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The Nintendo Switch 2 has finally been revealed, and with it, there’s a lot of information to take in about the system, including what will happen to our Nintendo Switch library. After all, the games industry doesn’t always guarantee backward compatibility with older systems, so many people want to know if Switch 2 will be backward compatible from launch before they buy the new system. View the full article

The extremely short and meatless Nintendo Switch 2 reveal teaser is finally here, and since it seems we won't be learning more (at least officially) about the console until April 2, it's time to obsess over every little thing that can be extracted from the preview, which includes a first look at the new Mario Kart. Read more View the full article

Nintendo has FINALLY announced the Nintendo Switch 2 following months of speculation, alleged leaks, and other drama. While Nintendo is largely known for shaking up the console market with their creative ideas (Motion controls, screen controllers, etc). For the first time in a while, Nintendo is releasing a direct upgrade to their last console. Some […] Source View the full article

The event board in Phasmophobia has quite a few special challenges you can tackle to unlock exclusive Badges and ID Cards. These trials are all pretty tricky and require a lot of hard work, as is the case with the Ranger challenge. Although finishing this task can be pretty tough, it’s worth it if you want to unlock a special item you can’t otherwise get. To ensure you’re ready to tackle it, here’s how to complete the Ranger challenge in Phasmophobia. View the full article

Ark: Survival Ascended is a next-gen upgraded Unreal Engine 5 version of the sandbox survival game, Ark: Survival Evolved. But does that next-gen upgrade come with crossplay? Studio Wildcard made sure to preserve all of the content of the original, which means there’s still tons of dinosaurs to tame and bases to build. Ark: Survival Evolved was one of the most successful survival games during its tenure, and while the Ascended remake has gone through some growing pains (notably the extra price point), this survival dino breading game has maintained much of its multiplayer base. View the full article

The GTA 5 Liberty City Preservation Project (LCPP) was released this month after six years of work, recreating GTA 4's unforgettable Liberty City within GTA 5's game world. This was a seriously impressive piece of work, managing to bring over the entirety of Rockstar's skewed New York and show it all off with GTA 5's improved visuals and audio: It even arrived with Steam Deck compatibility... Read more.View the full article

Image: The Verge Now that Nintendo’s reveal of the Switch 2 has put to rest years of anticipation and rumormongering, it’s time to hear more information about the console and, importantly, all the games. The company has announced it will hold a Switch 2 Direct scheduled for April 2nd. The Switch 2 reveal trailer showed footage that looks to be a new Mario Kart game, which is a good indication it’ll be a launch title. There’s speculation that the forthcoming Metroid Prime 4 might straddle both consoles the way Breath of the Wild launched on both the Wii U and the Switch back in 2017. The Switch 2 Direct might also reveal the follow-up to Super Mario Odyssey. Who knows? But we do know that it is a truth universally acknowledged that a person in possession of a Switch 2 must be in want of games to play on it, and we’ll get a good idea of what those games will be in early April. View the full article

Every Thursday we share the weekly Famitsu sales charts, which tracks physical boxed game sales and hardware sales in Japan, ... Read more View the full article

The 2025 League of Legends EMEA Championship Winter Split is here, ushering in a season of fresh excitement for the league. With revamped rosters, a Noxian Summoner’s Rift map, and the first case of Fearless Draft in the region, fans have much to anticipate. The Winter Split kicks off on Jan. 18, bringing a unique blend of rising stars and familiar faces to a new format thanks to a three-stage competition designed to reward consistency and adaptability. Each team will face a best-of-one regular season, leading into double-elimination playoffs that promise to showcase the region’s best talent. With strategic depth at an all-time high and roster moves redefining the meta, the 2025 Winter Split could mark the beginning of a new European dynasty—or the resurgence of an old one. View the full article

Making the seventh Civilization game is a tall order. With six prior entries, each with a different flavor, it's challenging to create a unique identity to get people to buy it while ensuring it’s familiar enough that it doesn’t drive long-time fans away. This week, I spent 15 hours playing Civilization VII—which is slated for release next month—through two of its three ages: Antiquity and Exploration. That’s enough time to know that this is the most radical overhaul yet in a single new release without any expansions. Regardless, my initial impressions are that this is also a return to form for the series. Like many others, I had many gripes about Civilization VI. To be clear, VII isn’t a reset to pre-VI times; many concepts introduced in VI (like the hex-based city district system) are revisited and refined here. Read full article Comments View the full article

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Nintendo has a new console on the way, but you can still hang onto those old games. The company has confirmed that the just-announced Switch 2 device will support cartridges from the original Switch. The news shouldn’t be too surprising. Late last year, Nintendo confirmed that the then-unnamed console would be backward-compatible with the Switch. However, that original statement — “Nintendo Switch software will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch” — wasn’t clear on whether that included physical games as well as digital. Now we know for sure. Additionally, Nintendo Switch Online, which includes a growing library of retro games and other features like a music app, will also carry over between the two devices for subscribers. However, there appear to be some restrictions, as Nintendo notes that “certain Nintendo Switch games may not be supported on or fully compatible with Nintendo Switch 2.” It’s not clear yet which games that might include. Image: Nintendo The big reveal of the Switch’s successor comes after a long ******* of leaks and rumors, culminating in today’s official announcement. Here’s the full video of the reveal, which includes the tidbit about backward compatibility. [Hidden Content] View the full article

Image: Nintendo The day is finally here. It’s finally time: after months of teases and rumors, Nintendo has finally revealed the successor to the Switch. A new console generation is always a big deal, but this is an especially pivotal one for Nintendo. Since its debut in 2017, the Switch has become Nintendo’s second-bestselling piece of hardware ever, trailing only the Nintendo DS. And it has been home to some of the company’s most successful games, including Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and the juggernaut that is Mario Kart 8. Those are some big shoes to fill, which means there are some important questions for Nintendo to answer about what comes next. The lead-up to today was filled with questions: What will the hardware look like? Will the big franchises be there at launch? Will games like Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Pokémon Legends: Z-A be cross-generation? Now we have official answers to at least some of them — you can keep up with everything we learned from the reveal right here. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

It's judgement day for Charlemagne of the Roman Empire (not 'Holy' Roman Empire, I hasten to add, as leaders are no longer attached to their historical civilisations in Civilization 7). I'm playing the grand strategy game for PC Gamer's forthcoming review—it's out February 11—and after several millennia of strained diplomacy with Charlemagne, throughout which I'd graciously accept his Open Borders proposals while he'd dismiss my own and slowly grow to dislike me due to our agendas not aligning, I march on his empire, his capital still hidden somewhere beneath the cold stone hexes that make up the fog of war... Read more.View the full article

Nobody should envy Firaxis. Once a decade or so, the legendary strategy game developer is asked to reinvent Civilization, a video game series that has been absent of any tangible weak points for quite some time. Nearly every entry has presented different flavors of that turn-based 4X recipe, but it's hard to say that any one is substantially superior to the others. So, that is the burden that Civilization 7 carries with it. Here is a game that, after playing through the first of its three distinct eras, is shaping up to be very good, but the fact that it’s introducing a huge number of major tweaks and reinterpretations that—in both small ways and big—provide a brand-new way to play Civ means that it asks of its veteran players to enter with an open mind. If you are new to this series, please know that the basic colors of Civilization 7 adhere to the time-tested formula: telling the story of humanity, one turn and one hex at a time. You begin nurturing a teensy village, armed with club-weilding warriors and torchlight, and evolve it into a globe-bestriding empire by balancing their cultural, scientific, diplomatic, and warfighting needs. Countless subsystems are woven into this pursuit, and when Civilization is at its best, it’s easy to enter something of a psychedelic zen as you remix human history. The marquee new feature of Civilization 7, which we detailed at length in IGN's original preview last August. Rather than selecting one nation and charting a path to victory, you’ll wield control of a consistent leader, but you’ll switch from your original civilization to two others throughout history—which is divided into three ages: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern—before a win can be secured. Some Civilization fans were understandably nervous about this pivot. It's a big change! One of the things people love most about the previous six games and their spinoffs is their ability to tell strange and funny stories, creating a timeline where, say, the dogmatically Catholic people of China build the Parthenon. Will that still be possible if we're abandoning our flag when the calendar tips over? After experiencing the change between the age of Antiquity to Exploration myself, I can say with certainty that this new approach will be intriguing for Civ-heads that love getting under the hood. There are so many distinct civilizations to choose from, and in tandem with your chosen leader, if you play smart you’ll will be able to uncover some devastating wombo combos. (For example, a highly expansionist Augustus Caesar, who shepherded the proud Egyptians in Antiquity, might find a perfect home with the Mongols during the Exploration Age.) It brings to mind the compositional choices one makes when assembling a League of Legends roster, but with the world at your feet. It brings to mind the compositional choices one makes when assembling a League of Legends roster, but with the world at your feet. The same thing can be said about the way Firaxis has refreshed its diplomacy system, which again chips away at some thematic richness in service of gameplay. If you are a veteran of Civilization 6, you are likely familiar with how mercurial the other barons on the map could be, and the exorbitant fees they'd charge for simple strategic agreements like open borders. All of that has been stripped away. Diplomacy in Civilization 7, like everything else, has become a currency. You accrue and spend "influence points" in the same way you might have spent faith or gold in generations past, and the accords available on the diplomacy screen all have non-negotiable costs. Want a research partnership? Or a denouncement? The price is on the menu. Some might miss the roundabout negotiations of earlier games, but personally, I think this streamlining is long overdue. In fact, outside of the radical switch to a three-act structure, much of Civilization 7's other big changes are remarkably subtle, and seem designed to iron out some of the murky micro-decisions that tend to gum up a campaign. Remember how, since the switch to only allowing one unit per tile in Civ 5, mustering an army required you to line up an unwieldy battalion that would inevitably become chokepointed by its own mass? Now you can rally multiple units on an Army Commander and use them to dictate group orders—like a powerful combined assault—on a single target, which should hopefully make military action less of a grind. (Those commanders are now the only units that can be leveled up, allowing you to tailor different ends of your fighting force.) A change that sounded like a ******* deal than it actually turns out to be is the elimination of worker units. In Civilization 7, your cities lavishly sprawl outwards, upgrading tiles of your choice as they grow. You know the downtime in the early game where you're mostly waiting around for your population to grow? This time you’re supplied with progression goals for your nation's economic, cultural, scientific, and military pursuits. If you complete these you can unlock bonuses at the end of the age, and that makes sure that you always have something to do instead of mashing the end turn button. The goal, from what I can tell, is to ensure that even in the doldrums, Civilization 7 has the capacity to surprise us. The best illustration of this might be the narrative choices threaded across the campaign, where your leader might encounter some flavor text and a branching pair of dialogue options where both are tied to a short-term boon. (In one early game instance, I found an abandoned mine and could either strip it for gold or convert it into a permanent silver resource on the map.) It is the slightest dusting of Crusader Kings-style roleplaying in a series that has typically steered away from any inkling of morality. I can't wait to see what ethical quandaries the modern age holds. It makes me wonder if the Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern Ages will function more like siloed gameplay experiences. I played my Civilization 7 campaign into the Exploration Age, when the map begins to open up for startup empires to venture beyond their home continents. Units can begin to trek across the ocean with wooden fleets, and I was pleased to see that, just off my native shores, enticing archipelagos were ripe for the taking. It was interesting to see how quickly my priorities changed between the eras, and how incentivized I suddenly became to explore the open seas. It makes me wonder if the Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern Ages will function more like siloed gameplay experiences, and given how Civilization 7 allows you to boot up a run at the beginning of each of them, I imagine that is Firaxis's intent. But even after 10 hours, I was still scratching the surface of all Civilization 7 had to offer. For instance: On the leader selection screen, there is a meta-progression system built into its DNA, allowing you to slowly unlock perks for the characters you invest the most time in. That represents a huge shakeup to how we’ve all played Civ all this time. How will all of these pieces come together? The answers will be revealed in modernity, and beyond. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

[Hidden Content] After months and months of rumors and official hints, Nintendo has finally pulled back the curtain on the Switch 2 with a first look trailer highlighting many small changes from the old Switch. The short trailer shows off the Switch 2's larger tablet and screen, and a slightly more rounded edge on the top and bottom. The new system also sports an additional USB-C port on the top and a wider, U-shaped kickstand along the backside that can support the system at a number of wider angles. The trailer also shows off ****** Joy-Cons that are significantly larger than those on the original Switch, with colored accents behind the joystick itself. An extended Joy-**** "rail" on the inner edge features wider shoulder buttons and a new connector in the center. Rather than sliding in vertically, like the plastic rail on the Switch Joy-Cons, the controllers on the Switch 2 snap in horizontally with what appears to be a magnetic connection. Read full article Comments View the full article

At one point recently, Marvel Rivals became the most popular game on Steam, and this is well after a month beyond its release. After only a fortnight, 20 million players had tried the game, and that means that over 20 million players have been exposed to the game's main mascot and announcer, Galacta. Galacta is a bit of an odd character, being the daughter of the more famous Galactus, a world-eating sort-of villain that is often used as the center of Earth-defending events in Marvel Comics. View the full article

After spending hands-on time with Sid Meier’s Civilization 7, it's clear the game brings some exciting changes to the franchise that are - for the most part - as welcome as they are surprising. The Civilization series, in general, tends to do a good job of retaining the game’s core appeal while adding something new to the experience with each new release. However, where Civilization 6 felt like it was more concerned with adding new content to the game, Civilization 7 seems more focused on making what was already present more streamlined with new city management and a new combat system. View the full article

Microsoft is reportedly working on some major Xbox Cloud Gaming upgrades, including support for 4K streaming and playing more owned games, among other novelties. Such improvements would help raise the overall value proposition of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, the highest tier of Microsoft's subscription service and still the only way to access the company's cloud gaming platform. View the full article

As much as players moan that Fortnite is becoming too focused on pop culture collaborations, we all have a few characters in mind who we would throw money at if they arrived in the Item Shop. Some fans have pretty out-of-the-box ideas about who they want to see in a future Fortnite collab. The Fortnite community on Reddit has been discussing which characters would make them throw money at Epic Games. Unfortunately for fans, some of these collab ideas will never happen due to strict intellectual property regulations. You will probably have an eternal wait if you want to see Pikachu, Mewtwo, or Charmander in your lobby. Nintendo is very protective of its characters, so a crossover is unlikely. Interestingly, the franchise mentioned most alongside Pokémon was manga series Yu-Gi-Oh! We have more chance of seeing Yugi Mutou in Fortnite than Ash, Jesse, or James. View the full article

Yes, it is finally the time. For real. The Nintendo Switch 2 has officially been revealed by Nintendo, being completely ... Read more View the full article

KillPixel Games, one of the dev teams responsible for WRATH: Aeon of Ruin, have announced their next game with THREAT VECTOR. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

The Nintendo Switch’s successor is finally ready for its big showcase, Nintendo announced today in a new trailer that revealed the long-rumored Switch 2. A new Nintendo Direct detailing the new console has been confirmed for April 2. The video confirmed several leaks over the past couple of weeks. Gamers everywhere will be tuning in to see what hasn’t already been leaked, which may not be much. View the full article

Great news everyone! After months of rumours and little teases, the Nintendo Switch 2 has finally been revealed. Thanks to post by Nintendo, we finally have a visual of what the console looks like, as well an idea of what the console is packing under the hood. Read more View the full article

Yes, it is finally the time. For real. The Nintendo Switch 2 has officially been revealed by Nintendo, being completely ... Read more View the full article

FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH from Square Enix arrives on January 23rd, and thankfully the developers have already managed to get it Steam Deck Verified ahead of the release. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article