Pokemon Fan Designs Incredible New Regional Variants and Evolutions

A skilled Pokemon fan artist recently designed some impressive new evolutions for Croagunk’s line, giving the Poison/Fighting hybrid Pokemon a cute baby form and a more fierce-looking final stage. The long-running Pokemon franchise has been a constant source of inspiration for artistic gamers since its conception, with legions of players showing off new versions of classic Pokemon or even creating new ones altogether.

One talented Pokemon fan recently built an amazing sculpture of the legendary Ho-Oh out of LEGO bricks. Nintendo’s ongoing series of monster-collecting RPGs is a constant source of impressive fan artwork, with Pokemon players recreating their favorite creatures in drawings and sculptures that are often shared on social media for other fans to view and appreciate.

June 10 will be a big day for Ubisoft, as the major triple-A publisher will be holding a new Ubisoft Forward livestream that day – around the same time as Summer Game Fest. With the once-prominent E3 not returning for the foreseeable future, it will fall to similar events like Summer Game Fest to serve as a showcase for upcoming video games from publishers like Ubisoft in 2024 and beyond. Certain companies have even started hosting their own shows throughout the year, with Sony supposedly holding a PlayStation Showcase centered around Silent Hill 2 and other first-party titles sometime next month.

Word has it that a new Prince of Persia game is being developed by Evil Empire, the studio behind the hit indie roguelike Dead Cells — and it might launch sometime later this year. Ubisoft’s legendary Prince of Persia franchise had been nearly dormant for over 10 years when a new side-scrolling spin-off titled Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was launched to rave reviews in January. Despite reportedly underperforming in sales, The Lost Crown was praised for its Metroidvania gameplay that blended platforming, combat, and puzzle-solving.

A Pokemon fan recently put together an impressive map of the franchise’s universe, with each region standing in for its real-life counterpart. Every new mainline Pokemon entry to date has taken players to a brand-new region filled with new creatures to collect, cities and other landmarks to explore, and various Trainers and Gym Leaders to challenge in the quest to become the reigning champion of said region’s Pokemon League.

Nobuo Uematsu, the legendary composer of the original Final Fantasy 7, recently stated that he would love to return for the third Fantasy 7 Remake game. 1997’s Final Fantasy 7 was a groundbreaking JRPG experience for its time on the original PlayStation, wowing gamers with its cutting-edge 3D graphics, emotional storyline and characters, and moving soundtrack that contains some of the Final Fantasy franchise’s most iconic themes. A modern-day reimagining was on many players’ wish lists well before Final Fantasy 7 Remake was first announced in 2015, and its release five years later was met with much critical acclaim and record sales on the PlayStation 4.

Matthew Mercer, the prolific voice actor who played Vincent Valentine in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, recently discussed how he first found out who he would be voicing and how much it took him by surprise. While Vincent Valentine was an optional, missable party member in the original Final Fantasy 7, he played a major role in the backstory and larger expanded universe of the original game, quickly becoming a fan favorite that gamers couldn’t wait to see again in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.

NetherRealm has just released a new update for Mortal Kombat 1, adding the alternate timeline Kameo fighter Janet Cage alongside some quality-of-life improvements. The latest entry in the long-running Mortal Kombat series proved to be a major hit when it launched back in September, quickly becoming one of the highest-rated games of 2023. Mortal Kombat 1 serves as a solid jumping-on point for newcomers thanks to its rebooted plotline while keeping plenty of fun references for longtime fans.

A creative Pokemon fan recently designed some delicious regional variants for Applin and its evolutions, all themed after different foods. The fruit-like Grass/Dragon hybrid Applin was introduced to players in Pokemon Sword and Shield back in 2019 as part of the new lineup of 81 creatures residing in the United Kingdom-inspired Galar region. Like many other Pokemon monsters, Applin can evolve into different forms by fulfilling certain conditions, and is the only Gen 8 Pokemon to have a branched evolutionary line that players can influence by exposing it to certain types of apples.

The popular DC Universe Online MMO is finally coming to the PlayStation 5, and there is new information about the game’s upcoming 2024 content. Developer Dimensional Ink Games and prolific MMO publisher Daybreak Game Company released DC Universe Online for the PS3 and PC way back in 2011, providing comic book fans with a virtual sandbox where they can create their own characters and join forces with iconic DC heroes and villains to complete various missions and side activities.

Final Fantasy 16 could make the jump to other platforms once it launches on PC, at least according to some of the game’s developers. The latest mainline Final Fantasy game launched exclusively on the PlayStation 5 last June, but Square Enix has promised a PC port at a later date. So far, there is no official word on when the PC version of Final Fantasy 16 will be released, but producer Naoki Yoshida recently told fans that it is in the end stages of development and a playable demo should be forthcoming.

The Pokemon-style RPG Cassette Beasts is getting a major new update, adding online multiplayer and a host of other interesting features later this year. UK-based developer Bytten Studio and prolific indie publisher Raw Fury released Cassette Beasts on Windows and Linux computers last April, with a wider launch on Xbox systems and the Nintendo Switch the following month. Just like Pokemon, Cassette Beasts tasks players with collecting different elementally empowered creatures, although these monsters are stored within old-fashioned audio cassette tapes and summoned using a handheld cassette player.