Pokémon Champions — a battle-focused game along the lines of Pokémon Stadium — now has a release date, and it's pretty darn soon. It will hit Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 on April 8. A mobile version is in the works with support for cross-play with Nintendo's consoles. Nintendo released a new overview video that shows how the game works. You can recruit Pokémon in the game or transfer those you've found in previous titles and Pokémon Go via Pokémon Home. Then you'll be able to take half a dozen of your Pokémon into strategic turn-based fights with other players. It's definitely a Pokémon battle game! There are ranked battles, a casual mode, private lobbies and online competitions. You'll earn victory points, which you can use to swap a Pokémon's moves, increase their stat points and make other modifications. In addition, victory points enable you to recruit Pokémon in Pokémon Champions more than once per day. Pokémon that you recruit with victory points can stay in your roster permanently instead of just a week. There's a shop too, where you can spend points on accessories, Pokéball throwing styles, victory poses and battle music. Pokémon Champions will be the second new Pokémon game to arrive this year, following the success of Pokémon Pokopia. There's more to come in the not-too-distant future, as Pokémon Wind and Pokémon Waves are scheduled to arrive on Switch 2 next year. While Pokémon Pokopia is selling like hotcakes, the Switch 2 perhaps isn’t flying out of the door as quickly as Nintendo hoped. According to Bloomberg, Nintendo has cut back on production of the console after lower-than-expected sales over the holiday season. The company is said to be making 4 million units this quarter rather than the previously planned 6 million, with the lower production rate set to extend into April.

The popular co-op heist franchise Payday is coming to VR. Payday: Aces High will release for the Meta Quest platform and SteamVR later this year. It looks like it has everything people love about the series, but with some of that VR-style immersion. Just like the mainline games, this version tasks players with planning and then pulling off elaborate heists. It offers four-player co-op, with each person filling a particular role within the group. These are your standard heist movie archetypes. There's the planner, the brawler, the gadget nerd and the silent but deadly assassin. The developer also promises plenty of gear and weapons, with "an arsenal that keeps growing." This leads to the usual Payday gameplay loop. Each successful heist lets players buy more weapons and gadgets. Rinse and repeat. Fast Travel Games is making this one, and the developer has a decent pedigree in the VR space. It helped make Cities: VR and Apex Construct, among many others. The graphics here look decent and we already know the gameplay is solid. Plus, there are clown masks. We'll find out if Payday: Aces High makes the grade later this year. This is just the latest major gaming franchise to experiment with virtual reality. There are VR versions of Half-Life, Assassin's Creed, Horizon and many more.

Epic Games has announced sweeping layoffs of more than 1,000 employees. “The downturn in Fortnite engagement that started in 2025 means we're spending significantly more than we're making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded,” CEO Tim Sweeney said in a memo to workers on Tuesday. Sweeney wrote that, combined with “over $500 million of identified cost savings in contracting, marketing, and closing some open roles,” the layoffs will give Epic more stability. He added that the layoffs are not related to AI. Back in 2023, Epic laid off 830 employees. At the time, that was 16 percent of its workforce, suggesting around 4,000 employees remained at the company. If those numbers haven’t changed too much in the meantime, that means Epic is culling around a quarter of its headcount this week. Along with a dip in Fortnite engagement, Sweeney pointed out that Epic isn’t immune from systemic issues the games industry is contending with, such as a slowdown in growth, reduced spending, “tougher cost economics” and a battle with other types of media for consumer’s attention. However, Epic has some issues of its own to deal with. “Despite Fortnite remaining one of the most successful games in the world, we’ve had challenges delivering consistent Fortnite magic with every season; we're only in the early stages of returning to mobile and optimizing Fortnite for the world's billions of smartphones; and in being the industry's vanguard we have taken a lot of bullets in a battle which is only in the early days of paying off for ourselves and all developers,” Sweeney wrote. (He previously said Epic spent over $100 million in legal fees alone on its App Store battle with Apple.) The path forward for the company, per its CEO, is to create “awesome Fortnite experiences with fresh seasonal content, gameplay, story and live events,” perhaps in an attempt to recapture some of that “magic” he’s referring to. Speeding up work on developer tools amid the transition to Unreal Engine 6 is important as well, Sweeney indicated. He said that the workers Epic is laying off will receive at least four months of their base pay, though they’ll get more depending on the length of their tenure at the company. Epic will pay for extended healthcare coverage, including for six months for affected workers in the US. The company — which is not publicly traded — will speed up the vesting of stock options through next January and “extend equity exercise options for up to two years,” Sweeney said. Epic announced the layoffs days after it increased the price of Fortnite’s V-bucks currency. “The cost of running Fortnite has gone up a lot and we’re raising prices to help pay the bills,” it said. As part of the changes at the company, Epic is killing off three Fortnite modes. Rocket Racing (which was built by Rocket League developer Psyonix) will shut down in October. Fortnite Ballistic — a 5v5 tactical shooter mode — and Festival Battle Stage, which is a competitive version of the Fortnite Festival rhythm game, will vanish on April 16. “We've built a lot of Fortnite modes, and in some cases we failed to build something awesome enough to attract and retain a large player base,” Epic said on X. The company noted in its Year in Review recap last month that although the hours that players spent in third-party titles on the Epic Games Store increased by four percent in 2025, “overall gameplay hours declined year over year,” hinting at a dip in Fortnite numbers. The company said PC players spent $1.16 billion on the store in 2025, an increase of six percent from the previous year. Of that, $400 million was spent on third-party PC games. However, Epic Games Store vice president and general manager Steve Allison told Polygon in February that, factoring in first-party revenue and the 12 percent cut the company takes from third-party games, “the store is already — even with all this stuff — marginally profitable now." Here is the full memo Sweeney shared with Epic’s employees on Tuesday: Today we’re laying off over 1000 Epic employees. I'm sorry we're here again. The downturn in Fortnite engagement that started in 2025 means we're spending significantly more than we're making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded. This layoff, together with over $500 million of identified cost savings in contracting, marketing, and closing some open roles puts us in a more stable place. Some of the challenges we're facing are industry-wide challenges: slower growth, weaker spending, and tougher cost economics; current consoles selling less than last generation's; and games competing for time against other increasingly-engaging forms of entertainment. And some of our challenges are unique to Epic. Despite Fortnite remaining one of the most successful games in the world, we’ve had challenges delivering consistent Fortnite magic with every season; we're only in the early stages of returning to mobile and optimizing Fortnite for the world's billions of smartphones; and in being the industry's vanguard we have taken a lot of bullets in a battle which is only in the early days of paying off for ourselves and all developers. Since it's a thing now, I should note that the layoffs aren't related to AI. To the extent it improves productivity, we want to have as many awesome developers developing great content and tech as we can. What we now need to do is clear: build awesome Fortnite experiences with fresh seasonal content, gameplay, story, and live events; accelerate developer tools with greater stability and capability as we evolve from Unreal Engine 5 and UEFN to Unreal Engine 6. And we'll be kicking off the next generation of Epic with huge launch plans towards the end of the year. This isn't our first time being here. Epic survived upheavals in 1990's with the move from 2D to 3D with Unreal 1; in the 2000's building console games with Gears of War; and in 2012 moving to online gaming with Paragon and Fortnite. Each time, we rebuilt our foundations and earned a renewed leadership position. Market conditions today are the most extreme we've seen since those early days, with massive upheaval in the industry accompanied by massive opportunity for the companies that come out as winners on the other side. That's what we're aiming to do for our players, and we aim to bring other like-minded developers in the industry along on the journey to build an increasingly open and vibrant future of entertainment together. At Epic, we pride ourselves in only hiring the industry's best, so it is very painful to part with so many talented people. The folks impacted by the layoffs will receive a severance package that includes at least four months of base pay, with more based on tenure. We’re also extending Epic-paid healthcare coverage. For example, in the U.S., they’ll receive paid coverage for 6 months. We’ll also accelerate their stock options vesting through January 2027 and extend equity exercise options for up to two years. We'll have a company meeting Thursday to talk about the roadmap in more detail. -Tim

EA has put another game on the chopping block, or at least the console versions of it. The company says it will delist the PS4 and Xbox One versions of Battlefield Hardline from digital storefronts on May 22, and shut down the online services on June 22. The single-player campaign will remain playable for those who own the game. The PC version of Battlefield Hardline isn’t affected by these changes. In its announcement on X, EA didn't explain exactly why it's ceasing support for the game on PS4 and Xbox One. It pointed readers to a FAQ on its website that lays out some of the typical reasons why it ends online support for its games. These include factors like declining player bases. Battlefield Hardline, which was released in 2015, will still be available on Steam as well as EA's own PC app. The Steam version has a peak concurrent player count of 41 so far this year. It's hardly uncommon for a publisher to end online services for games with declining player bases, but it's an issue that's come into greater focus over the last few years thanks in part to the Stop Killing Games movement. EA alone has sunsetted dozens of games. Its website has a full accounting of these, spread across three webpages.

Microsoft has locked in its second games showcase of the year. A Xbox Partner Preview stream will take place on March 26 at 1PM ET. It'll be available on the Xbox YouTube and Twitch channels. There'll be dedicated Twitch and YouTube streams with ASL interpretation, another featuring British Sign Language and one with audio descriptions in English on the main Xbox YouTube channel. The YouTube stream will be in 4K at 60fps (other channels are limited to 1080p) and have subtitle support for nearly three dozen languages. The broadcast will be available on regional Xbox channels as well. This showcase is all about upcoming games from Xbox's third-party partners. It will feature an in-depth look at Ryu Ga Gotoku’s Stranger Than Heaven (formerly known as Project Century), an update on Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl and the latest peek at The Expanse: Osiris Reborn. Along with those, expect some world premieres. Of course, many of these projects will be coming to Game Pass.

The developer behind the open-world RPG Crimson Desert has issued an official apology after players discovered several instances of AI-generated art in the game. Pearl Abyss posted on X that it released the game with some 2D visual props that were made with "experimental AI generative tools" and forgot to replace them before launch. Just a day after Crimson Desert's launch, players took to social media to post reports of potential generative AI usage. Pearl Abyss said on X that "following reports from our community, we have identified that some of these assets were unintentionally included in the final release." Now, the game's Steam page has an AI generated content disclosure, which says that, "generative AI technology is used in a supplementary capacity during the creation of some 2D prop assets" which are later replaced. Moving forward, Pearl Abyss said it will conduct a "comprehensive audit of all in-game assets and are taking steps to replace any affected content." The developer said that these updated assets will roll out in upcoming patches, and that the team would internally review how it communicates with its player base to provide more "transparency and consistency." Pearl Abyss isn't the only developer to fail to disclose the use of AI-generated assets in its games. Late last year, Sandfall Interactive was stripped of its Game of the Year and Debut Game awards from the Indie Game Awards for the use of generative AI in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for placeholder textures that were mistakenly left in the game. Like Pearl Abyss, Arc Raiders' developer Embark Studios is going back and replacing AI-generated material in its game after some backlash from its player base.

The best-selling game of all time is moving from the virtual to the physical. Minecraft World, a permanent Greater London theme park based on the game, is scheduled to open in 2027. The announcement came during Minecraft Live 2026. It will be a new section in Chessington World of Adventures, a theme park with a built-in zoo. The resort is a 35-minute train ride from London's Waterloo station. Details are still fairly light on the park. But we know it will include a roller coaster, "interactive adventures" and "epic block-built playscapes." Torfi Frans Ólafsson, the game franchise's creative director, said they're aiming for "an experience that feels immersive, authentic and welcoming." Naturally, that will include welcoming you to open your wallet in Minecraft-themed retail and dining spots. The park is a collaboration between Mojang Studios and Merlin Entertainments, the world's second-largest theme park builder. (A certain rodent-led empire is first.) If visiting the full theme park in England isn't your thing, the latest location of the game’s (also real-world) pop-up events will open in May. Minecraft Experience: Moonlight Trail will let visitors in Buenos Aires, Argentina, go on an hour-long outdoor nighttime adventure. As its name suggests, you'll "walk a moonlit trail” through iconic Minecraft biomes. Along the way, you’ll craft gear, mine diamonds, battle mobs and “help restore an ancient beacon." The event opens in May. Not all of Minecraft Live's announcements were about real-world empire building. Minecraft, the game, is getting some updates, too. Its next big drop, Tiny Takeover, will live up to the billing with a redesigned "cuter" look for baby mobs. The update will also add a golden dandelion, which you can feed to a baby mob to make it stay young forever. (Or, at least until you feed it a second one.) Tiny Takeover arrives on March 24. Mojang also teased the next drop after that. Later this year, Chaos Cubed will add a sulfur cube that changes properties when absorbing different materials. "There is a lot of variety in what the cube can do," Mojang promises. "Just like there are balls with different 'bounciness' and behavior, the sulfur cube can have different physics." Finally, the long-rumored Minecraft Dungeons II game is official. We're still extremely light on details about the sequel to the 2020 spinoff, aside from the fact that you can wishlist it on March 21.

It doesn’t sound like Crimson Desert, the recently released prequel to Black Desert Online, will support Intel Arc GPUs anytime soon, if at all. On the game’s FAQ page, its developer Pearl Abyss advised players expecting Arc support to apply for a refund. “If you purchased the game expecting Intel Arc support, please refer to the refund policy of the platform where the game was purchased for available options,” the company wrote. Apparently, though, it’s not from lack of guidance from Intel. The chipmaker told Wccftech that it reached out to Pearl Abyss “many times” over the past several years. The Intel spokesperson said that the company has tried to help the developer “test, validate, and optimize support for Intel graphics” for years. Intel also tried to provide the developer “early hardware, drivers, and engineering resources” across several generations of GPUs, “including Alchemist, Battlemage, Meteor Lake, and Lunar Lake.” The chipmaker said it’s “hugely disappointed that players using Intel graphics hardware” can’t play the game, but that it remains “ready to assist Pearl Abyss” however it can. It also advised players to reach out directly to the developer for “details on the choice not to enable Intel support at launch.” Pearl Abyss, of course, doesn’t have the obligation to tweak the game so that it runs on PCs with Intel Arc GPUs. The good news is that since the title came out just a few days ago, it will still be easy to get a refund. Steam, where Crimson Desert is now one of the top-selling games, issues refunds within two weeks of purchase.

Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. There are a whole bunch of neat new games out this week, as well as updates on some interesting upcoming projects. In case you missed it, the Steam Spring Sale is under way. There are lots of solid deals here, and my credit card is already screaming at me. I've picked up a bunch of games from my wishlist. For instance, at just $3, I couldn't resist snagging Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate. Meanwhile, over on Bluesky, a prototype from developer Freya Holmér caught my eye. It's for a falling-block game, but instead of filling a container to create straight lines that disappear, it's based around a pivot point. As tetrominos join the mass, it rotates left or right by 90 degrees, adding a new dimension to a well-established format. I'm really hoping Holmér turns this into a full game, as it's a rad concept. Given all the bug slaughtering and the jingoistic satire, any Starship Troopers project is going to draw comparisons with Helldivers 2. Fortunately, Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! is entirely its own thing. This is a retro first-person shooter from Auroch Digital (the studio behind Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun) and publisher Dotemu. The framing of the game is quite meta: it's based on the experiences of Major Samantha Dietz, who was on the frontlines against the bugs, and it's effectively being used as a military recruitment tool. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! is a blast. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. Not that I needed one, but it gave me an excuse to watch Paul Verhoeven's original film again since the game (while having an original story) hits some of the same beats. The tone is spot on. The writing in the cutscenes, in which Casper Van Dien reprises his role as Johnny Rico from the movies, is funny. You can't tell me that it isn't a thrill to blow up a giant bug with a tactical nuke. Plus, I was tickled by the consequences of "accidentally" shooting a fellow soldier in the training base and all hell breaking loose. Alas, the pacing feels off — there's a bit too much space between objectives in some levels — and it's a little one-note. Still, it only takes around four or five hours to beat, particularly if you don't care about hunting for secrets. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! is out now on Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2. It'll usually cost $25, but there's a 20 percent discount until March 24. Retro Rewind is a solid name for a video store rental sim. You'll manage a store in the early '90s — the heyday of VHS — by doing everything from decorating the place, filling shelves with tapes and buying bootleg films to hiring staff, making recommendations to customers and collecting late fees. My first job was behind the counter of a convenience store that had a small movie rental section, so I've got a tiny bit of experience with calling up customers who have overdue films. That part of the job wasn't exactly fun, but like the idea of running an entire rental store, an experience that's sadly almost extinct. Retro Rewind - Video Store Simulator is available on Steam (normally $20, with a 20 percent discount until March 24). You can try it out by playing a demo. In Their Shoes looks like an intriguing spin on the visual novel. From We Are Muesli, this is billed as a mumblecore narrative vein, indicating that it's influenced by films from that subgenre (such as the works of the Duplass brothers, Lynn Shelton and, especially in the early part of her career, Greta Gerwig). Through a few dozen interactive scenes, it follows the intertwined lives and intimate moments of seven people in Milan. Each of these dialogue-focused segments lasts around five minutes. There are timed choices and you can arrange the scenes into a timeline. You can pick up In Their Shoes on Steam now. The full price is $13, but there's a 25 percent discount until March 31. For this week's dog game, here is World's Goodest Pup. It's another pooch-based roguelike deckbuilder. This time around, you'll be trying to succeed in the realm of competitive dog shows. After selecting a dog from among three breeds, you'll start building a deck of accessories, tricks and poses and combine them in strategic ways to be most effective in competitions and challenges, which are procedurally generated. This is a cozy game first and foremost, though. You can spoil puppers in a pet resort that you'll build and treat them with a visit to a dog spa. Cute. World's Goodest Pup  — from Pandamander — is out on Steam (normally $7, with 10 percent off until March 26). You can try it out via a demo. The release trailer for Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime made me chuckle, so I had to include it. The latest project from Bonte Avond (the team behind Once Upon A Jester) is a comedy adventure game. As Bonnie Bear, a bear in a frog onesie, you set out to defeat a local bully in a tactical frog-battling game called Frogtime. As with many real-life trading card games, you'll buy and collect frogs to build a strong army. Most importantly, it seems to be a game about the power of community, friendship and self-worth. Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime is out now on Steam and Nintendo Switch for $17. Gunbrella studio Doinksoft is back with another game that has a fantastic name. It's a roguelite, side-scrolling action platformer with shoot-em'-up elements. And it's called Dark Scrolls. It's such a good title that I'm almost mad I didn't think of it first. There'll be nine heroes to choose from, including a pup named Biscuit and a rat with a saxophone. The game features procedurally generated runs with branching paths, and there's multiplayer support for two-player online co-op. I'm into the Master System-era art style and the utter chaos shown in the trailer. The Devolver Digital-published Dark Scrolls (still not over that name) is coming to Steam and Switch later this year. If you think about it, Scrabble is already a roguelike strategy game. Beyond Words takes that a bit further, with tiles that shift and explode, and boards that change up the rules. Much like in Balatro, you'll be modifying, destroying and duplicating tiles as you seek powerful synergies and massive score multipliers. There are more than 300 modifiers and abilities, along with boss battles and optional time-based challenge boards. What makes Beyond Words particularly interesting is that it's from Steve Ellis and Dr David Doak — who made their names at Rare and Free Radical Design with the likes of GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark and TimeSplitters — and their small team at MindFuel Games. PQube is the publisher of Beyond Words, which will hit Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch on April 9. A demo is available on Steam now. We've learned about a bunch of upcoming music rhythm games lately, and here's another one from Guitar Hero, Rock Band and DJ Hero veterans. Echo Foundry Interactive seems to be hoping that the community-driven focus will help Sound System stand out. When it goes into early access on Steam (October 16, $25), Sound System will have local multiplayer support. Echo Foundry Interactive plans to add online multiplayer with co-op and competitive modes. Players will be able to create charts for any song they like too. We've had a dog game (or two) and a frog game. Now it's time to wrap things up with a cat game. In Cat Me If You Can — great title, again — the Earth has frozen and lost its color. Only cats remain. By time-travelling and taking photos of them, you'll gradually restore color to the world. It's a hidden cat puzzle game from Cosmic Stag Games that's coming to PC, Switch and Xbox in the summer. You'll be able to check out a demo on Steam on April 8.

Nintendo is reportedly preparing a new version of the Switch 2 with a user-replaceable battery, according to Nikkei. This is to comply with a 2023 EU "right-to-repair" policy on portable electronics that mandates easy battery replacement. The regulation also covers the Joy-Con 2 controllers, so they are reportedly being redesigned to allow users to replace each lithium-ion battery. We don't know when this new Switch 2 will hit store shelves, but the policy gives companies until 2027 to make the required changes. This is great news for Europe, but the rest of the world isn't quite so lucky. There are no reported plans by Nintendo to bring this console refresh to other regions, but IGN notes that this could change if countries adopt similar policies to the EU. Tossing a perfectly good handheld console in the trash because the battery craps out isn't exactly fun, so here's hoping they do. This EU legislation has forced other companies to make changes to their products. Apple has modified the design of newer iPhones to make it easier for consumers to swap out the battery. It's long been rumored that Sony will update its DualSense PS5 controllers for the same reason. This has been a big week for the company's flagship console. It just received a software update that lets many older games run in 1080p while in handheld mode. There's also a little game called Pokémon Pokopia currently taking over the world.

Last year, Belkin released a couple of cases for the Nintendo Switch 2 just in time for launch, including one that came with a handy battery pack. That one was simple and effective, but it felt a bit crude because it wasn't much more than a basic travel pouch with a generic power cell tossed inside. Now, Belkin is back with a Pro version of its Charging Case for the Nintendo Switch 2, featuring a more sophisticated battery pack along with a higher price tag ($100 vs. $70). So here’s the question for any Switch 2 owners still looking for a way to protect their console while keeping it topped off: Is a more elegant charging solution really worth the extra money? The pro version of Belkin's Switch 2 charging case is a more sophisticated and versatile power solution. But it’s also more expensive, so unless you're comfortable shelling out an extra $30 for the same basic features, you're probably better off sticking with the non-pro option. At 11.7 x 6.1 x 2.5 inches and weighing 1 pound 12 ounces, the Pro Charging Case is a touch larger and heavier than its non-pro sibling. It also features a very similar design with the same color options and materials, including a tough polyester outer shell that’s balanced by a softer, velvet-like material and cutouts for your Switch 2 on the inside. Once again, Belkin has done a good job of providing a snug cabin to store your console while still making it easy to take it in and out. That said, if your system also has an extra-thick protector or hardshell case like the Killswitch from Dbrand, it may not fit. There's also a padded flap that swings down to protect your Switch 2's screen that also pulls double duty as a place to stash up to 12 game cartridges, which is a very thoughtful touch. However, the biggest change to the Pro Charging Case's exterior design is a new cutout on the front edge, which allows you to top off other gadgets (or a Switch) by plugging a USB-C cable into Belkin's included battery pack. Unfortunately, the case doesn't come with a cord, which seems a bit odd until you take a closer look at the power pack's layout. That’s because once you open up the case, you’ll see a second port designed to fit right into the bottom power jack on the Switch 2 without the need for a cable. Other small touches on Belkin's Pro Charging Case include a mesh pocket for storing things like cables, Joy-Con straps or cleaning cloths, which is very handy. However, my favorite thing might be the AirTag pouch that's also hidden inside that pocket, which could give you a fighting chance of recovering your system if it's ever lost or stolen (though I wouldn't count on it). Despite the increased size of the Pro Charging Case's included battery, it has the same 10,000mAh capacity as what you get from its less expensive sibling. That means you'll typically have enough juice for a little more than 1.5 recharges for your Switch 2 and its onboard 5,220mAh cell. Instead of relying on a simple external power pack like before, Belkin's bundled battery comes with a second USB-C port and a kickstand. This makes it super easy to plug in your Switch 2 every time you put it in the case. This way, you know the next time you turn it on, it'll be at 100 percent. Alternatively, you can raise the kickstand to prop up the Switch 2 and game on it while it stays nestled inside the case. This might seem a bit redundant as Nintendo's console already has its own kickstand, but Belkin’s allows you to continue charging the system while you're playing without needing a cord. There's even a handy display on the side of the battery, so it's super easy to see how much juice is left, even when the case is closed. Furthermore, when you need to recharge the power pack, you can do so without removing it from the case or disconnecting your Switch thanks to that bonus USB-C port on the outside. Compared to the previous model, this is certainly a more elegant solution that provides some subtle quality of life improvements. The one downside is that the battery pack is somewhat awkwardly shaped, so you won't really want to use it on its own. There's no doubt the Pro Charging Case's new battery pack is a more premium solution that's easier to use and manage. When you need to recharge it, you can do so from the outside without opening the pouch. It also lets you charge a Switch 2 without ever needing a cable. The built-in kickstand is another bonus that helps elevate the whole kit from a simple case to something closer to a tiny all-in-one gaming booth. That said, after using it for a couple of weeks, I'm still not sure the added convenience is worth an extra $30 over the original. Due to the battery packs' new shape, it's less useful as a standalone power cell, and the rest of the case's design is largely unchanged. Of course, it's always nice to have options, and if you're the kind of person who doesn't mind spending a little extra for a more streamlined and convenient kit, Belkin's Pro Charging Case for the Switch 2 is still very much worth consideration.

Following discussions first reported on earlier this year, ByteDance has agreed to sell its games unit Moonton to Savvy Games Group for $6 billion. Moonton is known for mobile titles popular in Asia like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, which has been downloaded 1.5 billion times. The transaction is set to be finalized in the "near future," according to an internal memo from Moonton's CEO seen by Bloomberg. ByteDance has been winding down its gaming arm and shopping Moonton since 2023, just two years after it first acquired the developer. Around that same period, the TikTok parent was shuttering its Nuverse gaming arm, which published notable titles like Marvel Snap and Ragnarok X: Next Generation. The company has since shifted its focus to AI, competing with Chinese rivals to develop chatbots and foundational models. Savvy Games, which is owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), has been going in the opposite direction. Last year the company (via its subsidiary Scopely) acquired Pokémon Go developer Niantic for $3.5 billion. PIF was also among the key investors that purchased Electronic Arts in a blockbuster $55 billion deal last year. The Saudi fund holds a 7.5 percent stake in Nintendo as well. The sale is the latest chapter in the recent gaming industry consolidation that saw around 45,000 jobs lost in a brutal three-year period between 2022 and 2025. According to a recent GDC study, one-third of US video game industry workers were laid off over the last two years.