The Maw - 25th-30th March 2024

Deadpool's whole thing is poking fun at pop culture, from the 2018 movie's post-credits scene where he went back in time to stop Ryan Reynolds from signing up for Green Lantern, to what looks like a jibe at the Disney/Fox merger in the Deadpool 3 trailer. 

2023 is a tough act to follow. IGN awarded 83 games a review score of 8 or higher last year, including five 10s — among which were two generational greats in Baldur’s Gate 3 and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. A year later, the release calendar looks comparatively light, with Switch all but certainly in its final year as Nintendo’s primary console and Sony not releasing "any new major existing franchise titles" until 2025.

It's truly the end of an era for Nintendo fans, as online services for 3DS and Wii U have finally shut down. With it, we say goodbye to online multiplayer for the likes of Splatoon, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Pokemon X and Y, and Xenoblade Chronicles X, with everything shutting off for good at 5pm PT/8pm ET yesterday (or 1am GMT this morning for UK folks). 

Caroline Marchal will deliver a keynote at this year's Develop:Brighton conference, its organisers have announced.

Team Ninja’s Rise of the Ronin has received an accolades trailer despite receiving above-average praise from critics. You can check out our review, where we awarded it a 6 out of 10, or see what others had to say below.

3.65 million PC and console games were sold across the UK during March, an impressive rise of 26% over the same period in 2023.

Time for another sorry week of heaving news-fuel into the Maw's thousand-and-one gullets and urgh, what's that brooding stench? It reeks of embargoes in here. The air is foul with it. This week is the week of the inaugural Triple-I Initiative showcase, aka the IIIIs, aka a 45-minute dollop of trailers and announcements from such studios as Slay The Spire creators MegaCrit and Darkest Dungeon developers Red Hook. We know of a couple of the announcements in advance; others, we'll learn about alongside you on 10th April.

Ninja Theory co-founder Tameem Antoniades has left the company.

New week, new PC games! It's another mercifully brief four day week in the UK due to reasons of religion, so let's roll with an appropriately snappy intro that avoids any extended digressionary preambles about, oh, I don't know, magpies fighting outside my flat this morning. Did you know that European magpies are great mimics? Second only to the Northern Mockingbird, apparently, though many ornithologists contend that the Brown Thrasher is sorely overlooked. You certainly hear their vocal range when they squabble - I reckon somebody should train up a ChatGPT AI on their calls and no, stop it, I'm doing an anecdote!

A dedicated hardcore Pokemon player has managed to complete what's arguably one of the most difficult Nuzlocke challenges out there after 11,130 attempts, all while wrestling with a run-destroying spreadsheet and a deep desire for a 'perfect run.'

It finally happened – Jennifer English, Shadowheart's actor in Baldur's Gate 3, has reached the iconic fight scene between her high half-elf and the Githyanki warrior Lae'zel, which she and her real-life partner have hailed as "the most sapphic scene" in the game. 

Game Boy Advance – Nintendo Switch Online will add F-Zero Maximum Velocity on March 29, Nintendo announced.