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After it came out in 2016, Stardew Valley set a new standard for the farming sim genre. It’s a game that can be as chill or as intense as each player wants, and the charming pixel art and iconic soundtrack really cement it as a quintessential “cozy game.”

[Ed. note: The following contains spoilers for Fallout season 1.]

One of the hallmarks of modern Fallout games is getting to listen to a radio while you trek around the Wasteland. The radio is, of course, full of sweet tunes to enjoy, but the radio hosts often take the mic in order to share some fun world-building facts and keep the player company on the road. Many of these songs show up in the Amazon Prime Fallout series — but which radio station is the best listen?

Gross-out humor reached its apex in 2010’s Jackass 3D, when the boys slingshotted a ripened port-a-potty 100 feet into the air, and a bungee-cord bounce sent fecal matter splattering all over Steve-O — in glorious 3D, no less! That was it. There was nowhere else to go. Or so I believed.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for Fallout season 1, as well as information from the Fallout games.]

Greetings, Polygon readers!

Few weeks of any year are bigger or more important for the business of movies than CinemaCon. The annual gathering gives studios, theater owners, and exhibition-minded tech companies a chance to show off the most exciting developments in the movie business. But while the innovations that debut at CinemaCon may have important implications for the theaters where viewers get their film fix, the biggest news out of the convention almost always comes from the stage presentations, where studios show off their biggest gambles.

Greetings, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.

A version of this review ran in March 2024 in conjunction with the movie’s original coverage embargo. It has been updated and republished for the theatrical release.

Modiphius has created miniatures for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare and Fallout: Factions based on the main characters of the Amazon Prime Video Fallout TV series. Dubbed the Hollywood Heroes expansion, this bundle contains four 32mm unpainted minis modeled after the main characters of the show, including Lucy, Max, The Ghoul, and certified good boy, CX404. The $34.99 expansion doesn’t launch until May 7, but you can currently reserve your set from Amazon and Modiphius.

Imitated, but never duplicated, Unpacking is a cozy game that tells a surprisingly emotional story through the meditative process of organizing your belongings in different rooms (it’s fun, but don’t just take it from me; it earned the number 13 spot in Polygon’s 2021 game of the year ranking). The game is a wealth of luscious pixel art, lovingly crafted for items ranging from the mundane to the truly distinct, each paired with a unique snippet of satisfying foley audio. Now, thanks to Serenity Forge, many of those same items are available for you to unpack in your own home.

Inside all of us are two wolves. This is true for everyone except Nicolas Cage. Inside Nicolas Cage are two Nicolas Cages: the somber, dialed-down Nic Cage of Pig and Leaving Las Vegas, and the screaming, manic Nic Cage of Vampire’s Kiss, The Wicker Man, and Mom and Dad. Which one wins? The one he decides fits a given role, sometimes regardless of the movie around him. (I will never stop wondering why calm, internal, straight-faced Nicolas Cage showed up for the otherwise nutballs supernatural action movie Drive Angry.)

America is on a puritanical streak. Politically, individual states and the federal government keep looking for ways to completely outlaw abortion (and birth control, and health care for trans people, and books), while on social media, there’s been one hand-wringing discussion after another about whether movies should ever have sex scenes. The push to get blockbusters in front of a global audience has come with widely noticeablerestrictions on sexual content — or even basic kissing. In modern studio movies, as R.S. Benedict put it, everyone is beautiful and no one is horny.

Fallout, the new TV drama based on the post-apocalyptic game series, premiered earlier this week on Prime Video. And instead of directly adapting any of the games (like HBO’s The Last of Us) or creating a separate continuity inspired by the series (à la Paramount Plus’ Halo), Fallout takes a wholly different approach: telling an original story set explicitly within the continuity of the games.

Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree expansion is just around the corner, which means time’s running out to get ready for its arrival.

Hold on to your parsnips, because an apocalypse has struck the pastoral lands of Stardew Valley.

Deadpool is gearing up for his MCU debut, and the latest look at the threequel gave us more of what we really want: Wolverine. Nine minutes of Deadpool & Wolverine was shown during Disney’s CinemaCon 2024 presentation on Thursday, which also included the first trailer for Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World (slick, small-ish spy movie) and an update on Thunderbolts*, which now has an asterisks in the title. But on to Deadpool 3.

Fallout is braving a whole new world — sort of. The new show from Prime Video is blazing a trail in the same continuity as that of the games. It’s a bold choice for a video game show (particularly when so many either just adapt the main plot of the game or create an entirely separate timeline to muck about in), though in keeping with the open-world RPG spirit of Fallout.

Margot Robbie’s production company LuckyChap, fresh off multiple Academy Award nominations for its blockbuster hit, Barbie, is taking on a new challenge — a film based on the board game Monopoly. The announcement was made Wednesday at CinemaCon. But unlike Barbie, where the climax centered around the toy’s original female creator as embodied by the diminutive Rhea Perlman, the circumstances behind the creation of Monopoly are fraught for an entirely different reason. Will LuckyChap rise to the occasion with another feel-good hit that opens the door to forgotten history, or will it work to further obscure the game’s origins?

The first time I played Amnesia: The Dark Descent, I had to put it down and walk away. I’m a big fan of horror games, and I don’t usually put them down unless they’re unplayable or just bad. The Dark Descent was different, though, a game that freaked me out so badly that I had to turn the lights on and just sit in that glow until I could catch my breath. My vision had become too dark; I was out of oil for my lantern; and there were cracking noises coming from somewhere off screen. I hadn’t been taken aback by a jump scare or a disturbing creature. I was just unnerved, tense, and extremely uncomfortable. So, you know, the best way to be scared.

“I’ve just taken a cyanide pill,” Siggi Wilzig (Michael Emerson) admits in episode 2 of Prime Video’s Fallout series. “Vault-Tec Plan D: It was the most humane product that Vault-Tec ever made.”

Penguin Random House is publishing an official coloring book based on the Max series House of the Dragon. If you’re a fan of the show and want to engage in some meditative coloring ahead of the second season, you can pre-order the $18.99 book from Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Barnes & Noble ahead of its May 7 launch.

Conveniently timed following the release of the Fallout TV show, Bethesda has announced that its most recent mainline Fallout game, Fallout 4, will be getting a free next-gen update for PS5 and Xbox Series X.

Invincible’s reputation for hyper-violence is well earned. The Prime Video show’s season 1 massacre of the Guardians at the hands of Nolan/Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons) is harrowing, and it sets the tone for the show’s commitment to realistic superpowered gore and destruction. And few scenes in television history are as gnarly or horrifying as the destruction of a train and everyone on board in the first season’s finale.

Blizzard is giving the heroes and villains of Overwatch new allegiances in season 10 of Overwatch 2, thanks to a new Mirrorwatch mode coming to the competitive hero shooter. That means heroic versions of baddies like Widowmaker, Doomfist, and Sombra, and villainous versions of good guys Reinhardt, Tracer, and Brigitte.

John Carpenter’s 1982 movie The Thing ends with its few remaining characters in a desperate spot. Faced with an alien creature that can infect, assimilate, and emulate human bodies, the survivors don’t know who among them might secretly be an alien, or whether their pyrrhic efforts have eliminated the infection. They’re stranded in the Antarctic with their research base destroyed. Their resources are gone, there’s no meaningful shelter left, they’re freezing to death, and they can’t even trust each other enough to work together.

Alex Garland keeps getting asked the same question about his new movie, Civil War. It’s an obvious question. Garland, known best for Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Men, wrote and directed a movie set in near-future America, centering on a civil war that’s fractured the United States — and yet he reveals very little about how that war came about, or what the warring sides represent. Instead, he tells an almost clinically procedural action story about photojournalists crossing the country to cover that war, without ever digging into the details. Why make a seemingly apolitical movie about an American civil war in an era where so many pundits are worried that we’re on the brink of real civil war?

We love movie recommendations here at Polygon. Whether it’s horror, sci-fi, action, comedy, thrillers, or just the best of the year, we’re always trying to introduce readers to new and exciting movies they’ll love. But now we want to find the perfect movie for you. (That’s you.)

You meet in a tavern, the game master says at the beginning of nearly every campaign. It’s a trope as old as the role-playing genre itself, and for good reason. As owner of Violet Daisy Games, AnnaMaria Phelps, admits, it offers a lot of flexibility. “A tavern [is] a blank canvas,” Phelps said in a recent interview with Polygon. “You can start with a fight, or you can start with a rousing song. But what if you started because you met at a May Day celebration? Or what if you started because a thief robbed everyone, and you’re all chasing him together through a marketplace?”

If you own a Steam Deck, an Asus ROG Ally, or PlayStation Portal, the company Mechanism should be on your map. Its accessories can give you handheld new tricks, such as providing a sturdy kickstand for it to lean on, or you can secure your console to its wall mount. Rather stick your handheld on a monitor arm? There’s a mount for that. Some pieces in its lineup let you attach mobile necessities like a portable battery or an SSD to your handheld.

Prime Video’s Fallout TV series takes a smart approach to the video game franchise canon. Rather than trying to adapt a particular game or storyline, it uses the Fallout games as a fictional and aesthetic baseline. But the series plants a few narrative flags, making decisions about who started the franchise’s nuclear war and giving one of its most iconic images, the character known as Vault Boy, a proper origin story.

Fans of the Fallout games won’t be shocked to learn that Amazon’s new TV show based on the franchise is gruesomely violent. This is a franchise known for its Bloody Mess perk, and for the VATS system, which lets players target and blow off heads and limbs. But the violence of the Fallout TV series still has the power to shock; viewers can expect multiple severed heads and lopped-off extremities in this post-apocalyptic world where mutated monsters feed on human flesh.

Fallout, the new TV adaptation from Prime Video, ends with a bit of a bang. After a few episodes of exploring the Wasteland and the world of Fallout outside of the Fallout games, Fallout brings it all home with a lot of updates to the lore, and more than a couple cliffhangers.

Five Nights at Freddy’s, the mostly reviled 2023 horror game adaptation that was also a colossal financial hit, is coming back to movie theaters. Universal Pictures announced a Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 during its CinemaCon 2024 presentation on Wednesday.

In the first half of its first season, X-Men ’97 has played it a little safe. That’s not to say things haven’t been rather fun, as the show has put its own spin on the Inferno and Lifedeath storylines, on Magneto inheriting leadership of the X-Men, and on the birth of Nathan Summers — all pillars of X-Men continuity or beloved greatest-hit stories of the 1980s and 1990s.

While the final days of the Nintendo 3DS might have been a long time coming, that doesn’t take away the sting that comes with the final step of ending a generation of consoles.

World of Warcraft’s current expansion, Dragonflight, is winding down. While we know what’s next — we’ll be heading into three expansions that are collectively called the Worldsoul Saga — the team at Blizzard has been having fun with some much more experimental and unique patches. This includes Plunderstorm, a pirate themed battle royale, and now a Remix of the Mists of Pandaria expansion.

The Mario Kart 8 Deluxe bundle edition is the definitive way to experience the essential kart racer, as you’ll get the base game and all of its post-launch Booster Course Pack racers and tracks in a single package. Normally available for $84.98, this bundle is currently on sale for just $64.98 at Amazon and Walmart. That’s just $5 more than what you’d normally pay for the base game.

It’s time to call your Pals from out of the mines and into the battlefield. Palworld developer Pocketpair teased the game’s upcoming PvP mode on Wednesday. As previously announced, the new mode is called Palworld: Arena and it will allow players to assemble teams of Pals to fight other players.

Celebrated indie studio thatgamecompany’s most recent title, Sky: Children of the Light, has debuted in early access on Steam. To mark the occasion of its chill, free-to-play MMO coming to PC, it’s knocking 85% off the cost of its masterpiece, Journey. It’s normally $14.99, but this Steam Deck verified game costs just $2.24 through April 17.

Amidst the glut of video game showcases from large publishers and Summer Game Fest, the Triple-i Initiative is trying something a bit different. This collective of top indie developers includes Evil Empire (Dead Cells DLC), Thunder Lotus Games (Spiritfarer), Mega Crit (Slay the Spire), and many more, who all gathered together to show off what they’re calling “iii games” — or “blockbuster indie titles.”

We thought we were done with the Prince of Persia franchise in 2024, but we were wrong. Evil Empire, one of the studios behind indie hit Dead Cells, is launching The Rogue Prince of Persia next month in Steam Early Access.

When Disney revealed that its 2023 animated movie Wish would have an actual, literal big bad, a certain conglomerate of hardcore Disney fans rejoiced. For the past decade, Disney movies have avoided traditional baddies, but King Magnifico — whose whole schtick is that he’s lying to his people for his own gain while using dark, forbidden magic — seemed like a return to form. With a charismatic performance by Chris Pine, complete with a big villain song and an overwhelming ego, he’s a verifiable checklist of favorite Disney villain tropes.

Fallout is a franchise that’s held together by tone just as much as any unifying story beats or canon. The series’ distinct post-apocalyptic vision of an America that never escaped the wide eyes, fake smiles, and faker optimism of the Cold War has become iconic, and its version of Americana shot through with radioactive black humor is more identifiable than any single character from the games will ever be (except Vault Boy, of course). It’s a series that revels in its ability to be funny, touching, sad, sweet, and disgusting all in a single moment. And that tone is what Amazon Prime Video’s new Fallout TV series captures best, and what makes it an excellent addition to the franchise, rather than just an adaptation.

Nearly five years after the release of Joker, the Oscar-winning DC comics-inspired drama starring Joaquin Phoenix, its sequel is finally ready for a spotlight. The first trailer for Joker 2 debuted on Tuesday at CinemaCon, the trade show for all things theatrical release, and shows off Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, and some of the new music that has been rumored for the film.

Helldivers 2 is a funny game, with great physical comedy that naturally occurs from its robust friendly fire mechanics. It’s also a challenging game that pits extremely squishy Helldivers with limited resources against endless waves of enormous bugs. But few people talk about how it’s sometimes a terrifying game thanks to the Automatons.

Star Wars Outlaws, the open-world adventure from Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment, launches Aug. 30 for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. Players will take on the role of smuggler Kay Vess as they attempt to seek their fortune across a variety of new and classic locations in the Star Wars universe.

Electronic Arts is adding Motive Studio, the team behind Star Wars: Squadrons and the 2023 remake of Dead Space, to the roster of developers working on the next Battlefield game. Byron Beede, general manager for the Battlefield franchise, and Patrick Klaus, general manager of Motive, announced the formation of a Battlefield-focused team at Motive on Tuesday — an announcement that also signaled the end of seasonal content for Battlefield 2042.

A team led by the former creative director on Destiny announced Tuesday that they’re working on a new game under parent company ProbablyMonsters, the studio founded by former Bungie president and CEO Harold Ryan. That new development team is named Hidden Grove, and is working on an original “multiplayer competitive adventure game” built on Unreal Engine 5.

Destiny 2’s new Into the Light update brings a load of new features to the game ahead of the upcoming Final Shape expansion. Here are the big things you need to know about Destiny 2’s latest patch and all the free new goodies Bungie has packed into this update.

Ma Dong-seok (also known as Don Lee) is one of the most exciting action stars in the world, bringing life even to the most charmless of projects. Since 2017, he has anchored The Roundup action franchise, delivering consistent bangers that have lit up the Korean box office and the hearts of action fans around the world. And now, we have a trailer for the fourth installment — The Roundup: Punishment.

If you ask co-creators Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo about the subtitles of their FX adaptation of Shōgun, they’re going to tell you about it in depth. As they should; like with so many decisions in making Shōgun, the details are crucial.

Destiny 2: The Final Shape just got a massive update to its back-of-box features list: a new “subclass,” a new kind of Exotic, and a new enemy faction. Bungie revealed the additions in a livestream on Tuesday, which acted as a reintroduction to the upcoming expansion after it was delayed from February to June earlier this year.

The American Tabletop Awards, the United States’ answer to Germany’s Spiel des Jahres, is back for the sixth consecutive year. The annual award celebrates the very best in board gaming across four different categories, with dozens of games judged by a panel of industry experts who collaborate within a shared set of ethical guidelines. The result is a collection of 20 excellent games, with four winners overall. The categories mirror those of last year, and include titles best for Early Gamers, an assortment of Casual Games, more traditional Strategy Games, as well as Complex Games for more experienced players.

The next big Star Wars game fulfills a specific fantasy from a galaxy far, far away. As scrappy scoundrel Kay Vess, players will take part in “one of the greatest heists the Outer Rim has ever seen,” according to the narrative setup for Star Wars Outlaws. A new trailer released Tuesday for Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft’s upcoming open-world Star Wars game dives deeper into the story of Outlaws, a single-player adventure set during the franchise’s original trilogy.

There’s an art to making an ultra-long YouTube video. For one, you have to make sure it’s broken up into digestible, complete chunks so that people can take natural-feeling breaks. Second, you have to use the length to your advantage. These are all things that Quinton Hoover thinks of when he publishes a video for Quinton Reviews, a pop culture video essay channel that’s recently been devoted to recapping a series episode by episode or breaking down years of history for a show.

You can pretty much do anything in Fortnite these days. You can hunt down Greek gods, watch the solar eclipse virtually, or unleash a Waterbending fury as a character from Avatar: The Last Airbender. And starting Tuesday, players will once again be able to attend a virtual version of Coachella, the popular music festival, in the game.

Dredge, the indie adventure game released in 2023 that paired Lovecraftian horror with video gaming’s ultimate activity, fishing, is being developed as a live-action movie, producers of the adaptation announced Tuesday. Working with Dredge developer Black Salt Games to make the film a reality is production company Story Kitchen, which was co-founded by Sonic the Hedgehog movie producer and dj2 Entertainment founder Dmitri M. Johnson.

Some of the best adventures released for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition can be found in Wizards of the Coast’s popular anthologies, including Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, Keys from the Golden Vault, and my personal favorite, Candlekeep Mysteries. But D&D’s decade-long renaissance has also given us loads of classic adventures revised for new audiences, including the legendary Tomb of Horrors. This summer, fans will be given access to another new set of historic modules called Quests from the Infinite Staircase, which is full to bursting with some of the seminal role-playing game’s weirdest encounters.

Both Amazon and Target are hosting competing buy two, get one free sales right now. They include an impressive selection of board games, books, and movies. As for the rules, just add three eligible titles to your cart, and your least expensive cart item will be free. Just note that if you’re taking advantage of this sale at Target, you’ll need to enroll in their free Target Circle program before you check out.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is about the journey, not the destination. It’s about exploring routes you’ve never taken before, camping in the wilderness, and having an unexpected run in with a Minotaur. Quests objectives are also left intentionally vague, forcing you to puzzle things out and speak to as many people as you can. If you could just easily fast travel to obvious quest markers you could certainly check them off your list more efficiently, but then you’d miss out entirely on the adventure of getting there.

A new Dev Update video from Riot Games shares some of the upcoming content for League of Legends. A team of developers shared an update on the game’s Arena mode, Lee Sin’s upcoming Art and Sustainably visual update, and a new “bullet heaven survivor PvE game mode for League of Legends during this year’s summer event.”

Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, that’s why I poop on company time. This statement has become a well-worn mantra of the working man, but a recent indie game challenges its wisdom. Please Leave Me Alone, I Need To Poop is a game about balancing biological needs with the demands of the workplace, but it takes a quick hand at some WarioWare-style minigames to meet both urgent needs.

It’s a big week for TV! By which I mean, to me, there’s a lot of bangers this week.

Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the Fire Nation came to Fortnite. Yup, that’s right: Avatar: The Last Airbender is coming to Fortnite as part of the ongoing Chapter 5 Season 2 content. Three members of the series’ main gang — Katara, Toph, and Zuko — will be available for purchase as Outfits in the Fortnite item shop starting Tuesday.

Brought to our attention by our island neighbors at The Verge, Walmart is currently offering a rare discount on the Nintendo Switch Lite Animal Crossing bundle. Typically this bundle would cost $199.99, but the limited-edition Nintendo Switch Lite that comes with a digital copy of Animal Crossing New Horizons costs just $179.99. Sure, the discount is only $20, but you’re effectively saving $80 on the combined price of both items, and paying less overall than you would for any other version of the Switch Lite.

Indie gaming’s biggest names will livestream a digital showcase for “iii games” on Wednesday, promising new looks at more than 30 titles from studios and publishers behind hits like Darkest Dungeon, Spiritfarer, V Rising, and Risk of Rain 2.

Unicorn Overlord is one of many great games that debuted during March. But next to Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Princess Peach: Showtime!, it’s possible that Vanillaware’s latest game flew under your radar, despite the developer’s stellar pedigree for RPGs. You definitely shouldn’t miss out on it now that it’s $20 off, costing $39.99 at Amazon, GameStop, and Best Buy on Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X, and PlayStation 5.

Kingdom Death: Monster, among the highest-earning crowdfunded board games of all time, is a rare beast in part because of its price point, which currently stands at $420. It’s also because of production issues, meaning that the game has been out of print for long periods of time ever since its first run in 2015. But if you get the chance to actually play it, as I have, you’ll find the mechanics are quite literally to die for. The base game features complex monsters and elaborate turn-based battles, a potent crafting system, and a fascinating take on colony simulation. Beloved characters will die horribly and often, potentially putting an end to your campaign after scores of hours. Add to that mix dozens of the industry’s most gorgeous multi-part plastic miniatures and you can see why I once called it “the Everest of board games.”

It’s the noble job of science educators to bring the distant cosmos down to Earth, where it can ignite human fascination in more than an abstract way. But the total solar eclipse that will cast its shadow across thousands of miles of North America this Monday doesn’t need any help. Along the path of totality temperatures will drop, wildlife could become confused, and it may get dark enough to see other planets, in a kind of 360-degree sunset.

Nintendo shut down its Wii U eShop in March 2023 and will shut down the console’s online functionality today, April 8. Originally released in 2012, Nintendo’s Switch predecessor is officially being powered off. Yes, Wii U owners can still play games offline — and participate in the active Wii U modding scene — but Nintendo will finally be wiping its hands clean of its worst-selling console ever. (Nintendo sold just over 13 million Wii U consoles, at least one of which was purchased last year.)

Is there anything sweeter than a perfect limited series? A crisp, contained story that knows exactly what it’s trying to tell and metes out only the space needed to tell it? In an age when IP is king and there’s always at least a question of how a story could continue, a miniseries is certainly a vulnerable species, especially if it’s high-quality.

Fallout: New Vegas has endured in the cultural zeitgeist in a way that few other games have. Even within the Fallout fandom, it’s earned a prized position as a true classic of the RPG genre. That love is still reflected today, in goofy memes and fan art and enduring debates over which endgame is the right one. Even though the game has aged terribly in some respects — characters look rough, and not just from living in the apocalypse — it still persists as one of the high points of the Fallout franchise. The new Fallout TV series is set to premiere on Amazon, so there’s seldom been a better time to revisit New Vegas or play it for the first time.

The blemishes of beloved video games are sometimes referred to as their “jank.” The term encapsulates things in a game that may be slightly broken or inherently peculiar — aspects that should be detrimental to the experience, but aren’t. Ideally, these broken bits are overshadowed by a game’s superior elements, be they intricate combat systems, rich stories, or unique worlds.

With eyes as round as grapes and lips too small to do anything but pout, Blythe dolls look like sullen angels. Those haunted stares work to their advantage in a crowded market; Blythes have spent the past 23 years charming a dedicated group of primarily female fans, many of whom pour thousands of dollars into customizing their toys.

Back in 2020, filmmaking partners Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss released Boys State, a startling, compulsively watchable documentary that packs all of America’s political flaws into one competitive event. Embedding themselves in the 2018 Texas edition of Boys State, an annual leadership event where a thousand teenage boys are brought together to form a mock U.S. government, McBaine and Moss tracked a handful of participants as they vied for public office, learned terrible lessons about American politics, and alternated between acting like jaded statesmen and acting like teenage boys. One of the most obvious questions coming out of that documentary was: What does the girls’ version of this same event look like?

Helldivers 2 does a fantastic job of straddling the line between being a great game to goof around in with your friends, and delivering actual commentary and world-building about the folly of an oppressive regime. You play as a titular Helldiver, shot down to enemy planets in pods that look like giant bullets — no obvious symbolism there — to fight back waves of nasty Terminid bugs and evil robots. The gameplay is great, but what I’ve come to truly love is the goofy Super Earth propaganda, and how it perfectly encapsulates fascism as a ridiculous ideology that is doomed to fail.

Nintendo’s next console is upon us — ish? Dubbed the “Switch 2” by folks accustomed to Sony unimaginatively adding numbers to the end of PlayStation, the next iteration of Mario gaming hardware will reportedly arrive in 2025, after a shift in launch window. The delay leaves those who never dipped into the current-gen Nintendo catalogue with a tough decision: Buy a Switch now, or hold out for a Switch 2, whenever it actually hits shelves? Backward compatibility remains an unknown and not one of Nintendo’s historical achievements.

Greetings, Polygon readers! April is here, and you know what that means. That’s right: There’s a slew of exciting new films coming out in theaters this month, like the sci-fi drama The Beast starring Léa Seydoux, Alex Garland’s Civil War, Dev Patel’s Monkey Man, and more. All of those look great, but if you’re looking to enjoy a fantastic movie from the comfort of your home, there’s a wealth of great films to watch on streaming in April.

Greetings, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.