter Schafer’s deal to play Zelda, should that fancasting actually come to fruition.

What does give pause regarding The Legend of Zelda’s new date is its proximity to another tentpole Sony Pictures production: Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse is currently slated for a June 4, 2027 bow in movie theaters. Given that the conclusion to Miles Morales’ Spider-Verse saga has already been delayed substantially, keep young Spider-Man in your thoughts and prayers.


From Polygon via this RSS feed

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Squanch Games is keeping the party going — it announced Sunday that High on Life 2 is coming in winter 2025. The reveal went down at the Xbox Games Showcase, with a glimpse at some of the gameplay in the second installment in the wacky intergalactic franchise.

The comical trailer shows off the protagonist skateboarding in a futuristic building as Tobacco’s “Constellation Dirtbike Head” blares in the background. Scenes switch, with the player skateboarding and blasting through a couple of robotic monstrosities, all with the handy, talking alien gun. Additionally, scenes show off strange weaponry, such as a flame-spewing lizard and a pair of reality-bending pistols.

High on Life 2 is set to be released on Windows PC and Xbox Series X.

High on Life, released in 2022, was recently ported over to the Nintendo Switch in 2025. That game featured a character who is fresh out of school and unemployed when Earth is hit with an alien invasion. The main character becomes an intergalactic bounty hunter, teaming up with talking guns to stop these invaders’ machinations.

The original High On Life is also playable on Windows PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X through Game Pass.

Now, the story continues this winter with a sequel to the comedic shooter.


From Polygon via this RSS feed

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Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and 4 is going to need a lot of pizza, because Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Michelangelo, is headed to the skate park. A new trailer, presented by Tony Hawk himself, was shown at the Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday, providing another peak at the revamped tricks, characters, and locales.

In the trailer, the orange-clad turtle could be seen underneath a skate park in the Los Angeles sewers, examining a piece of pizza and then spinning on his shell before whipping out his own skateboard. The trailer also showed off a look at the return of Bam Margera, guest character the Doom Slayer, and more skaters ripping up the halfpipe. Other skaters to be featured in the game include Nyjah Huston, Riley Hawk, Lizzie Armanto, Leticia Bufoni, Tyshawn Jones, and more. Pro Skater 3 and 4 will have online multiplayer, allowing players to play with seven additional friends in a virtual skatepark. Fans can also expect fan-favorite levels like Rio, Tokyo, the Foundry, Airport, and Canada to return to the game.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and 4 is set to be released on the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Windows on July 11, 2025.

Pro Skater 3 and 4 is a remake of the original Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 which was first released back in 2001, and Pro Skater 4, which debuted in 2002.


From Polygon via this RSS feed

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Congrats, patient bug lovers: Hollow Knight: Silksong will be out later this year, Microsoft confirmed Sunday at its Xbox Games Showcase. Microsoft’s Sarah Bond announced that release window alongside the reveal of Xbox Ally, a portable gaming device coming as part of a collaboration with Asus.

Bond said that Hollow Knight: Silksong will be released and playable for the launch of the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X, two handhelds that will launch sometime in holiday 2025. Silksong was prominently featured in a reveal trailer for the Ally handhelds.

Hollow Knight: Silksong is also scheduled to be released on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. It will be available on Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription from day one.

Hollow Knight: Silksong was announced in February 2019, with a playable demo at that year’s E3. It remained under wraps until a new gameplay trailer debuted at Microsoft’s Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase in June 2022. At the time, developers announced that the game would be complete within the following 12 months. But in May 2023, Matthew Griffin of Team Cherry said the game had been delayed indefinitely. In the intervening years, Silksong’s protracted development and the agonizing wait for the game have become a meme.

Originally conceived as a downloadable add-on for 2017’s critically acclaimed Metroidvania Hollow Knight, the developers ultimately reimagined Silksong as a full-on sequel. Silksong stars Hornet, the princess of Hallownest and one of the Hollow Knight’s speedy adversaries in the original game.

According to Team Cherry’s announcement blog in 2019, the game will take place in “a whole new kingdom haunted by silk and song,” which is populated by more than 150 new enemy types. Hornet will also have a different moveset; she is more angular and acrobatic, with nimble, dance-like moves.


From Polygon via this RSS feed

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Mario Kart 8 — especially in its 68-million-selling Deluxe form on Nintendo Switch — is the definitive Mario Kart, and perhaps it always will be. It has the crispness and technicality of 1992’s Super; the rollicking, combative multiplayer of 64; the accessibility and gloss of Mario Kart Wii. Refined and expanded over 10 years, it includes many of the series’ greatest tracks, too. It is the fifth-best-selling game of all time. Nintendo could have been forgiven for just extending it on to the Switch 2 and making it a forever game.

Instead, the Mario Kart team has attempted to follow the unfollowable with a sort of soft reboot. Mario Kart World asks: What if this scrambled carnival of cartoon imagery and looping race tracks was actually a place? The series’ ninth installment is an open-world racing game, where all the action happens on a single, contiguous map, and tracks flow into each other. This is not a new genre, and it has its fair share of classics already: Test Drive Unlimited, 2005’s Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Burnout Paradise, and most notably, the Forza Horizon series, which these days is the only racing game franchise that can remotely challenge Mario Kart’s mass-market hegemony.

But Mario Kart is not like other racing games (setting aside its legion of imitators). It has a different form and different priorities, which means Nintendo’s first attempt to hammer its anarchic kart-racing peg into the open-world hole isn’t an unqualified success. The good news is that Nintendo has not lost its focus on what makes Mario Kart great — not for a second. At the absolute worst, Mario Kart World is a superb Mario Kart game with an interesting gimmick and a new, chill solo playstyle.

In the game’s reveal trailer and deep-dive Direct, Nintendo oversold how central exploring the world of Mario Kart would be. It’s a surprise to boot up Mario Kart World and find the much-discussed new Free Roam exploration mode left out of the familiar suite of main menu options: solo, multiplayer, and online; Grand Prix, Battle, and Time Trial. Instead, you press the plus button, the menus melt away, and you segue smoothly into the world, a lone karter in a vast, empty racing playground. This is how Mario Kart World relates to its map: It’s inherent, but siloed.

You can’t play Free Roam in split-screen, the way most people enjoy Mario Kart. You can’t fully experience it online, either. You don’t discover and unlock Mario Kart World’s racing action by exploring its map the way you do in Forza Horizon. To race, you do as you have always done: pick a Grand Prix cup — Mushroom, Leaf, Star, Lightning — or jump into an online lobby and hurtle from one chaotic, shell-slinging competition into the next.

But the races aren’t a series of antic non-sequiturs anymore. They do lead into each other. Typically, a Grand Prix cup starts with a traditional three-lap circuit race, but the next three events are cross-country point-to-point stages topped off with a single lap of the destination stadium. Mario Kart’s tight racing circuits and vertiginous theme-park rides are now interspersed — no, integrated – with bustling blasts down highways, along rivers, across wildernesses, and up dazzling escalators of boost pads and sky rings. In Mario Kart World, you’re always going somewhere.

It’s epic, and a different style of racing from what we’re used to. It’s also strongly favored in both the Grand Prix and online racing, perhaps to a fault — a little more traditional three-lap circuit racing would round out Mario Kart World’sdiet, considering the layouts to support it are in the game. Some Mario Kart purists are chafing against the point-to-point races they call “intermission tracks,” bemoaning the long straightways and random hazards that compress the field and take the emphasis off pure driving skill. But in these sections, Nintendo has simply put the demand for technique elsewhere.

Mario Kart World significantly expands the series’ driving vocabulary. New moves elaborate on the already dense system of speed boosts that are just as vital to success as iconic pickups like the Red Shell or the Banana. You can now hold R when driving in a straight line to charge up a jump, which can be used to trigger wall riding and rail riding, both of which offer huge boosting opportunities. And Mario Kart World’s designers have seeded opportunities to use these everywhere. You can even wall ride on the sides of trucks and buses.

The potential for showy stunt combos and sick tech is immense, and the community will be exploring the possibilities for a long time yet. But even more casual drivers will be constantly engaged, picking out their next opportunity to squeeze out some more speed from dozens of options. It also feels as though combat items like shells have been nerfed a little, while the mushroom boosts are buffed. In Mario Kart World, there’s one rule: Always Be Boosting.

It’s deeply rewarding technical racing that, in true Mario Kart style, can be relied on to win out over cruel luck and chaos nine times out of ten — well, maybe four times out of five. That holds true even in Mario Kart World’s swarming field of 24 racers, but is tested to the limit by the new Knockout Tours. These are long, battle royale-style endurance races that cross the map, knocking out the last four racers at a series of checkpoints. They can frustrate, but they bring a level of visceral tension that classic racing can sometimes lack — especially in the brutal but brilliant online lobbies.

A blue Yoshi holds up a stacked burger outside a Yoshi’s drive-in in Mario Kart World

World is an expansive new Mario Kart, broader and subtly deeper than it was before — and, as befits the $80 marquee Switch 2 launch title and sequel to one of the biggest games of all time, it’s a lavish production, built on flawless tech. I’ve never seen it drop from 60 frames per second in any mode or circumstance. It’s gorgeous, full of tactile textures and toothsome, colorful environments, but always foregrounding the adorable and hilarious character art. The dozens of unlockable costumes, vehicles, and “NPC” characters — Cow, Pokey, Cheep Cheep, Coin Coffer, and co. — are drawn and animated with infectious humor and exquisite detail. It’s a delight simply to browse them.

The musical score trumps even Mario Kart 8’s all-time classic. It’s a scarcely believable luxury: hours and hours of banging new tracks and classic Mario themes in a range of styles that runs from nocturnal elevator music through spring break EDM to groovy samba and, of course, shredding jazz-funk, most of it recorded live by God’s own session band. It’s Koji Kondo by way of Quincy Jones, and the day it drops on the Nintendo Music app should be a public holiday.

Amid all this opulence, Nintendo remains committed to streamlined minimalism in Mario Kart’s structure and interface. It’s a firm choice, and probably the right one, as it keeps the series accessible to its immensely broad audience. But in a game of this scale, it can create friction as well as eliminate it. The Mario Kart community will be unsurprised but a little deflated by the basic online amenities; it shouldn’t be this hard to play ranked modes with a friend in the year 2025. At least the network performance is good.

Lakitu flying his cloud shaped, winged kart in Mario Kart World

But the biggest challenge Nintendo has faced is in integrating the deep familiarity and simplicity of Mario Kart with the scope of an open world. It results in a lot of compromises. Because you move through the game by ticking off Grands Prix from the menu in time-honored fashion, rather than through progressive exploration of the map, and because Nintendo includes next to no mapping information in the UI, the world Nintendo’s artists have built never becomes a lived-in space you feel you know and can navigate from memory, the way the greatest video game worlds do.

The “world” of Mario Kart World is a triumph of design  — it’s effectively one giant fantasy race track that’s never not fun to drive, in any direction, and it’s somehow crammed with secrets and off-piste challenges as well as multifarious strategic opportunities for racing. It’s just not really a place. I can’t imagine building an emotional relationship with it the way I have with Azeroth, or Hyrule, or, more to the point, Forza Horizon 4’s Britain.

What’s more, Nintendo has determined that all Mario Kart World’s unlocks — those juicy costumes and vehicles — must be accessible through any play mode by collecting the ubiquitous coins and eating the only mildly scarcer Dash Food drive-thru meal items (which all look delicious, by the way). This means there’s no distinct reward for finding collectables or mastering the P Switch challenges in Free Roam, other than hundreds of nicely designed but meaningless stickers.

Cataquack performs a stunt in Mario Kart World

Free Roam is the freshest thing in Mario Kart World; it’s a shame that Nintendo seems so scared of it. As a much more chill way to enjoy Mario Kart solo, it’s deeply welcome. It’s also genuinely novel, serving up something more akin to a vehicular Mario platformer than to your typical open-world driving game. I love the brisk P Switch missions, which drop evasive gauntlets, mini time trials, coin collection sprints, rail-grinding trick challenges, soaring aerial routes, and more all over the map.

But Free Roam is a little too unstructured and far too cut off from the rest of the game. You can encounter other characters driving around, but you can’t challenge them to a sprint (or interact with them at all); you can visit a circuit, but you can’t trigger a race from there. You can’t really experience it with other players except as a glorified lobby screen in online multiplayer, and this version of the map has the P Switch missions removed. It feels empty and aimless.

I love Free Roam, and I think Mario Kart World’s map is a marvel. I just wish it could have been integrated at a deeper level with the other game modes in a way that would breathe life into this extraordinary location. And I do think that could have been done without swamping the game in the bloat and complication that bedevils so many open-world games, Forza Horizon included. It’s possible that Nintendo will build up this side of Mario Kart World over time or in a sequel; if Mario Kart 8 Deluxe felt like an endpoint for everything Mario Kart had been, World is a great starting point for its future.

But if I had gotten the open-world Mario Kart I think I want, perhaps something more important would have been lost. Maybe Nintendo had the right idea: Why drive to the next race when the drive there can be the race? Why make the distance between players and this joyous game any more than a single, swift, satisfying button-click? That’s classic Mario Kart, and Mario Kart World is nothing if not a classic Mario Kart game. If the integrity and scope of its open-world ambition have to be sacrificed to stay true to the Mario Kart creed, then it’s a price worth paying.


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sketches from Indiana Jones and the great circle

Since 2021, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has partnered with iam8bit and Fortyseven Communications to produce Game Maker’s Sketchbook, an annual competition celebrating the brightest artistic minds in the games industry.

This year’s Game Maker’s Sketchbook winners have just been announced, including some pretty incredible works from games like Marvel Rivals, The Midnight Walk, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, among others. Winning submissions are broken up into categories focused on a variety of different skillsets, such as character art, environmental design, and iconography (for those HUD elements and inventory boxes that are just too good to ignore), to name a few.

If you fancy yourself a collector of these sorts of works, iam8bit actually sells many of the winning prints, with the proceeds going to the AIAS Foundation, which focuses on creating an inclusive, interactive entertainment community through collaboration, education, and professional development. Finally you can have Riven’s vexing golden dome hanging on your wall!

The end-product that we see in games gets the lion’s share of attention, with a focus on incredible character models and 3D environments. And yet, it’s important to remember that almost all games have to start in a much more simple place, with just a few sketches of an idea. Despite the mastery at work here, these sketches often don’t get the attention they deserve, so it’s pretty great to see the competition shining a bit of a light on it.


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Spiritfarer developer Thunder Lotus Games announced its next project during the Xbox Games Showcase Sunday, At Fate’s End. It’s an action-adventure game where you’ll fight family via emotional sword-fighting and dialogue duels. At Fate’s End is due out sometime in 2026 for Windows PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Game Pass. Notably, neither the Nintendo Switch or the Switch 2 were listed as platforms, though that may change in the future.

In At Fate’s End you’ll play as princess Shan, who wields the God Sword Aesus (which already sounds like a very cool sword). She’ll fight her siblings in duels “where combat is waged not only through swordplay, but through dialogue, psychological insight, and hard-won knowledge of shared history,” according to the press release revealing the game. It’ll feature various endings, meaning your family’s future sinks or swims depending on your choices.

Creative Director Nicolas Guérin said the developer is pushing everything it learned from crafting Spiritfarer further. “This is a more intense, more action-driven game, but no less intimate. It’s about how families break apart — and how they might come back together.”

Thunder Lotus Games is perhaps best known for its 2020 management sim Spiritfarer, which cast players as Stella, whose job it is to help spirits find comfort while guiding them toward the afterlife. Thunder Lotus’ previous titles also include Jotun and Sundered, and it launched 33 Immortals into early access earlier in March 2025.


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Double Fine Productions’ Keeper was revealed Sunday at the Xbox Games Showcase and will launch Oct. 17 for Xbox Series X and Windows PC. It’ll also be available day one on Xbox Game Pass.

In Keeper, you’ll play as a weathered lighthouse aged by time. It sprouts legs, and you and a bird companion will then explore various environments together. The trailer showcased a forest, an illuminated cave, and a village populated by robotic characters on wheels. Double Fine’s games are known for being full of heart, and judging by its reveal trailer, Keeper will have plenty of it.

Double Fine is perhaps best known for 2021’s Psychonauts 2. It had previously set aside Keeper in favor of completing development on Psychonauts 2. Polygon enjoyed Psychonauts 2, calling it “one of the most imaginative platforming games out there, with an absolute flood of joyous ideas and images” in our review. Its development was featured in the Double Fine PsychOdyssey documentary, one of the best and most honest looks at the process of large-scale video game development.

Double Fine was acquired by Microsoft in 2019 and is known for developing artistically and narratively unique games such as both Psychonauts titles and Broken Age, as well as remasters of games that founder Tim Schafer originally worked on in the 1990s, like Grim Fandango Remastered and Full Throttle Remastered.


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A woman holding the Xbox Asus ROG Ally

Xbox announced two Asus ROG Xbox Ally variations during the summer 2025 Xbox Games Showcase, both of which include more powerful AMD processors and a native Xbox app, among other things. Both Xbox handhelds will launch in the holiday 2025 window, though Xbox didn’t mention pricing during the reveal.

The ROG Xbox Ally X comes with:

AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme GPU24GB RAM1TB onboard storage

The standard ROG Xbox Ally comes with:

AMD Ryzen 2A16GB RAM512 GB onboard storage

The ROG Xbox Ally comes with a native Xbox app that lets you access your Xbox games and cloud libraries, and you can swap between associated apps as well, such as Discord, Battlenet, and “other leading PC storefronts,” Xbox said in an Xbox Wire post.

The news comes after Xbox console games began showing up in the Xbox PC app, prompting speculation that Xbox’s long-rumored plans of creating a single platform that lets you access your Xbox games from console and PC and potentially from Steam as well. It’s also in line with Xbox’s recent push to make accessing Xbox Studio games easier by publishing them on non-Microsoft platforms, such as putting Forza Horizon 5 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on PlayStation 5.

Polygon previously reported on leaked images of an Xbox  handheld that appeared in Federal Communication Comission filings. The images in the official filings showed what was essentially just a black Asus ROG Ally, but with an Xbox button included. It turns out that was mostly correct, though the ROG Xbox Ally includes a few additional features as well, such as longer hand grips that more closely resemble a standard Xbox controller and impulse triggers. Xbox introduced impulse triggers with the Xbox One, individual motors that can be programmed to vibrate at specific points during gameplay.


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Asobo Studio — the developer behind A Plague Tale: Innocence and its sequel, A Plague Tale: Requiem — has revealed the next game in the A Plague Tale franchise: a prequel called Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy. The news was shared during the Xbox Games Showcase via a reveal trailer that gave players their first look at the game.

Set 15 years before the events of the first game, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy naturally features a new protagonist. Resonance follows the story of Sophia, a treasure-hunter who is determined to discover the secrets of her past, despite being on the run from an army of mysterious pursuers.

“We wanted to expand and explore the world of A Plague Tale with a character — Sophia — that is very close to our heart, but within a much more action-oriented experience,” Asobo Studio chief creative officer David Dedeine explained in a press release. “This fresh approach comes with intuitive and rewarding combat, as well as a brand-new manifestation of the Macula, the ancient evil. Resonance embraces themes, places and eras that we had never explored before.”

Sophia’s attempt to escape the enemies who are hot on her heels eventually leads her to Minotaur’s Island, a strange environment full of ancient puzzles, mazes, and trials. But she’s not alone — the army has kept tabs on her, and Sophia will routinely have to fight them off as she explores the island.

Human enemies aren’t the only ones after Sophia, however. Minotaur’s Island was named after a myth, but based on the enormous minotaur featured in the trailer, that myth appears to have some basis in fact.

“Expanding the world of A Plague Tale with Sophia — a character already close to our heart since Requiem — is exciting, and we can’t wait to hear what our fans think!” Focus Entertainment managing director John Bert said of the upcoming prequel. “Blending myth and combat in this new opus promises to be a great opportunity for all to embark on a new adventure.”

Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is set to launch sometime in 2026 and will be available on Xbox Series X Day One with Xbox Game Pass. It will also be available for PlayStation 5 and Windows PC (via Steam).


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David Mason in the Black Ops 7 trailer

Xbox and Activision revealed Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 in a dramatic cinematic trailer during the Summer 2025 Xbox Games Showcase. Having two Black Ops games release consecutively is a first for the franchise, and Activision’s Treyarch and Raven studios teamed up to make it happen following 2024’s Black Ops 6.

The Black Ops 7 trailer is a trippy thing, like something you might expect out of Remedy’s Alan Wake series, with scenes of the protagonist appearing to experience a fragmented consciousness, a moment where a cityscape folds in on itself Inception-style, laughing TV sets, red butterflies made of data, and talking robot butlers escorting someone through a suspiciously, eerily calm executive suite. While we’re not entirely sure what’s going on, we do know who’s leading the charge this time: David Mason, the lead from Black Ops 2 whose last appearance was in 2018’s Black Ops 4.

“The year is 2035 and the world is on the brink of chaos, ravaged by conflict and psychological warfare following the narrative events of Black Ops 2 and Black Ops 6,” the game’s official description reads on Xbox Wire. “With cutting-edge technology in hand, the Black Ops team led by David Mason must fight back against a manipulative enemy who weaponizes fear above all else.”

Activision said Black Ops 7 will support solo play and multiplayer squads in a new co-op campaign, and you’ll have “near-future weaponry” to take on the challenge. Black Ops 7 will also include a standalone multiplayer mode with new maps and a zombies mode that continues the Dark Aether storyline.

There’s no Black Ops 7 release date yet, but when it does launch, it’ll be available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC.


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