Valve Updates Steam Return Policy and Closes Popular Loophole

Nintendo recently revealed its updated sales numbers for the Switch console, not too long after the company acknowledged its eventual follow-up. Ever since hitting the market in early 2017, the Nintendo Switch has been a global sales juggernaut, bolstered by chart-topping exclusives like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and last year’s The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The massive success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie has also helped sell more Nintendo Switch consoles in countries like Mexico and South America after landing in theaters in 2023.

Some Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 fans have started pointing out that Peter Parker is missing as an AI companion in combat when the player is controlling Miles Morales. Spider-Man 2 gives gamers two crime-fighting Spider-heroes for the price of one, with Peter returning from the first game and Miles now a fully-fledged web-slinger following his starring role in the 2020 spin-off Spider-Man: Miles Morales.

A new rumor suggests that the infamous Galactus of Marvel lore could be returning to Fortnite in a future event. Epic’s massively successful multiplayer battle royale has seen its fair share of equally successful crossovers, and Marvel has been a constant source of these since Black Widow and Star-Lord first appeared as playable character skins back in Chapter 1 Season 8. A vast array of heroes and villains from across the Marvel universe have dropped into Fortnite, often to promote a new MCU show or movie.

The Helldivers 2 debacle has reached new hellish lows as the year's best-selling game is now unavailable on Steam in over 170 countries. 

PlayStation has delivered a U-turn and scrapped its plans to require Helldivers 2 players on Steam to sign in with a PlayStation Network account.

A Pokemon player has successfully managed to transfer the rare Mew from Space World 1997 into the modern-day Pokemon Scarlet and Violet games. The Pokemonuniverse contains many rare and legendary creatures, and the powerful Psychic feline Mew may very well be one of the most elusive of all. Despite playing a major role in the lore of the original Pokemon Red and Blue games, Mew could not be encountered or captured in the base game without glitches or datamining. This would be the case for every mainline Pokemon game until Generation 4’s Diamond and Pearl, which allowed players to import it from the Wii My Pokemon Ranch spin-off.

The long-delayed Star Wars: Hunters finally has a new release date. Back in 2021, Lucasfilm Games and developer Zynga announced Star Wars: Hunters, a squad-based arena shooter set after the fall of the Galactic Empire at the end of the original Star Wars movie trilogy. Players can choose from characters like Rieve, a dark-side-empowered warrior, a lightsaber-wielding droid called J-3DI, and even Utooni, a pair of junk-scavenging Jawas stacked together. Each of these characters has their own unique abilities, which will come in handy during frantic battles across several classic Star Wars locations.

Bethesda is now hoping to release new video games at a faster rate than it has in the past, especially with Fallout’s increased popularity. Bethesda is known for its massive RPG franchises like Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, and last year’s mega-hit Starfield. However, these titles can take an incredibly long time to develop, with Starfield suffering from several delays and being in production for nearly eight years before finally hitting stores in September.

City-builder sensation Manor Lords has broken genre records on Steam, selling more than one million copies a little over a day after launch.

Cygames has detailed the new content coming in updates 1.2.0 and 1.3.0 of Granblue Fantasy: Relink. In addition to adding two new characters to the robust cast of Granblue Fantasy: Relink, the updates bring improvements to existing characters, bug fixes, and new quest additions.

Jennifer Hale, one of the talented voice actors behind Mass Effect’s legendary hero Commander Shepard, hasn’t heard from BioWare about possibly appearing in the upcoming Mass Effect 4. In classic RPG fashion, the original three Mass Effect games gave players the ability to fully customize their protagonist, down to selecting their gender. This choice resulted in Shepard being voiced by two different actors, with Mark Meer playing the male version and Jennifer Hale stepping into the role of the female Shepard.

Steam has changed its refund policy, with pre-release playtime now factored in when considering eligibility for a refund.