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Lego Mario Kart Starter Set And Buildable Wario Figure Get First Price Cuts

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Baldur's Gate 3 boss says Game Awards 2025 nominees like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are "proof" the industry still recognizes "passion," regardless of the "budget or who is making it"

Baldur's Gate 3 director and Larian Studios lead Swen Vincke has reacted to nominations for The Game Awards 2025, specifically those leading what arguably stands as the most competitive category of all: Game of the Year. The nominations went up yesterday, with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 smashing it in various categories from Game of the Year to Best Game Direction and many more. It's not the only GOTY contender, of course, with other gems to come from this past year making the list, like Death Stranding 2 and Hollow Knight: Silksong. They span all aesthetics, developers, genres, and themes – and that's what Vincke loves about this year's nominees. Sharing his thoughts in an online post made in direct response to the new Game of the Year nominees, the RPG mastermind writes, "I like that there is such diversity among the developers nominated, each representing a different approach to making games. It's proof that our industry still recognizes games that entertain and are made with passion, regardless of the budget or who is making it. Brings things back to the core." Sandfall says Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 winning GOTY "isn't something we aim for," and even though it would be a "nice little bonus," it's rooting for Megabonk Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 devs say "being recognized in Japan" is "very personal to us" after making a game "inspired by so many incredible JRPGs we grew up with" Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 studio's next game won't necessarily be an RPG: "We don't want to be constrained by story, art style or gameplay" Vincke then admits, "I only played 4 out of the 6, but those 4 certainly merit their place and I understand why the other 2 are there too." It's safe to say that Clair Obscur: expedition 33, at least, is likely to be one of those four – judging by the Baldur's Gate 3 director's past threads, anyway. The same can be said for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, which he also previously posted about. That's not all Vincke has to say about this year's Game Awards, however. In a separate reply to the nominees for Best Community Support – a category that Baldur's Gate 3 team Larian Studios has been present within for three years now – he expresses his excitement: "Team's going to be so happy!!! That's three times in a row now. Thank you for the nomination!!!" As a hardened fan of the studio's Dungeons & Dragons RPG myself, I'd say it's deserved. The Game Awards 2025 go live in a few weeks, right before the holiday season on December 11, and we'll get to see then who takes the coveted trophy of Game of the Year – and every other category, Best Community Support included – home. Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't give Karlach the ending she deserves, but new D&D lore unintentionally confirms a much more favorable canon for the beloved tiefling

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Jessica Conditt

2026-04-01

Mr. Resident Evil signs a deal with Mr. Stellar Blade

Resident Evil legend Shinji Mikami's new studio, Unbound Inc., has been acquired by Shift Up, the company behind Stellar Blade and Goddess of Victory: Nikke. Unbound's unannounced games will be fully supported and distributed by South Korean publisher Shift Up, which is led by CEO Hyung-Tae Kim. Mikami is an icon of Japanese horror as the director of Resident Evil, its 2002 remake and Resident Evil 4, as well as a founder of PlatinumGames and Tango Gameworks. Tango was responsible for The Evil Within series, Ghostwire Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush. Shift Up recently developed the hit action game Stellar Blade, with Kim as director. Even with an adorably grotesque introduction video, it's unclear exactly what Unbound is working on at the moment, but the studio is targeting the global PC and console market. Its concepts involve plenty of monsters, as is tradition. Consider even the surface-level possibilities here: The campy horror of Resident Evil blended with the melodramatic beauty of Stellar Blade; the frenzy of Hi-Fi Rush amped up by the anime stylings of Goddess of Victory: Nikke; The Evil Within III, but make it sexy. Those are jokes, but the sentiment remains — this partnership makes a lot of sense and it'll be exciting to see what shakes out. “We believe we can respect each other as creators and make games together,” Mikami said in a Shift Up blog post about the deal. “And I think with Hyung-Tae, we can even enjoy the hard parts.... Seeing my own vision and ideals come into focus like this, and finding someone whose direction aligns so closely is something I’ve rarely experienced before in my career. I hope we keep building together for a long time.” It's also heartening to see stability for Mikami's new studio. His previous team, Tango Gameworks, was acquired by Microsoft in 2021, and Mikami left in 2023 after the release of Hi-Fi Rush. Microsoft shuttered Tango in 2024 during a period of mass game industry layoffs, and its remaining team was eventually sold to Krafton. Mikami has been quietly building up his own studio since 2022.

Lawrence Bonk

2026-04-01

April's PS Plus Monthly Games include Lords of the Fallen and a trio of remastered Tomb Raider ports

Sony just revealed a trio of PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for April and it's a pretty stacked lineup. These will all be playable on April 7 for subscribers on any tier. After downloading, the games will stay in a player's library as long as the subscription remains active. First up, there's Lords of the Fallen for PS5. This is a sequel to 2014's Lords of the Fallen, despite having the same exact name. The 2023 release boasts a much larger world than the original, but similar fast-paced gameplay. It's an action RPG with nine character classes and hundreds of weapons to choose from. There's also a dual-world mechanic that's (sort of) like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It was generally well-reviewed and a success with players. There's another sequel scheduled for release later this year. Tomb Raider I-III Remastered is a collection of ports first released back in 2024. These updated versions of old-school PlayStation classics boast updated graphics, with the ability to instantly switch back to the retro polygonal look. There's a new challenge mode that offers players the ability to replay levels with customized modifiers to complete achievements. This is a great entry point for Lara Croft fans who never got to play the originals. The collection is available on PS4 and PS5. Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream is a live-service action RPG for PS5 owners with a heavy emphasis on co-op gameplay. Around 20 players can adventure simultaneously in teams of five parties scattered throughout the world. The story is a bit of a mess, pulling in characters from across the franchise's many entries. This approach sort of reminds me of something like Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, which uses narrative trickery to allow characters from multiple games to team up. As always, the introduction of new titles means that some old games have gotta go. PS Plus members have until April 6 to download March's lineup, which include PGA Tour 2K25, Monster Hunter Rise, Slime Rancher 2 and The Elder Scrolls Online Collection: Gold Road.

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Matt Tate

2026-04-01

MindsEye will litigate its own launch 'sabotage' controversy in DLC form

MindsEye developer Build a Rocket Boy remains so convinced that corporate foul play contributed to the disastrous launch of its debut game that it’s now planning to prove it to its audience via in-game content. In a wide-ranging interview with GamesBeat, BARB CEO and CTO Mark Gerhard said MindsEye will soon receive a multiplayer update, as well as a new mission called Blacklist in which the studio will "share some of the evidence of the sabotage with the community." Gerhard didn’t elaborate further, beyond revealing that the new mission will also introduce a playable female character, but promised further updates to the game in the coming months. BARB hopes its DLC will inspire the MindsEye community to create their own user-generated content with its Arcadia platform, which was always the long-term plan for the troubled action game. "The end state we want to be at is where the community can make their own [content] and can dream up their own creations, and again, without being a studio or needing to program or anything," Gerhard told GamesBeat. "They can actually make really fun and compelling experiences for themselves and their friends. That’s our mission. And I think that’s going to be more and more evident over the next few months." MindsEye was riddled with bugs and performance issues when it launched last June, resulting in players demanding refunds and the studio hurriedly attempting to patch things up. Layoffs soon followed, with BARB co-CEO Lezlie Benzies reportedly addressing the remaining staff to reassure them of the game’s future. According to an IGN report, the former president of Rockstar North and GTA producer told employees at the time that saboteurs both external and within the company were to blame for the game’s nightmarish rollout. In his new interview with GamesBeat, Gerhard took responsibility for the bugs and crashes that led to what he admitted was "without doubt, the worst launch in history," but echoed Benzies’ previous comments about the reputational damage the game suffered. "Obviously, we were kind of caught flat-footed on that," he said. "We didn’t counter the negative narrative. We weren’t sophisticated enough to have done that. But, we’re aware. We’ve called that out. Some of the negativity has been orchestrated around this, and thankfully, as a result, it stopped." Gerhard said that the studio has collected "very strong evidence" of the alleged leaks following months of "thorough investigations," adding that the case is now in the hands of authorities in the UK and US. BARB recently parted ways with co-publisher IOI Partners (a subsidiary of Hitman developer IO Interactive), and will be solely responsible for publishing responsibilities on MindsEye going forward. As a result, the planned MindsEye and Hitman crossover event is no longer going ahead.

A Palworld horror-themed dating sim spinoff is on the way

Palworld developer Pocketpair just announced a bizarre spinoff called Palworld: More Than Just Pals. This looks to be a dating sim with horror elements in which you can romance the various Pals from the original game. The gameplay description suggests it's set at a mysterious school, and players can not only fall in love with these creatures, but also "dismantle and eat them." The original game already let you eat Pals, but the ability to romance the gun-toting animals is new. We don't know too much about the specifics of gameplay, though there is a trailer. Developer Pocketpair insists this is not an April Fool's Day joke, despite today's date. There's an active Steam page complete with system requirements, for whatever that's worth. We don't have a release date or price for this one just yet. This isn't the first Palworld spinoff. The company recently announced Palworld: Palfarm, which is a farming sim where players can punish Pals that aren't working hard enough. There's no release date for that one yet either. The original Palworld has proven to be a huge hit. It's a cheeky and violent take on Pokémon that has attracted plenty of negative attention from Nintendo. There's no way to date or eat Pokémon in any of Nintendo's games, though Pokopia lets players move in with the creatures and sleep next to them. Many people are particularly fond of turning Machoke into a house husband, who is basically just a big and buff man.

Rec Room, a Roblox-style VR game, is shutting down

The Roblox-like VR title Rec Room is shutting down after operating for a decade. The free-to-play social game is closing its doors because the developers "never quite figured out" how to make it profitable, despite attracting 150 million players. "We spent a long time trying to find a way to make the numbers work," the team wrote in a blog post. "But with the recent shift in the VR market, along with broader headwinds in gaming, the path to profitability has gotten tough enough that we’ve made the difficult decision to shut things down." The devs are also allowing users to download some of the assets connected to rooms they created. This could, in theory, let them port their creations to other platforms in the future. Snapchat owner Snap has already bought up a bunch of Rec Room's assets and some employees will join the social media company, according to a report by GeekWire. Rec Room first appeared all the way back in 2016, years before the standalone Meta Quest entered the VR scene. It was a massive hit on the PSVR platform before being ported to other hardware. There's even a traditional version of the game available for non-VR platforms. Just like Roblox, it lets folks design their own spaces to hang out in. VR is in a tough spot right now. Meta was an industry leader, but the company has been laying off hundreds of people from its Reality Labs division. This is the team that makes VR/AR hardware and software. It's been reported that, instead, the company has been funneling more money into ongoing AI efforts. Sony's PSVR2 was also not a gigantic hit.

NVIDIA's DLSS 4.5 Multi Frame Generation tech is now available to boost your Hz

After releasing DLSS 4.5's Super Resolution feature earlier this year, NVIDIA has released an update with DLSS 4.5 features designed to boost frame rates on RTX 50 series cards. Those include DLSS 4.5 Dynamic Multi Frame Generation and DLSS 4.5 Multi Frame Generation 6X. With those, NVIDIA is promising the "smoothest path-traced gaming yet" to unlock the potential for high-refresh 4K 240Hz OLED gaming displays, or 1080p and 1440p monitors at 360Hz and beyond. The first feature, DLSS 4.5 Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, is like an "automatic transmission" for your RTX 50 series card, NVIDIA said. Rather than multiplying the frame rate by a fixed amount, the AI-powered feature changes it dynamically to strike a balance between refresh rate, image quality and responsiveness. To optimize computing power, it ensures that a game's frame rate doesn't exceed your monitor's native refresh rate, so you won't play at 240 fps on a 120Hz monitor. The other key feature, Multi Frame Generation 6X, is designed to deliver even higher levels of performance. Based on NVIDIA's second-gen transformer model, along with frame pacing and image quality improvements, the feature boosts the maximum multiplier to 6X, generating up to five extra frames for every natively rendered frame on GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs. That will boost 4K frame rates up to 35 percent "with minimal impact to responsiveness," NVIDIA wrote. As with Super Resolution, the native frame rate of a game is not accelerated by these features. Rather, the DLSS 4.5 feature uses AI to create interpolated intermediate frames the machine "thinks" should be there. Normally this works fine, but the scheme can create odd artifacts in certain types of scenes, particularly with fine details like rain, hair and phone wires. Still, the tech allows for smoother gaming with a minimal increase on your GPU's burden. It's now available for NVIDIA RTX 50 series cards, and as NVIDIA announced earlier, there are a number of games supporting the MFG features. Those include 007 First Light (May 27th), CONTROL Resonant, Directive 8020 (May 12th) and Tides of Annihilation.

BOXROOM lets you build a cozy game room for your Steam library

Your game collection says a lot about you. With a cute new game, you can also give your collection a space that's just as personalized. BOXROOM is a building sim where the whole purpose is creating a space to show off your game library. You can select furniture, paint and lighting, then you choose games from your Steam library to display on your virtual shelves. Titles appear in game boxes, giving it a throwback feel to the days where a game collection had to be physical. Once complete, the room serves as a launcher, allowing you to boot up a title from the game box. The demo is available now, and the team said that BOXROOM will launch in early access soon. This is a fun idea, although it's unlikely that you'd fit your entire collection into even this virtual space if your Steam library starts to number in the hundreds, or even thousands, of games. As with an IRL space, you'd need a warehouse rather than a cute, cozy room. But if you wanted to have a curated selection of your go-to titles in a customized virtual space, this might be a fun addition to your already sizable collection. Or, if you want a virtual reality take on a similar idea, EmuVR might be worth a look.

This Frankenstein PlayStation PCB reads games from microSD and outputs video over HDMI

We're living in the golden age of retro console modding. If you have an old Game Boy Advance lying around, it's possible to give it a new lease on life with aftermarket parts like an IPS display and USB-C charging. But as amazing as those mods are, most still require an original GBA motherboard with a working processor and RAM. That's what makes the PlayStation Hybrid from YouTuber Secret Hobbyist so cool. Over the past couple of months, they've been working to design, prototype and build the ultimate PlayStation PCB, one that incorporates the best parts of different model revisions while adding a couple of modern conveniences. The specific motherboards Secret Hobbyist's PCB pulls parts from are the PM-41 v2 and the PU18, with the former being a PSOne board while the latter was sourced from a "phat" model. The decision to incorporate parts from different PlayStation variants makes a lot of sense if you know something about the history of the console. Between the release of the PlayStation in 1994 and the smaller PSOne in 2000, Sony made multiple revisions to the original design to address hardware issues and eke out cost savings. One component that you can find on older models, but not the PSOne, is an Asahi Kasei-made digital-to-analog audio converter (DAC). Over the years, this DAC has gained something of a cult following among audiophiles, with some of the earliest models like the SCPH-1000 and SCPH-3000 being particularly sought after as CD players because they also came with RCA outputs, a feature Sony later cut from subsequent revisions. As for the PU18, it has a part that makes it compatible with the X Station, a CD replacement that allows a modded PlayStation to read games from a microSD card. From the PSOne, Secret Hobbyist sourced the console's GPU and CPU, which are more power efficient than the ones found on its older siblings. Lastly, they incorporated an FPGA chip from a Hispeedido mod kit to make their hybrid PlayStation capable of outputting video over HDMI. The final result is a custom PCB that is even smaller than the PSOne's PM-41 v2, draws less than two watts of power and works with modern displays. That power draw means the Hybrid PlayStation could be engineered to be a handheld. Secret Hobbyist still has yet to design an enclosure for their new Frankenstein console, but judging from the comments on their video, people are excited to see the final result. In the meantime, be sure to watch the full video to learn more about the project and see some incredible soldering work.

Deus Ex game studio Eidos Montreal cuts 124 jobs

Another day, another announcement of game industry job cuts. The latest restructuring is happening at Eidos Montreal, which stated that 124 people are being laid off. As with so many similar cuts, the studio's LinkedIn post credited the downsizing to "a result of changing project needs and impacts across production and support teams." The company is also parting ways with its studio head, David Anfossi. Eidos Montreal has worked on titles within the Deus Ex and Tomb Raider franchises, as well as Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy and Marvel's Avengers games. It is one of the many companies owned by Embracer Group, which snapped up a bunch of studios but has been stuck in a downsizing in a loop following an expensive restructuring of its own gaming empire during 2023 and 2024. That activity reportedly included axing a planned new Deus Ex game that Eidos Montreal was working on. The post from Eidos Montreal didn't specify what projects it is currently active on, although it has said it is involved with the upcoming Grounded 2 from Obsidian Entertainment and the reimagined Fable from Playground Games.

This year's Xbox Games Showcase is set for June 7

Microsoft has confirmed exactly when this year’s Xbox Games Showcase will take place. It will air at the usual time, 1PM ET on the Sunday (June 7) of Summer Game Fest weekend. In recent years, the company has offered a deeper dive into one particular game straight after the showcase, and it’s sticking to that format this time with a closer look at Gears of War: E-Day. The showcase and Gears of War: E-Day Direct will be available in more than 40 languages, including American Sign Language and British Sign Language. A stream with English audio descriptions will be available as well. You can watch it on several of Xbox’s various social channels, including YouTube, Twitch and Facebook. This is typically Xbox’s biggest showcase of the year. It will be the first Xbox Games Showcase with Asha Sharma at the helm of Microsoft’s gaming division. Perhaps we’ll hear some more details on the next Xbox (aka Project Helix), which is confirmed to be a system that will run PC games — much like the upcoming Steam Machine. Along with more details about a brand-new Gears of War game, it seems likely that we’ll learn the release date for Fable during the Xbox Games Showcase. That game is slated to arrive this fall. We don’t yet have exact release dates for Minecraft Dungeons 2 or Halo: Campaign Evolved, a remake of the first Halo game’s campaign. Those are scheduled to debut this year as well, so they seem like prime candidates for showcase appearances. Microsoft also has Clockwork Revolution, State of Decay 3, OD (from Kojima Productions) and something new from Toys for Bob in the hopper. In addition, Microsoft is promising the return of Xbox FanFest, an in-person fan event, to help mark the brand’s 25th anniversary. Sharma confirmed this will take place in Los Angeles, where all of the Summer Game Fest events are going down. “This year’s experience will include a look back at the last 25 years, alongside a forward view of what’s next,” according to an Xbox Wire blog post.

Bethesda is shutting down The Elder Scrolls: Blades on June 30

It's a sad day for the dozens of players still grinding The Elder Scrolls: Blades. Bethesda announced that it's permanently shutting down the servers for its free-to-play mobile spinoff on June 30. First spotted on Reddit, The Elder Scrolls: Blades has already been delisted from the App Store and Google Play store, and is currently unavailable on the Nintendo Store. In the meantime, players will receive a free bundle of Gems and Sigils, while all items in the in-game store are available for just one Gem or Sigil each. With a server shutdown imminent, The Elder Scrolls: Blades' will at least cross its six-year mark since its official release was in 2020 for Android, iOS and Nintendo Switch. The dungeon-crawling spinoff did see early success when more than one million iOS users downloaded the game during the first week of its early access period, but it never amounted to the commercial success of Bethesda's mainline titles. In the end, The Elder Scrolls: Blades ended up with a "Generally Unfavorable" score on Metacritic, with critics calling it "repetitive" and filled with microtransactions. The shutdown doesn't come as a total surprise, since Bethesda also killed off its other spinoff, The Elder Scrolls: Legends, by halting development in 2019 and ultimately taking the game's servers offline in January 2025. For anyone who still wants to play a mobile spinoff of Bethesda's fantasy world, there's still The Elder Scrolls: Castles.

The Avatar fighting game will release on July 2 for PC and consoles

The fighting game community is going to have their hands full this summer between the release of Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls and Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game. The studio behind the 2D fighting game based in the Avatar universe announced that a July 2 release date with a trailer that shows off new gameplay and a base price of $29.99. The game will launch with 12 characters, encompassing both the heroes and villains from Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. The game's developer, Gameplay Group International, said that there are more than 900 hand-drawn frames for each character, which makes the game look like it came directly out of the beloved TV series. Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game will feature both casual and ranked matches, using a rollback netcode to ensure smooth frame-by-frame action between players, along with crossplay across PS5, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC. For those more interested in the lore, there will be a single-player story mode and a gallery mode with "never before seen art." Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game is currently available for pre-order, starting at $29.99, but there's a $59.99 deluxe edition that includes a digital art book, music soundtrack, unique HUDs and a Year 1 Pass, which adds five additional characters that will be released in the future. Those who pre-order will also get a Samurai skin for Appa, exclusive character colors and voting privilege for the Year 1 Pass characters.