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Korean dev Shift Up already has an existing relationship with Tencent subsidiary Level Infinite on saucy smartphone shooter NIKKE: Goddess of Victory, so it’s perhaps not a surprise to see the company step in to publish its next title, Project Spirits. The game – developed using Unreal Engine 5 – will launch across PC, mobile, and console, with no specific platforms announced just yet. (Although, we think you can safely assume PS5 will be in the mix.) In addition to the publishing relationship, Tencent affiliate Yongxing Interactive will assist with development. It’s a studio made up of veterans from across various entertainment industries, including anime, comics, and games. A statement said: There’s still no word on when Project Spirits will release, but a recent investor relations report noted that Shift Up only has around 20 employees dedicated to the title, as of the end of September 2025. Presumably today’s announcement means it’s ready to begin ramping up development, and with Yongxing Interactive assisting on production, we should hopefully start to see some meaningful progress soon. View full article

Sony will publish Death Stranding 2: On the Beach for PC in the relatively near future, if an ESRB rating is to be believed. The original game was ported to other platforms by 505 Games, but this preceded the platform holder’s strategy of bringing more first-party titles to storefronts such as Steam. It took roughly eight months for the original adventure to make its way to PC, but we’d expect around six months of console exclusivity here. With the PS5 version launching on 26th June, we wouldn’t be surprised if the PC edition was out by Christmas, with an announcement possible at The Game Awards next month, where the title’s nominated for Game of the Year. It’s worth remembering that this situation is slightly different to other first-party PS5 titles, as Kojima Productions owns the intellectual property and is an independent studio. It goes without saying that we highly recommend the title, as noted in our 10/10 Death Stranding 2 PS5 review: Are you interested in the PC port of Death Stranding 2, or have you had your fill of this particular sequel already? Are you surprised to see the follow-up seemingly reach other formats this quickly? Drop a like in the comments section below. View full article

SEGA has confirmed that those who own Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami, or Yakuza Kiwami 2 on PS4 can take advantage of discounted upgrade paths when buying the new versions on PS5. All three PS5 re-releases are due to launch on the 8th December, but there is a catch in that these upgrade paths only apply to the digital versions of the PS4 games — and any games claimed through PS Plus subscriptions unfortunately don't count either. At the time of writing, SEGA has only detailed the upgrade pricing in the US, which differs between the three games. Here's a quick summary: Yakuza 0 (PS4) upgraded to Yakuza 0 Director's Cut (PS5) - $14.99 Yakuza Kiwami (PS4) upgraded to Yakuza Kiwami (PS5) - $1.99 Yakuza Kiwami 2 (PS4) upgraded to Yakuza Kiwami 2 (PS5) - Free As far as official information goes, Yakuza 0 Director's Cut is the only PS5 re-release that features new or improved content. It has several additional cutscenes and an online co-op mode — which is why SEGA's charging more for the upgrade. It also has an English dub for the first time. Meanwhile, nothing's been said about Kiwami and Kiwami 2 other than them including new text language support in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Russian. And for the record, there's been no mention of Kiwami 2 being boosted to 60 frames-per-second on PS5. It's looking like we'll have to wait and see if the 30fps curse has been lifted. Oh, and your PS4 save data will not carry over to the PS5 versions, so get ready to start a new playthrough or two. Or three! Still, we're glad that SEGA's seen sense and gone down the upgrade route. Given the publisher's more... questionable business practices over the years, we were pretty much convinced that these PS5 versions would demand a fresh purchase across the board. Will you be replaying any of these Yakuza titles on PS5? Feel the heat in the comments section below. View full article

Capcom recently prompted a backlash from fighting game fans when it revealed plans to place its official Street Fighter 6 finals behind a paywall — but fresh comments from Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada perhaps shed a little light on why the publisher's going down that road. The answer is money, obviously, but in an interview with The Game Business, Harada is quick to explain that pro tournaments simply don't make money for the fighting games that they're built around. "Lots of big companies are coming in and putting money into advertisements for these events, and a lot of influencers are making big money off of their streams," he says. "But the revenue for our games doesn't reflect any of this stuff." So why would fighting game developers and publishers bother to get involved in such events if there's no real money to be made? Well, historically, it's all been about promotion. If your fighting game makes a splash at a public tournament, then it's essentially free advertising, which, in theory, leads to sales of said game. The same is true when a community springs up around specific titles; positive word of mouth and healthy competition have always counted for so much when it comes to a fighter's long term success. But again, Harada suggests that there's no noticeable impact on a game's revenue — even if it ends up being one of the biggest names at Evo, or any other well-known event. "It's quite interesting to see how that might change," he admits, before mentioning Capcom's latest strategy: "Occasionally, you're seeing certain events that pop up where they're charging pay-per-view, or something like that. Seeing how the money side of this changes, that's something I'm quite interested in." Many a Tekken fan will be seriously questioning Harada's wording here, but we'll just have to wait and see whether Capcom's pay-per-view plans actually, er, pay off before jumping the gun. Still, this makes for an intriguing topic, especially since fighting games have experienced a dramatic boost in popularity over the last decade or so. There's clearly a lot of money to be made in the wider world of esports, but it remains to be seen whether fighting games can tap into that same kind of appeal. What's your take on this? Should fighting game companies be trying to monetise tournaments and events to begin with? Shell out for the latest season pass in the comments section below. View full article

If you've been wondering what's next for the Switch Online's 'Nintendo Classics' service, the November update is now available. This latest update includes NES and Game Boy titles, with a total of four more games added to the service today. On the NES, there's Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos and Battletoads, and on the Game Boy, retro enthusiasts can look forward to Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters and Bionic Commando. Switch Online's Nintendo Classics service for Japan has received the same four titles in this week's update. To access these titles, you'll need to have an active base-tier Switch Online subscription. This update for the Nintendo Classics library follows the arrival of the original Luigi's Mansion for the GameCube app in October. What do you think of the latest additions to the Switch Online 'Nintendo Classics' library? Let us know in the comments. View full article

Alongside the return of multiple retro games today, Nintendo has rolled out a new update for the Game Boy app on the Switch and Switch 2, bumping it up to Version 3.0.0. Apart from the release of Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters and Bionic Commando, this major update also comes with some cool new easter eggs. If you missed the boot screen of the Game Boy era featuring the 'Nintendo' logo (or 'Game Boy' one) and iconic sound, the good news is it's back! It works the same as it does on the GBA. Once you've installed the update, boot up the app and hold the left analogue stick, and you'll see the original Game Boy start screen appear. What's also neat is it's different depending on your 'game screen' settings in the app's options menu. So, you'll get whatever screen filter you've got the game screen set to: Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket or Game Boy Color. One last thing, the sound when booting up the Game Boy - Nintendo Classics app has also been changed from the Game Boy boot up noise to a coin block sound from Super Mario Land. If you want to see the boot up in motion, Vooks.net has also shared a video. View full article

It's taken some time to get to this point, but Nintendo finally seems to be getting underway with its Metroid Prime 4: Beyond marketing campaign. So far, we've got commercials and in-store demos, and now Nintendo's Canadian branch has announced it will be hosting a special event next week on 3rd December 2025, allowing fans to watch a "brave band" of "top streamers" explore planet Viewros as the renowned bounty hunter Samus Aran. These will be two sponsored streams featuring @tetraninja and @JeuSerieux. Here's a rundown about both channels: This news follows Nintendo's recent rollout of demos at select in-store kiosks across North America. Nintendo has also revealed some other details ahead of the anticipated launch, such as the estimated file size of the game. You can find out more about all of this in our previous coverage. Will you be checking out any video or stream footage before jumping into Metroid Prime 4: Beyond? How about the recent previews? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. View full article

Super Mario 64 might be one of the most popular speedrun games of all time, and it's still absolutely huge. You'd think runners would know absolutely everything about this almost-30-year-old game, but recently, a brand new trick was discovered that will potentially change the nature of speedruns, particularly the 1 Star Speedrun, forever. Bubzia, a speedrunner who specialises in blindfolded speedruns, has documented the discovery of this new technique that has essentially wiped out one of the most famous skips in the game, the side backwards long jump (SBLJ, as it's more commonly known), which is used to skip the 30-star door in the basement of Peach's Castle. It's incredibly tricky to pull off but it's been a staple in the community for years. But two speedrunners — FramePerfection and Crackhex — have found a workaround that eliminates the need to even do this. Amusingly, it's been dubbed the "crackslide" by the community, and while the the original trick was created using emulation tools, runner haribo39 managed to recreate the trick. You can see Bubzia demonstrating the trick at around 8:53 minutes in (warning for strong language), and even he's surprised at how quickly he pulls it off. Essentially, "all" you have to do is line yourself up against a particular wall in the basement, backflip up against it, butt slide on the railing next to the wall, and you'll be catapulted up to the door and, after some text, go through the wall. While this is a huge discovery for the basic 1 Star run, it's especially big for blindfolded speedruns, a category which has been trying to crack the 10 minute mark for a while. Now, it could very well be possible. Bubzia has already managed to get below 11 minutes while making a few big mistakes, and only a few seconds off the current world record. Sounds like Super Mario 64 speedruns are going to be extremely competitive. If you want to have a crack at it yourself, then Bubzia has laid out all the steps in a tutorial at the end of his video. Are you impressed to see Super Mario 64 speedruns thriving in 2025? Ever tried one yourself? Let us know in the comments. View full article

Rockstar Games have released a fairly rare improvement-heavy update to their launcher. The Rockstar Games Launcher is not everyone’s best friend but the new update published late on Tuesday should hopefully reduce friction between players and the application. This update comes a few months after a couple new features were added in the past few months. Those updates included the ability to choose which launcher to launch Rockstar titles from within the RGL. Discord Rich Presence and quicker access to settings and more. Patch NotesAs spotted by community member Tex2 (yes, he has renamed from Tez2), the patch notes for Rockstar Games Launcher Update 1.0.105.2705 was posted to the Rockstar Support website. You can read the full patch notes below: Improvements have been made to support handheld gaming Windows PCs Epic Online Services SDK has been updated to a more recent version Support has been added for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch Pro controllers A new command-line argument for silent mode installation (/f) has been added to the Rockstar Games Launcher installer Improvements have been made to the stability of the Rockstar Games Launcher As you can read above, the Rockstar Games Launcher is now better equipped to be used on handheld gaming Windows PCs such as the ASUS ROG Ally X or Lenovo Legion Go. On top of that, full support for an expanded list of controllers has finally come. Those using a Dualshock 4, DualSense or Nintendo Switch Pro controllers will now have a more pleasant experience. This update will be downloaded when you next boot the launcher up. It’s good to see Rockstar improving their launcher after plenty of players are not keen on it. Rockstar are making it clear the Rockstar Games Launcher is here to stay especially ahead of GTA VI’s release (it will come to PC at some point).

Rockstar Games‘ FiveM just gained another close collaboration as the platform expands to GTA V Enhanced. Last week, the team behind FiveM, Cfx.re, released an asset conversion application for GTA V and FiveM. Titled Alchemist, the conversion tool for FiveM lets asset creators easily port over last gen content to the enhanced version of GTA V. Soon after, a new announcement was made. On Monday, Cfx.re Tweeted that they are joining forces with the Blender add-on called Sollumz. This move will offer another easy option for content creators to convert their GTA V Legacy assets to GTA V Enhanced. For those unaware, Sollumz’s purpose is a way to import, export, and create GTAV assets from within 3D modelling software Blender. Elevated Level Of Collaboration A blog post was also released with more details. Cfx.re say they are “excited” to be partnering with Sollumz on a new update (version 2.8.0) which will offer support for converting assets to ensure compatibility with GTA V Enhanced. This is the first community-made tool that will utilize the library powering Alchemist. In the Sollumz Discord server, Alex Guirere said “this release is a big step forward for Sollumz. Thanks to our collaboration with Rockstar Games and Cfx.re on their new Materia library, Sollumz now supports native binary formats import and export. This means you can now work with Legacy (Gen8) and Enhanced (Gen9) binary assets directly.” New FeaturesOn top of the improved FiveM support, the add-on now fully supports Blender 5.0. There’s also with new additions. This includes automatic vehicle windows shattermap generation, vertex paint tools, and many bug fixes per the developer. If you want to take advantage of this updated version of Sollumz, you can download it here on Github. There’s also various videos on the page showing how the tool can be used. It is still quite something to see a Rockstar-owned project work with third parties in modifying GTA V and GTA Online.

If you’re into Japanese board games, you may have heard of MAGI’s beloved Magical board game series. There are over 11 games/expansion packs in the series now, including Magical Bakery, Magical Patisseries, and Magical Kingdom. Now, MAGI has hired Neotro (which has developed shmup, shooting, action, and puzzle games, so an odd choice?) to create the first digital game in the series. Magical Princess is a child-rearing/daughter-raising game that combines fatherhood and fairy tales. Today, a demo for the title launched via Steam. MAGI also revealed the game’s second trailer, which showcases its voice cast and characters. Will Alice become known as the best student that the Royal Magical Academy has to offer? Between her classes, jobs, and dating life, interact with her to mold her future in sometimes unexpected ways. Will you raise an uptight academic, a pop star, the queen of demons, or something else Alice desires? Is there such a thing as perfect parenting? Here is more about the game, via MAGI: Plan out activities for her day to increase her Stamina, Intelligence, Charm, and Sense. Be wary of Alice’s bad behaviour — discourage delinquent acts before they become habits. Discover her mysterious connection to the Red Moon that plagues the country. Help her become a formidable young woman who can hold her own against the forces of evil that roam the Panetelia Kingdom. Watch Alice’s life unfold across hundreds of thousands of words of storytelling, 700 pages of comic-style scenes, 100 illustrations, and 170+ date events. Interact with more than 30 peculiar townspeople, and face life’s twists and turns, leading to more than 50 possible endings. In Magical Princess, you will watch Alice’s life unfold through hundreds of thousands of words, 700 pages of comic-style scenes, 100 illustrations, and 170+ date events. There are over 30 strange townsfolk and more than 50 possible endings. The princess’ early years are covered in the demo, as you take on the role of a widowed and overworked father. Guide your gifted daughter through those formative years. Build up to her first day of school and help her through her first six months at the Royal Magical Academy. Developed by Neotro and published by MAGI, Magical Princess will be released for PC via Steam, though no release window/date has been announced. The demo is available for PC via Steam, and it includes English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese language options.

After three weeks of procrastinating life goals, Mentil has come back with a new hack – this time for the classic GBA simulation about achieving life goals, Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town. The original was notorious for having a poorly-edited English translation by Natsume, and this hack aims to rectify that by editing and proofreading its script. This was done with the help of the HMMT Dumper/Inserter tool by Pinguimbozo. This even includes all of the TV programs included in the game, which constitute over half its script. NPC names and some items were renamed to be truer to the original Japanese, as well as to match those in the remake. A straggler line of Japanese was also translated. As a completely optional bonus, this package also contains another hack which can be used on top of it, which aims to reduce the grindiness of certain aspects of the game. Specifically, descending down mines is made much easier by putting revealed stairs next to the stairs back up. No more save-scumming to find those stairs, or worrying about levels not generating any due to a bug. As well, the Vacation House was made 1/40 of the price, and the time needed to obtain the Mountain Cottage was reduced to 1/10th. FOMT Proofread.zip

Remember Splitgate 2? This free-to-play multiplayer shooter arrived back in the summer, but following heavy criticism, developer 1047 Games took it back to a beta phase. Well, after many months of work, it seems the game is almost ready to come back. The studio has confirmed that the beta phase will finish on 4th December, and will make its proper relaunch later in the month. During Splitgate 2's time back in beta, the developer has made some pretty significant changes to the game in response to the negative feedback from the initial release. For example, the game has totally ditched factions, and the faction-based abilities have been reimagined as power-ups. More "roundless" modes have been added like King of the Hill, Domination, and Team Deathmatch, as well as a Classic Arena that aims to "capture the spirit of original Splitgate". The team has also "introduced new maps, new weapons, reworked the menus, and refined systems constantly" based on player feedback during the beta. There's no firm date for the relaunch just yet, but it sounds like the game could be back in action this side of Christmas. Are you looking forward to jumping back into Splitgate 2? Tell us in the comments section below. [source x.com, via splitgate.com, insider-gaming.com] View full article

Helldivers 2 has announced the next premium Warbond coming to the game, and it looks purpose-built for destroying bugs. The Python Commandos Warbond is set to arrive on 2nd December 2025. Here's the trailer to give you an idea of what to expect: Players can look forward to several new weapons and stratagems, including a minigun, a drone equipped with a flamethrower, a powerful chainsaw, and an assault rifle/grenade launcher combo. As well as all that, the Warbond includes new cosmetics, with two new armour sets, capes, patterns, emotes, and so on. It's bringing big 80s action movie energy, with the jungle feel bringing Predator to mind. There's a little more info on the PS Blog if you're interested. Will you be making use of the Python Commandos Warbond in Helldivers 2? Tell us in the comments section below. [source blog.playstation.com] View full article

There aren't many surviving video game magazines today, but miraculously, some new ones pop up every so often, and they've evolved into seriously premium products. One such example is A Profound Waste of Time, a gaming journal crowdfunded by readers, and its sixth issue is currently accepting pledges on Kickstarter. This one may be of particular interest to PlayStation fans, as the leading feature in the new issue hones in on Astro Bot. A big interview with Nicolas Doucet is the main attraction, speaking about "how his studio, Team Asobi, channels the wonder of early cinema into a new language of play, one built on clarity, rhythm, and joyfulness" as well as PlayStation's 30th anniversary. The issue features original (and very cute) artwork on its cover, with a lenticular layer on the special edition that allows Astro to emote as you turn the mag in your hands. It's a beautiful object, and full of other interesting features too, including interviews with Team Ninja president Fumihiko Yasuda and Giant Squid's Matt Nava. If you're interested, you can back the new issue on Kickstarter. A pledge of £25 (~$33) gets you the standard version, while the special edition requires a pledge of £45 (~$59). The estimated delivery is December 2026. Again, A Profound Waste of Time's issues are made to be quality products, and typically contain nearly 200 pages full of original work, hence the price tag. Will you be snagging a copy? Tell us in the comments section below. View full article