Gaming

In early June, Nintendo will start selling “Choose Your Game” Switch 2 bundles for $499.99 that include one of three excellent games. You can choose between Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, and Pokémon Pokopia. It’s a savings of up to $29.99 on your first game, and a smart purchase ahead of the console’s planned price increase in September.

That’s a quote given to Bloomberg by Casey Hudson, who directed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic at BioWare and is helming a spiritual successor. “It’s hard to imagine where it’s actually helpful in the process. I’m just really unimpressed with it.”

The $219.99 Scuf Omega offers four rear paddles, two unique side buttons, trigger stops, five “G-Key” macro buttons, plus numerous other settings configurable through the Scuf mobile app. You can also swap its magnetic face plate, and remove all of the face buttons, if need be. Its TMR joysticks also set it apart from Sony’s $200 DualSense Edge, though it lacks adaptive triggers and haptics.

The Switch 2’s Joy-Cons use the same joystick tech as the originals, but for $19.99 you can upgrade them to drift-resistant TMR joysticks using GuliKit’s new kit. However, while the replacement TMR sticks can be installed without any hardware modifications, opening up the Switch 2’s Joy-Cons is a fairly complicated process.

Details about the project have been vague since it was announced in 2021, but it’s now been canceled. Sega is pulling back from free-to-play titles following weak performance of its own titles, and live-service games industry-wide. The Super Game was initially expected to release in March 2026.

It may seem gimmicky, but according to Retro Dodo and Russ Crandall, Anbernic’s RG Rotate is an excellent handheld emulator with a unique design and more processing power than it needs. It’s now available through Anbernic’s online store for $87.99 for the black plastic version and $107.99 for the metal silver one, but both are temporarily discounted to $82.99 and $99.99, respectively.

Dbrand’s new $20 Joy-Lock is simple, but great. I typically don’t ever want to use my Switch 2 Joy-Con, but that’s changed a bit since this holder lets them spread out for added comfort. The Joy-Lock looks and feels best when used with the company’s $20 grips (also included with the Killswitch), but they aren’t required.

I’m Not a Robot has a simple premise: Finish a series of CAPTCHA to prove your humanity. But quickly, your usual click-a-box or identify-the-stop-sign gives way to Where’s Waldo, Tic-Tac-Toe, and word searches. I got stuck at level 17, and now I’m not sure if I actually am a human.

All 42 “regular part-time and full-time employees” of the studio, behind games like Psychonauts and Kiln, will be part of the union, Aftermath reports.

If you, like me, played countless hours of Star Fox 64 growing up, then I think you’ll very much enjoy the 10 tracks from the upcoming Switch 2 remake’s soundtrack that Nintendo added to its music app. They’re so dang good.

Takashi Tezuka is stepping down at the end of June. He joined the company in 1984, and worked on the original Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda games, before directing titles including Super Mario Bros. 3 and A Link to the Past. More recently, he was a producer on Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

Capcom has launched a free “Leon Must Die Forever” minigame for Resident Evil Requiem that you can play once the main campaign is completed. You race against the clock to fight through areas you’ve visited previously, all with stronger enemy variants, five increasing difficulty ranks, and new “enhancer abilities.”

Microsoft is holding an Xbox game dev update today, and a lot of gaming publications think that “a closer look at Project Helix” means it’s some kind of showcase. That’s not the case, as it’s just “a recap of our announcements from GDC,” according to Xbox’s Jason Ronald. “We will have more to share about Project Helix later this year.” You can follow along at 12PM ET / 9AM PT over at the Microsoft game dev YouTube channel, if you’re interested in Xbox game development.

The upcoming crime drama from Yakuza developer RGG Studio spans five decades and five different cities, and this new deep dive gives a good sense of what to expect — including a slick smuggler played by Snoop Dogg. No release date, but the game is launching in the winter, a very competitive window.

When using GameChat, you can appear as an interactive avatar “that mirrors your expressions and movements,” Nintendo says. There are also AR filters that let you add “a pair of Star Fox-like ears or a Falco-inspired beak that moves when you talk.”

It starts at 6PM ET / 3PM ET today — yes, that’s five minutes from now. You can watch it on YouTube. The show will last about 15 minutes, Nintendo says.

Apple had asked the court for a stay in a mandate from the Ninth Circuit appeals court sending the case to back to district court to figure out how much of a fee Apple can charge on purchases out of the App Store. But Reuters reports that Justice Elena Kagan declined to pause the ruling. Epic, perhaps unsurprisingly, seems happy.

AYN is sending emails to consumers who ordered the Ultra version of its Odin 3 Android handheld letting them know it has cancelled the configuration with 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage due to a supply shortage, as spotted by Android Authority. Refunds are being offered, or a discount on the 16GB/512GB Max configuration.

After a delay, the next big title from Shovel Knight developer Yacht Club Games is launching on May 29th for $19.99. The studio claims that Mina the Hollower will be “one of the greatest top-down adventures ever to be delivered directly to your soul for less than 20 bucks” — and while I can’t tell you if it meets that lofty promise just yet, I did really like a demo I played in March at GDC.

In a nice surprise, Halo Infinite — which supposedly got its latest major update last year — just got a new PvE mode called Firefight: Gauntlet. It’s described as “deviously difficult” as you take on waves of enemies with up to four players. It’s also available now.

The minority investment is “in the millions” of dollars, the CEO of the newly independent and rebranded Fenris Creations told Bloomberg.

Fors has been cranking out virtual synths, sequencers, and effects for computers since 2020. FMS is an extracurricular project that pairs a four-track sequencer with an FM synth on the 25-year-old Game Boy Advance. It’s $10 for the ROM, but a cartridge release is planned for later this year.