Magic: The Gathering Arena developers at Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast are set to join the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the union announced. The CWA says it has secured a "supermajority" among workers in favor of unionization for the chapter, called United Wizards of the Coast (UWOTC-CWA). The CWA has filed for a formal election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), but that will be withdrawn if Hasbro voluntarily recognizes the union by May 1st. "At Wizards, we’re organizing for a say in layoffs, accountability that runs up and down the chain, and a living wage that actually lets people build a life," said UWOTC-CWA member and senior software engineer Damien Wilson. "I’m hopeful about what we can build here and being clear-eyed about why it’s necessary." Workers have outlined several areas of concern including protections over layoffs and remote work, generative AI guardrails and mandatory crunch time, along with "increased transparency and equity" in the workplace. "This isn’t just something that affects Wizards of the Coast; it’s how most American workplaces are set up," Wilson added. "Unions are the missing counterweight to protect our craft." The push to unionize was triggered back in 2023 following mass Hasbro layoffs that affected nearly 2,000 workers, software engineers told Kotaku. Developers were also concerned about issues like remote work, saying that Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast decisions "have not aligned with the values of their employees." The CWA has been involved in recent unionization drives across the games industry, with workers from Blizzard and ID Software, along with indie devs from publishers including Heart Machine recently joining. Over 4,000 workers have organized across the industry as part of CWA's CODE (Campaign to Organize Digital Employees), according to the union. "Every worker deserves job security, fair compensation, and a seat at the table," said CWA District 7 VP Susie McAllister.

Don’t mistake the Steam Controller for a PC controller. Even though its main function is to play PC games, Valve’s new gamepad communicates with Steam, and only Steam. This is not a general controller for your PC, Android or iOS devices, and it’s certainly not compatible with any console on the market today, unless you count the handheld Steam Deck. In order to play a game with the Steam Controller, you have to boot it up through Steam. (More on this later). Valve’s end goal for the Steam Controller is compatibility with the Steam Machine, a console that doesn’t yet have a public release date or price point. The Steam Machine will support 4K gaming at 60 fps with FSR, it’ll come with 512GB or 2TB of SSD storage, and it’ll work with the Steam Frame VR headset, as will the Controller. The new Steam Machine was supposed to drop early this year, fulfilling a long-promised dream of PC gaming by moving your entire Steam library to the couch in a compact but powerful box. Due to the memory shortages plaguing the tech industry, the Machine and Frame aren't here yet, so the Steam Controller is the first step in Valve’s hardware takeover of living room territory. It’s due to come out on May 4, priced at $99. The Steam Controller represents roughly 13 years of R&D, from its first iteration announced in 2013 to the debut of the Steam Deck in 2022, and the refinement period clearly paid off. Valve The Steam Controller is a sturdy and sleek gamepad that stands up to the competition. It’s for Valve diehards, trackpad fanatics and anyone whose main gaming hub is Steam. The Steam Controller is a tidy chonker of a gamepad with a broad, Duke-like face holding two square trackpads beneath the standard analog sticks and face buttons. Despite its extra girth, the Steam Controller feels light, slim and balanced, even in my smaller-than-average hands. The grips are slender and have four circular rear buttons, two per side, that are super satisfying to click even when they don’t do anything in-game. The bumpers, triggers, D-pad and face buttons are shiny black plastic, and all of the controller’s edges are rounded, allowing for a smooth glide between the bumpers and triggers especially. The trackpads don’t get in the way when you don’t need them, but in-use, they’re incredibly sensitive and kind of mesmerizing. They look and feel just like the trackpads on the Steam Deck, following the trails of your thumbs with miniature popping bubbles. The Steam Controller uses tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) joysticks, which are a leveled-up version of Hall effect sticks, offering ultimate precision and long-term stability with no chance of drift. After a few days of use across a range of game genres, including competitive first-person shooters, they’ve proven to be reliable and accurate. In terms of stick precision and feel, I find the Steam Controller is comparable to the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro, my PC gamepad of choice. I otherwise much prefer the swappability, rubberized microswitches and crisp clickiness of Razer’s gamepad — but the Wolverine also costs about $100 more and doesn’t come with trackpad capabilities, so we’ll call it a wash. One of the neatest aspects of the Steam Controller is its charging and connection puck, which plugs into your PC or Steam Deck through a USB cable and enables stable wireless play. The puck snaps onto the belly of the controller for charging, and when you hover the gamepad’s connection point over it, it jumps up and latches on like a cute little sucker fish. I don’t know if this behavior is an intentional selling point, but it certainly is for me. The Steam Controller also connects to devices via Bluetooth or with a cable, and in all configurations it’s performed without issue for me. Of course, Bluetooth mode has the highest latency, so that’s mainly for phones and Steam Link play. The puck can support two Steam Controllers at once. Swapping between Puck and Bluetooth mode is a simple matter of holding the right bumper and A or B, respectively, when you turn the controller on. Pressing the power button with the Steam logo wakes up the gamepad, and pressing it twice when you’re connected to a PC launches Steam in Big Picture mode. The Steam Controller feels like a natural extension of Valve’s storefront, and with its matte black finish and bubbled edges, it’ll be familiar to anyone who’s fallen in love with a Steam Deck these past few years. I tested out the controller on my PC with Steam games and non-Steam games (added to my Steam library first, of course — seriously, more on that later), and in my living room with my Steam Deck acting as a makeshift, low-powered Steam Machine. On PC I played The Seance of Blake Manor, Creature Kitchen and Overwatch, and on Steam Deck I played Blake Manor, Demonschool and Balatro. Whether connected with Bluetooth, the puck or USB, the Steam Controller provided seamless play and no noticeable latency. The distance from my couch to the puck nestled behind my Steam Deck is about eight feet, and I didn’t feel a frame drop while cosplaying as a Steam Machine owner. I also never ran into battery issues, but that’s not shocking considering Valve’s claim that the gamepad has more than 35 hours on a single charge. In my testing, the battery barely registered a drop after multiple hours of playtime, and I was happy to snap on the charging puck whenever I wanted to set the controller down. Valve notes the battery life may be lower if playing with the Steam Frame. The Steam Controller has infrared LEDs for tracking, which will obviously drain the battery a little faster. Some VR games may have you waving your controller, as there are gyroscopic sensors in there as well. As the Steam Frame isn’t out, I wasn’t able to test some of the controller’s more interesting features. Even against players using a keyboard and mouse in competitive Overwatch matches, I won games and earned awards, passing my personal ultimate test of a controller’s capabilities. When it comes to Overwatch, I’m mostly comparing the Steam Controller to Sony’s DualSense, and it feels surprisingly similar. I enjoy the Steam Controller’s smooth slide between the bumpers and triggers, though its haptic feedback is more subtle than the DualSense’s, lacking in the analog sticks particularly. Much like with the Steam Deck, I haven’t found a consistent use case for the trackpads on the Steam Controller, but I appreciate their inclusion, the accessibility factor, and the fact that they aren’t otherwise intrusive. Now, just add a Playdate crank and I’m really sold. The Steam Controller is a clear and unmistakable signal that Valve is joining the console wars, and perhaps by patient and diligent design, it’s appearing at a vulnerable time. Xbox is fumbling the current generation and attempting to redefine its place in the console market amid a significant leadership shakeup, while Sony and Nintendo are carrying on with standard hardware upgrade cycles in a landscape that’s based less on platform exclusivity every day. Right now there’s room for a robust PC-based storefront to stake its claim on couch gaming, and voila, here’s Valve with the Steam Machine and Steam Controller. Similarly to the way Valve used Half-Life 2 to get people to download Steam in 2004, the Steam Controller pushes players to fully consolidate their PC libraries in its own ecosystem. You’ll have to add games with their own launchers like Overwatch, Valorant, Minecraft and Fortnite to your Steam library before you can play them using Valve’s controller. This is a small inconvenience, since it takes just a few clicks to add a non-Steam game to your profile. (Welcome to later). However, I don’t enjoy doing it. As I was browsing through files to add Overwatch to my Steam library, I couldn’t help thinking that it would have been pretty easy for Valve to add a switch that would let the Steam Controller communicate with any PC game. Maybe it's a touch of oppositional defiant disorder, but I despise being coerced into behaviors that are designed to serve a corporation’s market control over my own workflow, especially in my personal spaces. Now more than ever, I value my ability to choose — which businesses I work with, where I store my software, how I play — and the Steam launcher requirement is another small expansion of Valve’s incredible power in the PC games industry. It’s too easy to say, most of my games are already on Steam, no big deal, and use the Controller as an excuse to consolidate them all on Valve’s launcher. Suddenly, Steam is where you begin and end every gaming session, rather than just most. Obviously and especially with the coming rollout of the Steam Machine, this is the reality that Valve wants: a rich industry utterly reliant on its platform of DRM, shitty revenue splits and random opaque censorship. It’s the situation that Microsoft, Apple or Epic also want for themselves, but the main difference is that this future is actually in reach for Valve, and the Steam Controller is a tiny part of the plan. If willing and unforced support of a monopoly makes you bristle as well, feel free to stick with 8BitDo. Truly though, I get it. The Steam Controller doesn’t come with a PC switch because it’s not a PC controller. It’s for controlling Steam, a service that’s become synonymous with PC and handheld gaming, and is now creeping onto the living-room scene. The Steam Controller is designed to follow you everywhere Steam is, for all your gaming needs across every screen forever and always — and there is something soothing about that idea in a Brave New World Soma kind of way. A PC controller? That’s far too limited, from Valve’s perspective. Encroaching corporate dystopia aside, the Steam Controller is a sturdy and sleek gamepad that stands up to the competition. It’s for Valve diehards, trackpad fanatics and anyone whose main gaming hub is Steam. Which, to be clear, is a massive market that’s only poised to grow.

There's something deeply relaxing about chucking on a solid pair of headphones, listening to some good music and cleaning muck off structures and vehicles. Not in real life, though. Heavens, no. PowerWash Simulator 2 lets you do that without having to deal with any actual muck — as long as you're regularly cleaning your keyboard or controller, anyway. You'll soon be able to carry out powerwashing jobs in six more locations, all of which are in a galaxy far, far away. In the game's upcoming Star Wars expansion, you can visit the likes of Tatooine and Hoth to clean the Lars homestead, an X-wing and a Star Destroyer bridge. Developer FuturLab has created an exclusive powerwasher for these levels, in which you'll play as a labor droid called P0-W2. You can take on the jobs with up to four friends. Expect a bunch of Easter eggs too. FuturLab says the expansion is set during the original Star Wars trilogy. You'll first be taking on work for the Galactic Empire before defecting to the Rebel Alliance (so you'll literally be dealing with Rebel scum). The studio has previously brought other franchises into the fold. Those who own the first PowerWash Simulator can snag the Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider expansions for free before they’re delisted at 10AM ET on May 19. There are also Back to the Future and Shrek expansions for the original game. The Star Wars expansion is coming to PowerWash Simulator 2 on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2 this summer. It'll cost $10. In the meantime, spare a thought for those poor contractors whose jobs the P0-W2 droids are taking:

Somehow, ZSNES has returned after laying dormant for 20 years. The developers of the iconic Super Nintendo emulator, which originally debuted in 1997 for DOS (something I distinctly remember trying to install on my ancient Intel 486 Packard Bell), are back with a sequel release dubbed Super ZSNES. And really, what else would they call it? Developers zsKnight and Demo say that Super ZSNES has been rewritten from scratch with a focus on a GPU-powered “Super Enhancement Engine,” which allows for high resolution playback, overclocking (which could help with games notorious for slowdown), widescreen support, uncompressed audio and 3D height maps for Mode 7 graphics. Purists, of course, can turn all of these extra features off if they want. Super ZSNES is built on “far more accurate CPU and Audio cores” than the original emulator, according to the developers, as well as the usual fast forward/rewind save states and a higher-resolution version of the original ZSNES UI. And as a cherry on top, they promise there’s “No Vibe Coding.” There’s no shortage of SNES emulators out there today, but it warms my gaming heart to see ZSNES completely revived. And while I still need to play with its enhancement features to truly judge them, the early footage from Modern Vintage Gamer looks very sharp without losing the SNES charm. There’s no replacement for playing the original console on a CRT, but the GPU upgrades in Super ZSNES seem to do a great job of modernizing classic games like Super Mario World for modern displays. Super ZSNES is currently available as an early build for Windows, Mac and Android. An iOS release is coming soon, according to the emulator’s website.

Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. If you're looking for something new to play this weekend, we've got a bunch of options for you. We've also got some interesting upcoming games to tell you about as well. In a press release announcing that Playdate Season 3 is coming later this year, Panic included a line that I've been thinking about a lot this week. "Panic is currently relieved and happy that people can make amazing games for Playdate with just 16 megabytes of RAM," it said, a nod toward the ongoing RAM crisis. The Playdate doesn't exactly have a lot of technical oomph, and I'm frequently delighted by what developers are able to do within its limitations. Restrictions foster creativity — many folks had to get pretty inventive on Twitter back when they only had 140 characters to play with. Here, Panic offered a welcome reminder that you don't necessarily need an ultra-powerful rig or console to have access to more great games than you'll ever actually be able to play. For instance, my favorite game of the year so far, Titanium Court, works on Macs that are capable of running macOS 11 (the 2020 version of the operating system) or later. On PC, you'll need a graphics card that's compatible with OpenGL or DirectX 9, the latter of which was released in 2002. For what it's worth, the game would also fit on a CD-ROM. There are tons of other great indie games new and old that'll run just fine on lower-powered machines. Bear that in mind the next time a current-gen console or other gaming system gets a price increase because of the RAM shortage. The DLSS 5 debacle aside, you probably don't need a 50-series NVIDIA GPU either. Maybe just pick up a Playdate instead. While many of the weapons, characters and enemies are the same, Vampire Crawlers is a fresh spin on Vampire Survivors. It's a turn-based roguelite deckbuilder. Instead of automatically firing whatever weapons you have at nearby enemies, you'll play cards to conquer the mob that you face in each fight. You can still modify and evolve your weapons and abilities. Each card has a casting cost, so you’ll need to consider which ones to play in a given moment and the order in which you do so. As such, it’s a slower-paced, more strategic take on the original game, albeit with a similar level of visual chaos should you put together a particularly powerful build. I've played a ton of Vampire Survivors and the Vampire Crawlers demo lured me in too. Its approach to turn-based battles is working for me. I've only played a little of the full game so far, but there's every chance I could lose days of my life to it. Vampire Crawlers — from Survivors creator Poncle and co-developer Nosebleed Interactive — is available now on Steam (for PC and Mac), Xbox for PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and Nintendo Switch for $10. It's included with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. Fable creator Peter Molyneux and his studio 22cans are back with another god game. In Masters of Albion, you can construct and modify settlements as a literal hand of god. You'll design buildings (which are immediately constructed and usable) and manage workers. You can also assume control of a human or animal in the world to take on quests and hunt for treasure. There's a tower defense element to this as well. You'll need to prepare your towns from nighttime attacks from various creatures. You can fend off these foes as the god or battle them on the ground as a hero. There's a lot going on here, but perhaps my favorite part is this apparent warning in the mature content description section of the Steam page: "Players are also able to use crude, adult hand gestures at will in the game." Yes, that means you can flip the bird while playing as the god hand. Yes, I am very mature. Masters of Albion is now available in early access on Steam. It typically costs $25, but there's a 10 percent discount until April 29. Snap & Grab caught our attention at last summer's edition of the Day of the Devs showcase. This is a cartoonish heist game in which you'll carry out your robberies in two parts. You play as Nifty, a famous fashion photographer. In the setup phase, you'll take advantage of your position to take snaps of loot, threats and opportunities and then use those to construct a plan. With the help of some henchman, you'll then try to execute the heist. The game’s developer No Goblin is taking an episodic approach to Snap & Grab as it's releasing the game in five parts over the course of this year. The first episode is available now on Steam (usually $8, though there's a 10 percent discount until May 1). Snow Day Software's follow-up to Indoor Kickball is Indoor Baseball. It's an arcade game in which you play baseball inside buildings, funnily enough. You'll play 1v1 matches against the CPU or a friend in local multiplayer. You can also dive into a 14-game season or check out the story mode, in which you'll try to play your way back onto your school's baseball team (and maybe do some chores to make up for smashing too many things at home). There are several different levels, each of which has a variety of ways for you to make a home run, from smashing a window to landing the ball in a toilet. It seems light and fun and as a burgeoning baseball guy, I dig the idea of this one. Indoor Baseball is available now on Steam, Xbox for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and Nintendo Switch. It costs $15. I love Another Crab's Treasure very much and so I'll always be interested in whatever Aggro Crab is up to. Given that the studio also co-developed the smash hit Peak (alongside Landfall), I imagine many other folks feel the same way. Crashout Crew is another multiplayer game from Aggro Crab. This one adopts the chaotic co-op formula of games like Overcooked. As a team of forklift drivers, you and your buds will work together to fill orders in warehouses while dealing with obstacles like blackouts, cacti, fire and bees. It's coming to Steam, Xbox on PC and Xbox Series X/S on May 28. It'll be available on Game Pass on day one. I'm very much here for slice-of-life games based around soccer (I still need to play Despelote!). Kick is another such title. This is a side-scrolling, anime-inspired game from solo developer nospacelost and publisher Shoreline Games, in which you dribble a ball as you make your way to school. There are 23 levels with people to dodge and obstacles to overcome. You'll need to avoid damaging anything as you try to pull off tricks by kicking the ball at the correct angle, all while making sure you get to class on time (you can switch off the timer for a more relaxed experience). It looks pretty, and it never hurts a game's prospects to have a pup accompanying the main character. No release date for Kick has been announced. It's coming to Steam at some point. Elfie: A Sand Plan is a cozy sandcastle building game from Pressed Elephant and Sol's Atelier. There are more than 180 levels in which you'll build sand sculptures to match what Elfie, a small elephant, has in mind. There are three difficulty levels too. It looks cute and I adore elephants (oops, I just started fostering another one), so I'm interested in checking it out. Elfie: A Sand Plan is coming to Steam for PC and Mac on May 12. It'll cost $7, and there'll be a 10 percent launch discount. It took the team at Realmsoft 14 years to bring Clockwork Ambrosia to fruition and if this latest trailer is any indication, that long development cycle could have well been worthwhile. This is a side-scrolling action platformer in which you can customize half a dozen weapons using more than 150 modifiers. You play as an airship engineer who tries to survive on a steampunk island full of aggressive robots and creatures following a crash. I really dig the art direction here, which features lush hand-drawn pixel art and lovely animations. Realmsoft made the game using a custom engine the team built from scratch. I'm looking forward to checking out Clockwork Ambrosia. It's coming to Steam on May 12.

I would love to tell you everything about my favorite game of the year so far. But that would be doing a great disservice to Titanium Court. I'm not even sure I could explain it all, anyway. Titanium Court is a run-based game with elements of permanent progression, so it's technically a roguelite. However, you cannot really break Titanium Court like you can with Balatro. There are multiple ways to win a run, but you have to play by the rules. Gradually learning what those are — and how the game suddenly changes them — is a big part of what makes this so effective. I can at least break down the core gameplay loop for you. There are two stages to each battle in every run aka a "war." The first is a match-three segment (think Candy Crush Saga), in which you gather resources by lining up wheat fields, rivers, hills and forests. At the same time, you're setting up the terrain and positioning your own tile (the titular court) for the second stage. For instance, water will stop foot soldiers entirely, so you can position yourself behind a barricade of rivers to block them. But you'll need to be careful, since a chain reaction of matches can wipe out your carefully constructed defense. At the same time, you'll be moving around enemy strongholds. You can line up three or more matching enemy bases to eliminate them, but you don't gain any resources from those. Plus, you can only make a limited number of moves in this phase. So that makes for an interesting risk-reward conundrum. A timeline shows you which enemies will attack and when so you can plan accordingly. The second phase is where the tower defense element really takes hold. You'll use what you've collected to recruit soldiers to attack enemies or defend your base, add workers that will gather more resources and maybe deliver magic attacks. You can trade at shops and markets as long as you haven't wiped them from the grid, since they're bonded to terrain tiles. When you're ready to fight, you hit a play button and the battle takes place automatically. Nothing’s as simple as it might seem at first, because this is a game that will mess with you. I was scolded for trying to buy my way to victory by trading too much, with the game calling that approach "boring" and closing the shop's doors for the round. Perfectly fair. I chuckled the first time that happened. When I thought I was being clever by using the introspective power of self-reflection (you'll see) to win a boss fight, I was swiftly shut down. Between wars, you'll explore the titular court as its newly anointed queen, trying to figure out what on Earth is going on and, ultimately, how to get home. Here, Titanium Court morphs into a blend of old-school adventure game and bizarre visual novel. This is where much of the magic lies, and where you gradually learn about the story and even how to play the game. Developer AP Thomson's writing is smart and funny. I lost count of the number of jokes I've laughed out loud at. His narrative takes you in startlingly unexpected directions. It feels like a grand performance and Thomson is the master of ceremonies. It’s a confidently authored experience that offers further evidence as to why absolutely no one needs a generative AI game platform that seeks to “kill the scripted RPG.” Titanium Court won the prestigious Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival Awards earlier this year and it's not hard to see why. Thomson and his collaborators have cooked up something really special here. It's a game with dragons and ballet, baseball and bike races, shower thoughts and wormholes. There are road signs in a world in which faeries believe cars are a figment of your imagination. It references Catan, the Civilization series, Jenga and A Midsummer Night's Dream. It skewers capitalism and social inequality. I'll let you discover the details of the job system, which completely upends how you play the game, yourself. I haven't been this engrossed by a game since Ball x Pit. It surprises and delights at almost every turn. Titanium Court is certainly not going to be for everyone (there's so much reading!) and I’m going to stop here before I tell you too much about it. You can get a taste by checking out a Steam demo that’s available for PC and Mac. The full game arrived today. It usually costs $15, but it's 20 percent off until May 7.

If you’re a Switch 2 owner itching for something new to play and you happen to be partial to an Annapurna Interactive game, then boy is it your lucky day. The prolific indie publisher has announced that five of its titles are coming to Switch 2, three in the form of next-gen upgrades and two for the first time on Nintendo platforms. The magnificent Sayonara Wild Hearts and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes are available starting today, complete with 120Hz and 4K upgrades for Nintendo’s latest console. First-time buyers can grab Sayonara Wild Hearts for $13, while 2024’s Lorelei and the Laser Eyes costs $25. The upgrades are free if you already own either game on Switch, and Sayonara Wild Hearts also adds the previously unavailable Remix Arcade mode for the first time. This speeds up gameplay and removes loading as you chase high scores. Next month, May 28, cyberpunk cat adventure Stray is also getting the Switch 2 treatment, sporting improved 4K visuals, a frame rate boost and, fittingly given its feline focus, mouse controls. The Switch 2 port will be available to purchase digitally from the eShop for $30, but it’s not clear if this will also be a free upgrade for those who bought Stray on Switch. Katamari creator Keita Takahashi’s charmingly weird puzzle-adventure To a T skipped Nintendo consoles when it launched last year, so it’s nice to see that one coming to Switch 2 on June 11 (digital-only, $20). A few weeks later on June 23, cozy narrative game Wanderstop arrives on both Switch and Switch 2. It’ll cost $25 on the eShop, with no word on a physical version. Annapurna Interactive released a lot of its games on Switch, and that trend happily looks set to continue throughout the Switch 2 generation. The musical turn-based RPG People of Note came to Nintendo’s latest console at launch earlier this month, with stylish adventure game Mixtape also arriving on Switch 2 on May 7.

Xbox is cutting the prices of both Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, effective immediately, but there’s one big caveat. First, the good news: Game Pass Ultimate now costs $23 per month, down from $30. PC Game Pass will now run you $14 a month instead of $16.50. The Xbox team noted in a blog post that prices may vary by region. That’s a smart, much-needed decision. In a memo that leaked last week, new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma expressed concern over the high price of Game Pass, stating that it “has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation. Long term, we will evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system which will take time to test and learn around." Sharma reiterated that publicly in a post on X. In October, Microsoft increased Game Pass Ultimate to $30 per month, which was a 50 percent price hike. It was the second time in 15 months that the company had jacked up the monthly fee, making it an unjustifiable expense for many. The price of a PC Game Pass subscription also rose by $4.50 per month, and now Microsoft is bringing that back down a bit too. “Our players cover a wide breadth of geographies, preferences, and tastes, so while there isn’t a single model that’s best for everyone, this change responds to a lot of feedback we’ve gotten so far,” the Xbox team wrote. “ We’ll continue to listen and learn.” There is one giant tradeoff here: new Call of Duty games will no longer be available on Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass on day one. They’ll eventually hit those tiers about a year later, during the following holiday season. That means Call of Duty titles will be the only first-party Xbox games that don’t hit Game Pass on their release date. This, of course, is an attempt to generate more revenue from one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world. Call of Duty is a major reason why Microsoft shelled out $68.7 billion to buy Activision Blizzard a few years back. While Call of Duty fans on PlayStation still had to pay full price for the last few annual releases to play them as soon as possible, Xbox and PC players have been able to hop in to them via Game Pass. (There’s still no sign of Call of Duty on Switch or Switch 2 as yet!) There had been rumors that Microsoft would carve out Call of Duty from the current versions of Game Pass and give those tiers a price cut. Chatter suggests that the company may introduce yet another, higher-level Game Pass tier (or an add-on) that will include day-one Call of Duty games, but there’s no official word of that as yet.

Nintendo has padded out the Switch 2 release slate for this summer by revealing that Splatoon Raiders is coming to the console on July 23. This is the first spinoff in the series and while it's a "single-player-focused Splatoon game," there is a multiplayer element. Nintendo announced Splatoon Raiders (the title of which is a soft pun on Tomb Raider) last June. You play as a mechanic and after customizing your character's appearance, you'll go hunting for treasure across the Spirhalite Islands. You'll be working with Deep Cut — a fictional band that appeared in Splatoon 3 — and upgrading your weapons as you take on enemy sea creatures. The colorful, inky action and wacky weapons in the latest trailer remind me a bit of Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. You can mount Deep Cut member Big Man (a manta ray) as you venture into battle and it seems as though you'll be able to cut through swarms of bad guys by firing a shark at them. Alongside Splatoon Raiders, Nintendo will release an Amiibo pack featuring the three members of Deep Cut. The company also confirmed there's a multiplayer mode in Splatoon Raiders. You'll be able to team up with as many as three friends locally or online to take on raids together.

Not everyone had the money for the original Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System when it released in the '90s, but there's still a chance to experience it as an adult with disposable income. SNK and Plaion Replai, who is also behind the all-black remake of the Commodore 64, announced a faithful remake of the high-end retro console, called the Neo Geo AES+. To bring the original console into the modern day, the collaborating companies added HDMI compatibility for resolutions up to 1080p and DIP switches on the bottom of the console to allow for language selection, overclocking and switching display modes. Rounding out the upgrades, SNK and Plaion Replai included a permanent way to retain high scores on a memory card and a low-power usage mode. For the purists out there, the Neo Geo AES+ still works on those chunky CRT displays since it has the original AV output. Preorders are currently open for two versions of the Neo Geo AES+, including an all-white 35th anniversary edition bundle that includes an Arcade Stick, a limited-edition Metal Slug game cartridge and a memory card, for $349.99. The standard edition in classic black will only come with an arcade stick, but will be available for $249.99. Coinciding with the console release, Replai Plaion will release 10 modernized game cartridges, including Metal Slug, The King of Fighters 2002 and other classics, for $89.99 each. If you think those prices are high, don't forget the original Neo Geo AES' release price was $649.99. The Neo Geo AES+ is set to start shipping on November 12.

A Call of Duty movie is still happening, but don't hold your breath for it to hit screens any time soon. Today, the popular FPS' social media revealed that the movie's theatrical release date will be June 30, 2028. A film adaptation of the game franchise was first revealed last year, and shortly after, we learned that Taylor Sheridan and Peter Berg would be serving as the producers. The duo, whose past credits include Friday Night Lights and Yellowstone, will also be co-writing the project under Berg's direction. We still haven't heard anything about the cast, or even what era of the long-running series will be depicted, so it seems like a safe bet that there's still a ways to go before this wraps. But CoD is nothing if not a money-maker, so reimagining it as a summer blockbuster seems pretty expected.

Playdate is getting a third season of curated, surprise games, Panic announced today. We don't know much beyond the fact that Season Three is officially happening, but Panic's Head of Playdate Greg Maletic said in an announcement video that it will be here "in time for the holidays" this year. Considering we had to wait a whole three years for Season Two to come out following Season One's release with the console in 2022, that doesn't sound so bad. Panic hasn't yet said how many games Season Three will include, or how much it will cost. While Season One had a total of 24 games — with a release schedule of two games per week for 12 weeks — last year’s Season Two had half the amount (plus Blippo+), and cost $39. But that drop in quantity thankfully didn't mean a drop in quality. Season Two was great, with a collection of games that felt stronger overall than the first. I, for one, can't wait to see what Season Three brings. In other exciting news, Panic also announced today that the much, much-awaited game Office Chair Curling is finally available for purchase on Playdate and Steam, with the option for online cross-play.