Destructoid News, Tips, Tricks, Ideas

As part of today’s Nintendo Direct, the company announced that five titles from former partner Rare’s back catalog are releasing on their Nintendo Switch Online service.

One of the big surprises from today’s Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase is the revelation that Penny’s Big Breakaway is out today. You can grab it on the Nintendo eShop for $48.95 as of February 21. I’ve had the privilege of previewing the game, and my conclusion is that it is worth every cent.

Miquella is back. From Software and Bandai Namco just released the official gameplay trailer for the upcoming Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree and it looks exactly like I hoped it would. More epic boss battles, new weapons to find and learn, and lots of dying. You know, more Elden Ring. Shadow of the Erdtree is set to release on June 21, 2024, and is even getting its own collector’s edition that looks pretty epic.

Sony revealed in a PlayStation Blog post today that the new Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 update which adds an all-new New Game Plus mode will be released on March 7. The new update not only adds New Game Plus, but features new spidey suits, accessibility features, and updates to Photo Mode.

For some of us, it’s a good day to subscribe to Nintendo Switch Online as Mother 3 heads to the service for users in Japan.

During today’s Nintendo Direct, Capcom announced a remastered version of the 2006 handheld Monster Hunter-themed RPG. Originally only on mobile and Nintendo 3DS, the remastered Monster Hunter Stories will now come to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC via Steam this summer.

Heads up! As part of today’s Nintendo Direct, it was announced that Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On, the previously Apple Arcade exclusive remake of the 2014 3DS title, is releasing on Nintendo Switch today.

Konami and WayForward’s Contra: Operation Galuga now has a release date. It’s coming to all platforms March 12, 2024. To hold us over, there’s a demo available right now.

As part of today’s Nintendo Direct, Aspyr and Lucasfilm Games have announced Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, a compilation of the two online multiplayer games.

Several new games were revealed in today’s Nintendo Direct including Endless Ocean Luminous. This marks the first Endless Ocean game in over a decade with Endless Ocean 2 dating back to 2010 in the west. Up to 30 players will be able to explore the Veiled Sea in an unexplored region of the South Pacific Ocean on May 2, 2024.

March 8 is not far off now. But for those a little too impatient for then, a small slice of Unicorn Overlord is on the way for Switch owners today through a demo, to tide you over until then.

After confirming that some of Microsoft’s console exclusives would be heading to new platforms, two of them have been confirmed for their Switch debut. Two Obsidian games, Grounded and Pentiment, are making their way to Nintendo Switch.

In today’s Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase, we got a peek at what’s to come for the hybrid console. One of the exciting announcements was that Super Monkey Ball is getting a new entry titled Banana Rumble. The game launches on June 25 this year, and pre-orders begin today, February 21.

As part of the Nintendo Partner Direct today, THQ Nordic announced that 2010’s Epic Mickey is getting remade in Disney’s Epic Mickey Rebrushed.

Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, a bestselling fantasy epic translated into multiple languages and adapted into a hit Prime Video show, introduced millions of fans to a vast realm of danger and adventure. Now, Cards of Eternity: The Wheel of Time from Aether Games delivers a captivating gameplay experience that brings this magical world to life in a thrilling new way. 

Suika Game gets doubly adorable soon, as the latest Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase just revealed the fruity matching game will add a multiplayer mode as paid DLC today.

FromSoftware has announced via Twitter that the expansion to Elden Ring, Shadow of the Erdtree will be getting its first substantial trailer tomorrow. It will go live at 7am PST, 10am EST.

When I previewed Pacific Drive, the standout moment for me was when, in a novice moment, I found myself driving through the hellstorm of reality’s collapse. As my car fell apart around me and my health was about to hit 0%, I managed to make it to the gateway and got shunted back to the safety of the garage.

Behaviour Interactive revealed today the newest chapter for Dead by Daylight titled All Things Wicked. The new chapter will release on March 12, 2024 and feature an all-new original Killer, Survivor, and Map. A quaint small town, Greenville, has undergone a string of recent disappearances while local legend speaks of a sinister and deadly history that may be the culprit.

After years of hints and developments, we’ve finally gotten our first look at the live-action Borderlands. People has revealed two pictures of the upcoming film, due to release in August.

Ubisoft and Netflix have announced that Rainbow Six SMOL, the spin-off of the venerable Tom Clancy sub-series, is now available on Android and iOS.

My experiments with VR have led to some strange experiences, as well as a few action-packed titles. Titanic: A Space Between falls more in the strange category, though it manages to capture my attention thanks to its gorgeous visuals, compelling tale, and a runtime that is just long enough to leave you wanting more.

In his recent Steam blog post about the current state of Mewgenics, the upcoming cat-breeding turn-based RPG, Edward McMillen spoke frankly on why it’s taking so long for it to come out: he’s trying to avoid another Bumbo and Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+ situation, given their rough day one state.

Each year, Maxis releases various packs for The Sims 4, ranging from large-scale expansions to smaller additions that introduce new clothes and furniture. Since 2024 began, the Sims team has released various teasers for new kits and packs, with Crystal Creations being the first Stuff Pack to launch this year on February 29.

I’m highly skeptical of remasters and remakes. They tend to either feel underwhelming or, worse, to actually do a competent job that ends up replacing the beautiful memories we had of the original. I didn’t have either problem with the new Tomb Raider Remastered.

Tinybuild has announced Road Redemption developer Redemption Road Games’ Kingmakers, which takes medieval battle simulation and perverts it with modern firepower. I can dig it.

Over the last few years, the Call of Duty franchise has seen plenty of peaks and valleys when it comes to cheating. It’s a bad time for everyone, and that’s why Activision developed Ricochet Anti-Cheat, which was supposed to be the answer to the CoD community’s problems.

Bandai Namco’s epic RPG Tales of Arise is now available on Xbox Game Pass. It will be joined this month by the adorable Bluey: The Videogame, Indivisible, and Space Engineers among other titles, according to Xbox Wire.

A few months ago, Gearbox Publishing turned the servers back on for classic MOBA Hero Shooter Gigantic, which had been turned off for over five years. They were only live for a couple of days, but it was enough to get people talking on the Gigantic Subreddit. What was the point of this two-day event? Is Gigantic coming back in some way? Well, the answer is yes, and it’s looking to come back in a big way with Gigantic: Rampage Edition on April 9, 2024.

As successful and critically acclaimed as XCOM 2 may be, it might not have done much for you if you’re a fan of the original X-COM games. Instead, 2014’s Xenonauts was a more true-to-form re-envisioning, and its Early Access sequel just got a big new update.

Fellow Traveller and Copychaser games have announced a closed beta for their upcoming robot journalist game, Times & Galaxy. The beta will run from February 26 to March 11 and consists of the first 30% of the final game.

The ballooning popularity of Helldivers 2 has been both a blessing and a curse for Arrowhead.

The TV adaptation of Fallout is due to air on April 12. To celebrate this – and because you need more Fallout in your life – Bethesda is launching an anthology of all the games in the series.

A number of people would have been disappointed to learn that Epic changed its mind about offering the retro Fallout games for free via its store. However, some good news is on the horizon, as the company will launch them as part of its storefront giveaways. Just not yet.

Pokemon fans have something to look forward to, as the next Pokemon Presents is coming our way on February 27, just a few days after the Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase.

The long-anticipated 1.0 release of Last Epoch is coming in very short order, on February 21, and one of the update’s most important additions are the Warlock and Rogue Falconer class masteries. In a pre-launch blog, the developer explained what makes these build options such a big deal.

The rumor mill can slow to a halt, as Nintendo has finally announced a Direct, albeit through its external partners. On Wednesday, Nintendo will host a Partner Showcase Direct on its channels.

The Bloodborne-esque Lies of P has quietly removed the anti-tamper DRM Denuvo, as indicated by the changelog on SteamDB. The reasons for the change are currently unknown, though there probably won’t be any complaints about it.

While it may be overshadowed at the moment by its RPG counterpart, Granblue Fantasy: Relink, the formidable fighter Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is not one to sit back. Two months after the announcement trailer, Nier: Automata‘s 2B is back with a new trailer showcasing some devastating fighting and a killer version of Weight of the World.

Last year, a leak showed that a remaster of Beyond Good and Evil is in the works for the 20th anniversary. At the time, the alleged game had been rated by the ESRB, and now the Ubisoft title has shown up on the Korean ratings board.

After over five years in development, developer Inflexion Games is set to release its whimsical survival-crafting title Nightingale. Earlier this month I spoke with three Inflexion Games developers—CEO Aaryn Flynn, Director of Production Leah Summers, and Art Director and Head of Audio Neil Thompson—about the upcoming release, the road to get there, and the road ahead.

A recent SteamDB listing seems to indicate that Dragon’s Dogma 2, the much-anticipated sequel to the best “recent” IP in Capcom’s catalog, might be getting a demo soon.

Warframe has been around for a while, and over the years it has amassed a big following. There’s plenty to look forward to as it continues to receive new content. The community will be growing soon, as it’s coming to iOS on February 20.

Last Epoch is rapidly approaching its 1.0 release date, slated for February 21, and the developer Eleventh Hour Games is revealing more and more information about it. The game’s been in Early Access since April 2019, and 1.0 marks a huge step forward with loads of new gear.

It looks like the rumors from last year of a “Complete Edition” of Shin Megami Tensei V might have been accurate after all. According to Gematsu, an official rating popped up from the Game Rating and Administration Committee of Korea for Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. The description for the rating indicated it was a complete edition of Shin Megami Tensei V with improvements and additional content. The rating was later removed.

You can take the Fallout: New Vegas out of the silly, but you can’t take the silly out of Fallout: New Vegas. Or something like that. At any rate, someone has managed to make modding history by finding an old file that was thought to have been lost to the annals of time.

A week and a half ago, Helldivers 2 dropped on PC and PS5, and it’s been gaining quite a reputation.

The latest co-op craze is Helldivers 2, and it has been achieving some impressive numbers on all platforms it is available on.

With Link’s Ultrahand, your creativity is tested in fun ways. Some players have spent enough time with the sequel to find as many glitches as possible and make the most of their exploration of Hyrule. Luckily for us, they have all been compiled in a handy document.

There’s no shortage of games out there inspired by FromSoftware’s Souls games, but Enotria: The Last Song is drawing water from a unique well. Developer Jyamma Games throws Italian folklore into the Soulslike mix for their ambitious attempt, and it’s officially launching on June 21, 2024.

Salary negotiations between Ubisoft workers and the gaming giant have gone sour, leading to a strike day organized by the French game workers union STJV (Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo).

The Koroks of Tears of the Kingdom are seen as adorable creatures by some, while others find them to be nothing but annoyances. The latter group has made a sport out of torturing the Koroks by fusing them onto contraptions and putting them in the most horrific situations.

Palworld is full of modding possibilities, from replacing assets with funnier options to tweaking game settings in order to make it more enjoyable, there have been a lot of mods.

We’ve come to know our Pals pretty well over the last month since the game entered early access. We know their names, abilities, and skills by heart, it seems. Now, a recent Twitter post by Pocketpair has got fans of the game humorously questioning whether the same is true about the developers.

The funky upbeat Foamstars soundtrack is now available on Spotify, Apple Music, and other platforms. The album consisting of multiple artists can be downloaded on your phone through these services.

When it comes to live service games such as Last Epoch, there are times when gameplay needs to be organized around maintenance and server downtime. With the game releasing fully on February 21, of course, there’s going to be maintenance, so here’s everything you need to know. 

Helldivers 2 is a somewhat unexpected success, currently sitting at the top of the PSN charts and taking over the hearts and minds of gaming everywhere.

If you’re a fan of Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis (which, according to SteamCharts, is about 2000 of you), then you’re getting to start the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth hype train a little earlier than most.

Palworld was announced and has been in development since 2021, and thanks to a switch in development software early on, from Unity to Unreal Engine 4, the game has undergone huge changes since the release of the original announcement trailers and early additional trailers.

It’s always nice to have a way of discussing a game with its developers, and Last Epoch has provided a plethora of ways for fans to do just that. From Twitch Q&As to a thriving Discord, Eleventh Hour is always happy to talk to players, accept feedback and answer questions. 

Two prominent members of OpTic Gaming have filed a lawsuit against Activision. Per Bloomberg Law, the lawsuit alleges Activision and the Call of DutyLeague created a monopoly on competitive CoD.

Hasbro, the parent company that owns the Dungeons & Dragons license, has raked in $90 million in royalty fees since the release of Baldur’s Gate 3, according to a Bloomberg report. The 2023 Game of the Year for many outlets has been a massive success with a 96% review rating from over 500,000 Steam gamers.

Palworld players can seem a little obsessed with the idea of breeding the perfect Pals; hundreds of cakes resulting in hundreds of Eggs to pass down the perfect Passive Traits for a chosen purpose. For the most part, these desired Passive Traits are ones that boost mount speed. 

Skull and Bones is not a AAAA game. I’m not even exactly sure what would constitute being an AAAA game, but Skull and Bones is not it. That being said, that doesn’t mean Skull and Bones is a bad game. In fact, there’s some fun to be had here if you’re looking for a more arcade-style pirate adventure.

After Palworld started sliding down the Steam charts, the usual it’s a dead game or dying chatter spun up, but I’m not inclined to go exclusively off of Steam’s player count to determine a game’s long-term health, and the same appears true for Pocketpair. The studio’s community manager, Bucky, seems to feel the same if their recent Twitter post is anything to go by. 

Ah, Star Wars Arcade. No, not that Star Wars Arcade game. Not that one, either. I’m talking about the 1993 Star Wars Arcade created by Sega. Except I’m not. I’m talking about the 1994 port for the Sega 32X.

Nightingale’s Early Access launch day is just around the corner, and plans for numerous updates come with it. During multiple stress test sessions and hands-on previews, Inflexion Games has gathered community feedback and organized it into a comprehensive plan for key changes before Nightingale’s launch.

Cheating and fraudulent activity are an issue for all live service games, but one that seems to be suffering more than most at the moment is Palworld. Since launch, some players have reported issues with strangers infiltrating their servers, destroying their bases, and even preventing access to servers entirely. 

The 2024 Game of the Year award has been handed out at the DICE Awards, and it has fallen into the hands of Larian for Baldur’s Gate 3.

Petroglyph has announced that the sequel to 2016’s 8-Bit Armies, titled 9-Bit Armies: A Bit Too Far, will release into PC Early Access on February 23.

Last Epoch exits its beta on February 21 and as such, there’s a lot of news and reveals happening in the run up. Part of the run up is a collaboration with actor David Harbour, who worked with developer Eleventh Hour to create an in-game item for Last Epoch.

How does some bonus XP sound, divers? Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios announced via Twitter that a bonus XP weekend will be in effect for the frantic third-person shooter effective immediately. The bonus XP will last through the end of February 18 and will grant all players XP and Requisition at a 50% multiplier on top of your base mission score.

Devolver Digital has announced that Cricket Through the Ages, the absolutely normal take on the sport from Terra Nil and Broforce developer Free Lives, is escaping mobile confinement and releasing on PC and Switch on March 1.

Plenty has been said about Destiny 2‘s many, many ups and downs in the year of Lightfall. Even though Bungie hasn’t prepared the strongest of send-offs with the Season of the Wish, better updates are on the way, and Update 7.3.5, in particular, could be an interesting showpiece.

When Square Enix announced the Meister Quality Hydaelyn & Zodiark figure back in January, along with its associated in-game emote Apocalyptic Charades, players were left shocked by not only the price of $350 but also by the accompanying emote’s limitations. According to the item description, Apocalyptic Charades was character locked. 

We’re now just a few weeks out from the latest Vanillaware game, Unicorn Overlord. And with all the talk of fantasy tales, heroics, and war on the horizon, we should probably examine how battle actually works in the world of Vanillaware’s strategy RPG.

Larian has released the anticipated Patch 6 for the winner of some awards, Baldur’s Gate 3. This patch improves the most important feature of the game: kissing.

Those guys over at Kinetic Games sure are determined to keep Phasmophobia ticking over nicely. With the studio initiating a reset along with a huge update last year, it feels as though the team is trying to keep things fresh. Now, we’ve got some more stuff inbound, including something that a lot of fans should be pleased with.

As influential as the original Doom games are, it’d be interesting to know how much they’d stand the ravages of time were it not for modding and unusual ports. It set the building blocks for the FPS genre back in the day, but the fact that people continue to tweak the original formula shows just how much of an impact the series has had these past 30 years.

Though there’s certainly a glut of Roguelike, Rogue-lite, and wannabe Rogue-lite titles on the market, few games embrace the concept of procedural generation to quite the same extent as Streets of Rogue and its upcoming sequel do. That is precisely what the developer Matt Dabrowski’s latest developer vlog focuses on.