Doki Doki Literature Club has been pulled from the Google Play Store, just a few months after its release on the mobile storefront back in December 2025. In a statement from Serenity Forge, the studio cites that Google chose to remove the game from the Google Play Store as its content violates the storefront's terms of service in "its depiction of sensitive themes."

"DDLC is available on many different major platforms, including iOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and more," Serenity Forge writes. "We're continuing to do everything we can to find a path forward for getting DDLC reinstated on the Google Play Store. Meanwhile, we're also looking into potential options for alternate methods of distribution on Android devices."

At this point, it's no secret that Doki Doki Literature Club is a disturbing experience that touches on self-harm and emotional abuse, and uses graphic imagery to do so, but there's a big "This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed" warning on store pages for the game. Audiences are suitably warned that this is a horror game, despite marketing material and the game's first hour disguising the experience as a romantic-comedy visual novel.

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Amazon Board Games: Three For the Price Of Two Sale

Save big on popular board games

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The great thing about board games is that they're social, don't need electricity, and have a built-in offline mode. If you want to stock up on tabletop fun, head over to Amazon to take advantage of a Get Three For the Price Of Two deal. The deal is simple: pick three eligible items from the list, and the price of the lowest-priced item will be subtracted from your total. You don't have to pick only board games, as the promotion applies as long as you choose eligible items from the Amazon store page. So far, Amazon hasn't announced an end date for this promotion, so you might not want to dawdle in case anything catches your eye.

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Mega Cat Studios and Playground Productions are releasing the first all-new Backyard Baseball game in years later this summer, but if you can't wait to try out the game's new features, there's a free demo available right now. And yes, you can play as the GOAT, Pablo Sanchez, along with some other classic Backyard Kids.

Though the full game will be available on consoles as well, the Backyard Baseball demo is currently limited to PC and Mac. It includes a new game mode called Backyard Derby, with the demo limiting your choice of players to Kiesha Phillips, Kenny Kawaguchi, and Pablo Sanchez. You'll be looking to hit as many home runs as possible in a limited time, so we have our money on Sanchez. There's a leaderboard, as well, so you can see how you stack up against other players online prior to the official launch date.

Backyard Baseball also introduces a night mode, complete with fireworks, and you'll likely recognize the field from the original games--just with a modern coat of paint. There will be 11 stadiums in the final game, each remastered from their classic versions.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has just introduced some new controller options for disabled gamers that provide a greater level of customization in the military shooter. This is a boon for accessibility in a series that continues to cater to players of all skills and abilities.

Co-developers Treyarch and Raven Software took to the official Call of Duty blog on April 9 to announce a new collaboration with the AI software platform Cephable. According to the website, the software "enables players to control games using alternative inputs such as voice commands, face expressions or head movement, and customized buttons" through the company's desktop and mobile apps. Once you download Cephable, you will have a plethora of new customization options for the in-game controls across Black Ops 7's Campaign, Zombies, Dead Ops Arcade, and Firing Range modes.

Specifically, Cephable--which is a free download--lets you use voice commands and other mobility-friendly options to play Black Ops 7. The developers noted in the blog post that, although these new input options will function the same way as a controller or keyboard and mouse, there may be some latency because Cephable controls pass through additional processing and an external service before reaching the game.

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The long-in-development Metal Gear Solid movie that was set to be directed by Metal Gear super-fan Jordan Vogt-Roberts has now been officially announced. Rather than Vogt-Roberts, it will now be directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein.

They directed 2025's Final Destination: Bloodlines and have now been tapped by Sony Pictures to direct the upcoming video game adaptation as part of a new first-look deal at Sony Pictures.

"Metal Gear Solid was nothing short of a groundbreaking cinematic masterpiece that forever revolutionized video games. We are thrilled and honored to bring Hideo Kojima's iconic characters and unforgettable world to life," the pair said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

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Pokemon Champions is entirely focused on competitive battling, but a hidden menu option might help you gain an edge against opposing trainers.

Within the Battle option in the main menu is Battle Data selection, all the way at the bottom. Select Ranked Battles, and although the menu might look empty at first, changing to the Pokemon tab with the shoulder buttons will show you a list of the most-used Pokemon in competition.

And that's not all the data you can use to your advantage--select an individual Pokemon, and you can see their mostcommonly used moves and held items, along with their most-frequent Pokemon teammates and other useful battle stats.

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Crimson Desert has a variety of denizens for you to meet, from food and equipment vendors to armor and hair stylists. There are some you'll want to make best friends with sooner rather than later, and fans of Pearl Abyss' open-world action-adventure game have determined which NPCs you may want to make your BFF--and why.

On the game's official subreddit, user Flomag posted a list on April 8 of the NPCs you should make fast friends with. Many of these denizens can be found within Hernand, so they aren't that difficult to track down, but the benefits they provide could help make your journey in Pywell a little easier or, at least, a bit more convenient.

For example, becoming besties with the grocer, innkeeper, or tailor unlocks their supply contracts, which increases the number of items they sell to you while providing a bit of a discount. The same is true of other shops you'll likely frequent, too, such as the equipment and furniture vendors. Specific NPCs, though, like Ben (in the Greymane camp) and Willian (found around Hernand), unlock pigs and sheep, respectively. You can use these animals for resources like cotton and food, which are good materials for crafting and sustenance.

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Dune: Awakening, the open-world survival game set in Frank Herbert's legendary sci-fi universe, is finally making it so player-versus-player encounters are entirely optional.

When Dune: Awakening first launched last summer, more than a few players felt blindsided by its PvP-focused endgame that required journeying into the Deep Desert map filled with roaming bands of hostile players in order to secure Spice and resources needed to make endgame gear and vehicles. The disconnect between PvP and PvE was made even more confusing due to the fact that the first 60 or so hours of the survival game is almost entirely PvE focused, making the sudden shift to PvP jarring for those who simply wanted to keep progressing as they had been.

While developer Funcom had implemented half measures post-launch (such as making it so a larger portion of the Deep Desert was PvE only), PvE will be the main focus of Dune: Awakening going forward. As detailed in a blog post, Funcom found that 80% of the game's lifetime players engaged exclusively with PvE, making it clear that Funcom needed to "rethink" its approach.

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Actor Jay Klaitz, who famously portrayed Lester in Grand Theft Auto 5, has weighed in with more thoughts on Grand Theft Auto 6, saying another delay could make the game "cooler." He also said he hopes the game does not launch at $100, but instead a price point that's more "accessible."

Speaking to El Dorado, Klaitz said if Rockstar were to delay GTA 6 again, that would only make the game better. He said he enjoyed working with Rockstar's performance director, Rod Edge, on GTA 5, and if a delay meant Edge or someone like him had "the time they need," that would be a good thing.

"It could have been another month or another five months or six months or whatever. It's going to be cool," he said (via GamesRadar).

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The launch of Pokemon Champions has come with more problems than you can fit in a Poke Ball, but a Switch 2-specific bug affecting the game's resolution might take the cake as the strangest issue.

Prominent Pokemon fan account Centro Leaks (via IGN) pointed out that Pokemon Champions runs at a lower 1080p resolution in TV mode on Switch 2, and the current solution to get proper 4K visuals is to undock the Switch 2 and re-dock it. Joe Merrick, owner of fan site Serebii, corroborated the existence of the glitch in an X post.

Pokemon Champions only has a version for the first Nintendo Switch, but it's one of many Nintendo-published titles with enhanced visuals through a free Switch 2 update. According to Nintendo's website, Champions on Switch 2 is optimized for the console's screen and "high-resolution TVs for improved image quality."

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Windrose, the pirate survival game that made a big splash during the most recent Steam Next Fest and is one of the most anticipated titles on the platform with over 1.5 million wishlists, is releasing soon. Very soon.

As revealed during the recent Triple-I Initiative showcase, the co-op pirate adventure will sail into Steam Early Access on April 14, just four days from now. That's extremely soon for a game whose developer Windrose Crew in February stated it wasn't ready to reveal a release date and instead wanted to "ship the game on time in the best condition possible."

That is, however, good news for those who played Windrose's Steam demo (which is still available) and couldn't get enough. For anyone looking to scratch that Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (seemingly confirmed to be a remake or remaster soon) itch, Windrose is definitely worth paying attention to. The game is fully playable in co-op with up to four players, features ship combat, hirable crews, base building, unique dungeons, and more.

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Back in 2024, Sunset Visitor released its debut game, 1000xResist, to tremendous critical acclaim. Now, the studio is back with a new narrative-driven work of science-fiction: Prove You're Human. But while the two might share the same genre and eagerness to explore the human condition, don't expect more of the same.

"My real desire is to communicate to players who follow us over multiple games that the one thing we really like to do is to surprise people and turn things around on them," Sunset Visitor founder Remy Siu told GameSpot. "I'm excited to see how the audience will discover all the ways in which this is not 1000xResist that we cannot talk about yet."

In Prove You're Human, players take on the role of Santana, a woman who has split her consciousness in two. Following the split, one version of Santana is tasked with entering a digital space and convincing the company's AI system, Mesa, that she is not a human being; her corporeal form, however, continues to "spend her days living the life you’ve always dreamed of in the outside world." Though the events that transpire throughout Prove You're Human remain a mystery, Sunset Visitor has already posed one of the game's biggest question: At the end of the program, will you decide to re-merge your two selves, or will you discard your work self?

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Doom: The Dark Ages is coming to Diablo Immortal, and the upcoming crossover once again highlights the difference between limited-time events in Blizzard's mobile ARPG and those same crossovers in Diablo 4.

Diablo 4 already received its Doom: The Dark Ages crossover in March, introducing a batch of free Doom-themed cosmetics as well as some pricey premium looks for those willing to spend real money. Those cosmetics are available until the end of the game's current season, set to conclude on April 28 with the launch of Diablo 4's next expansion.

Diablo Immortal's Doom crossover is far more involved. As detailed in an official blog post, in the free-to-play mobile game, players will actually get to take on the forces of Doom: The Dark Age's hell. From April 15 through May May 13, Diablo Immortal's Survivor's Bane mode will transform into Slayer's Bane, a mode where players will get to wield the power of the Doom Slayer with six unique skills based on Doom: The Dark Ages' arsenal of weapons, all culminating in a boss battle against the iconic Cyberdemon.

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Typing is a skill that requires constant practice to perfect, but there are other ways to encourage a person to quickly improve from two-finger button-mashing to touch-type mastery. Final Sentence knows that the key to success is morbidly simple, as a revolver pointed at your head makes for some effective motivation to avoid typos. Out right now, Final Sentence was one of the highlights of today's Triple-I Initiative Showcase with its deathmatch typing premise.

Set in a warehouse where up to 40 players type to the death on old-school keyboards, every mistake you make while racing the clock puts you one step closer to death in Final Sentence. Technically, your odds aren't too bad thanks to the sinister masked guards playing Russian Roulette with your head, but the more typos you make, the worse your odds get.

It's essentially the Squid Game of typing simulators as you compete in typewriting speed, and there's even a mode that allows two players to type-duel each other to the death. It's one of several games putting imaginative twists on the typing genre.

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During the Triple-I Initiative Showcase, Alabaster Dawn developer Radical Fish Games showed off a brand-new trailer for its upcoming action-RPG, as well as an early-access launch date of May 7 on PC.

The next game from the studio behind the critically acclaimed CrossCode, Alabaster Dawn, is built on CrossCode's foundation of engaging combat and challenging puzzles, with the story taking place in a world that has been warped into a wasteland. As Juno, the Outcast Chosen, players will embark on a quest to restore the land to its former glory.

The real attention-grabber is the visual design powering Alabaster Dawn's adventures, as the game uses a unique 2.5D art style that combines pixel-art visuals with a subtle 3D perspective. The result is something that looks like it would be right at home on a 16-bit console like the SNES, but once you see it in motion, the smooth animations help to elevate its art direction. This combination of retro-inspired visuals with modern-day flourishes has been popular with a wide number of recent RPG releases, including Square Enix's HD-2D games like Octopath Traveler and Dragon Quest remakes.

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The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is the talk of the town right now in terms of video game adaptations, but the next video game movie, Mortal Kombat 2, is almost here--and now a new trailer has arrived.

The trailer focuses on Karl Urban's Johnny Cage and his mission to save the world, and it's the kind of over-the-top action one would expect from the series based on pulling people's spines out. There is a special moment midway through the trailer where Cage is drowning his sorrows at the bar. He goes to ask for one more drink. And the bartender? He's played by none other than Ed Boon, the creator of the Mortal Kombat series. Check it out.

The new trailer also heralds the start of ticket sales for Mortal Kombat 2. The movie releases in theaters on May 8, so there isn't much longer to go.

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The Call of Duty series is one of the biggest and most popular gaming franchises ever, and now a new story has come to light that offers up a reason to believe James Bond could have been responsible for the series never existing.

Michael Condrey, who was working at EA on James Bond games in the early 2000s, discussed this in a newly released Call of Duty documentary. His team at EA was working on 007: Nightfire in 2001 and 2002 and seeking out a developer for the PC edition.

One of the teams that EA met with was a company called 2015, Inc., which was founded by the late Vince Zampella and Jason West; they made Medal of Honor: Allied Assault for EA and are now famous for their work on Call of Duty.

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After tallying 1 million in sales, the indie arcade golf game Super Battle Golf's first expansion, Frozen Fairway, is releasing today, April 9. The free expansion adds slippery new conditions, more items--including the mega-powerful Rocket Driver--as well as a bevy of quality-of-life improvements fans had been asking for since the game launched in February. GameSpot recently caught up with Cal Rehnqvist, the co-founder of developer Brimstone, who told us more about the Frozen Fairway update and the response to the game in general thus far. He also teased a little more about what's to come.

For anyone just catching up, Super Battle Golf is an arcade-style golf game where up to eight players compete to finish a hole--the twist is that everyone is playing together at the same time. And unlike in real golf, you can utilize all sorts of offensive and defensive items to help get to the hole fastest.

The game, which is published by Oro Interactive, launched in February this year and sells for $8--though you can get it right now on Steam for only $5.60--the discount runs through April 14. You can also grab the game bundled with a competitor title, Golf With Friends, through the "Golf With Your Enemies" bundle for $20.

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There's a farming sim for just about every taste in this post-Stardew Valley world, but if you're looking for atmospheric agriculture, then you might want to check out Crop. Revealed during the Triple-I Initiative Showcase, Crop puts an eerie spin on the usual formula of digging holes, planting seeds, and nurturing crops, as that hard work is paired with the slow-burning dread of an investigative thriller.

Bound to a homestead that isn't as fertile as it used to be, players will have to work the land with dirt, blood, and pesticides to feed a village full of starving people. Investigation is as vital as irrigation, as you search for answers as to how you wound up here and found yourself contracted to high-stakes farming, and you'll need to organize your crops wisely if you want to survive.

That means digging trenches, installing pumps, and repairing crumbling equipment to slow down the rot that's creeping onto your land in this single-player game.

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It feels like it's been ages since we last picked up the Vampire Killer whip in Castlevania, but the wait is almost over. Castlevania: Belmont's Curse was announced at Sony's February 2026 State of Play, and a new gameplay trailer just dropped during today's Triple-I Showcase. The game brings back classic Castlevania action, but this time, you won't only battle Dracula's monsters. You'll also face corrupted legends, including the Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc, who is a serious threat to anyone who crosses her path.

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse takes place in Paris in 1499, set 23 years after Castlevania: Dracula's Curse. The game is being developed by Evil Empire, the team behind The Rogue Prince of Persia, and unlike the recent Lords of Shadow games, this one returns to 2D for classic exploration and combat. Evil Empire also worked on the Castlevania expansion for Dead Cells, but don't expect any roguelite elements in Belmont's Curse.

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