It is a weird time for sex on the internet. We live in both an era of extreme sexual permissiveness and constant restriction. Formerly niche fetish terms like "gooning" have reached mainstream usage. The advent of machine learning has made deepfake pornography more common than ever, to horrifying effect. The release of the Epstein files has revealed how pervasive sexual exploitation is. Yet, ID-restriction laws have been passed in the UK and Australia, and several US states have floated or passed similar laws. Dozens of sexually explicit games were banned from Steam and Itch last year, in large part thanks to payment-processor pressure. Tomodachi Life exists at this curious intersection between permissiveness and restriction.

In early community-made videos, Tomodachi Life players made their little Miis talk about lesbian sex, frotting, and other sexual acts and innuendos, taking advantage of the game's surprisingly lax text filtering. This is not the first Nintendo game to create room for such a community--in 2015's Splatoon, some players posted more explicit images and text in the early hours of the morning, when the game's kid-focused playerbase was less likely to see it--but Tomadachi Life's cutesy mundanity makes it an especially subversive space for horny posting.

One Bluesky user, baffled that the game lets her type "lesbian sex," laughs along with the strangely coherent conversation that follows (and several other copycat posts on Bluesky have followed that one). On Twitter, streamer Blake Jennings' Mii befriends "human Shrek" by discussing "clapping your booty cheeks." And multiple posts on both Bluesky and Twitter describe the game as "writing boobs on a calculator," and that feels like an accurate assessment. Making your grandma say "farting" may be tamer than making outright innuendos, but both driven by a similar sort of glee. The player is turning the game to their whims, and the game is letting them.

Pokemon Go's Steeled Resolve event is officially underway, shining the spotlight on various steel types like the debuting Orthworm. That isn't the only special Pokemon you can encounter in the mobile game right now, however. The event also brings back the elusive shiny Meltan.

This shiny mythical Pokemon only appears during special events, making it rare even among shiny Pokemon. However, finding one involves persistence and a particular item called the Mystery Box, which you can only obtain through some convoluted means. Here's a full breakdown on how to get the Mystery Box and catch shiny Meltan before the Steeled Resolve event ends.

• How To Catch Meltan

Unlike most Pokemon, Meltan doesn't normally spawn in the wild. Rather, the mythical Pokemon will only appear after you've opened the Mystery Box--a special item that you'll receive after you've linked your Pokemon Go account to Pokemon Home (or Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu or Let's Go, Eevee for Nintendo Switch).

Soon you'll be able to weep at the loss of your favorite operative at your very own table; XCOM is getting a tabletop game. Developer and publisher Firaxis announced the game as part of their 30th-anniversary celebration, which accompanied a brand refresh.

Exact details for the XCOM board game are still under wraps. Modiphius Entertainment, also known for the Mass Effect board game and Fallout: The Roleplaying Game, is handling development. Like many other video game adaptations, the tabletop game will feature miniatures. In the announcement, Firaxis said the game will be inspired by XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the franchise reboot from 2013. The board game's price and release date were not announced. You can sign up on the official website to get future details in your email inbox.

This is not the first time XCOM has gotten the board game treatment. Way back in 2015, Fantasy Flight published a tie-in, co-op XCOM game. That one focused on the "meta" layer of XCOM--i.e. choosing what research to complete, building out parts of your base of operations--rather than the tactics-focused combat of the game's missions.

If you're on your last life, you could consider purchasing a Super Mario coffin for your funeral. The (unofficial) tie-in went viral after a Brazilian manufacturer posted promo videos for the coffins, showing off Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, and Princess Peach themed designs.

Each coffin is painted in the character's distinctive color and emblazoned with their logo: the M and L hat symbols for Mario and Luigi, a mushroom for Toad, an egg for Yoshi, and a crown for Peach. Otherwise the coffins are ordinary and interchangeable with each other, featuring gold detailing and the conventional boxy shape. Brazilian urn and coffin manufacturer Bignotto is responsible for the wacky designs. It posted a few videos on its official Instagram page, zooming in on the details of the designs while remixed Super Mario Bros. music plays in the background. This isn't the first time Bignotto has turned to pop culture for its products; it has also promoted Barbie and Fairy OddParents coffins.

In other Nintendo related news, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie became the highest-grossing movie so far in 2026, though the biopic Michael just stole its number-one spot in US cinemas. If you've been living the dream in Tomodachi Life, here's how to get each personality type in the game.

It appears that Sony has implemented a new feature requiring PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 owners to connect to the internet every 30 days to renew the license on digital games they've purchased. Players who have stumbled into this odd feature are saying all PlayStation Store purchases made after March 2026 now feature a 30-day timer showing how long players have until they must connect to the internet and renew the game's license. Players who fail to do so within the time limit will lose the ability to play recent digital purchases until the game's license is renewed via internet connection. Sony hasn't made any official announcements about this--it's possible it could be a bug--but GameStop is already capitalizing on the bad press surrounding Sony's digital game license timers.

"Play really has no limits at GameStop," the company shared in a recent X post referencing the PS5's 'Play Has No Limits' tagline. "We believe that games should work for players, not against them. If you own it, you should be able to play it anytime, anywhere, whether you are online or offline."

Urging players to "start a real collection you can play, share, and trade," GameStop is offering a deal where customers can get a 10% discount when purchasing two to three preowned games, a 20% discount when purchasing four to five, or a whopping 30% when purchasing six or more preowned physical titles.

At the inaugural iicon event in Las Vegas today, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick gave a speech in which he gave some hope--but not much--for sequels to L.A. Noire and others.

Zelnick was asked if Take-Two was planning to do more with L.A. Noire. He said, "Yes," before saying, "You never know," according to Game File. More broadly, Zelnick said Take-Two is constantly thinking about where it could take all of its franchises.

"The answer broadly is we're looking at doing something in the future with all of our intellectual property, but nothing to announce," he said, adding that any announcement about a Rockstar franchise would come from Rockstar, not Take-Two.

Arc Raiders' Riven Tides update adds a handful of quests focused on the newest map so that you can get acclimated to how it plays. But as expected, a few quests will send you to take down some older enemies, such as Collision Course, which asks you to kill a Comet and obtain a Comet Igniter. Luckily, this isn't terribly difficult to do once you know how to approach these potentially deadly ARC.

Before loading into a match to kill a Comet and take its Comet Igniter, it's a good idea to bring an augment sporting a safe pocket. Once you score the Comet Igniter, make sure you extract safely with it. If you die without it in a safe pocket, you'll need to head back into a map and repeat the process.

Whether you're trying to knock out Collision Course or need some Comet Igniters for crafting or projects, here's how to get your hands on them.

The Blood of the Dawnwalker, the vampire-themed fantasy game from a team of former Witcher developers, is shaping up to be one of 2026's exciting-looking new original games. Its director, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, said in an interview that he doesn't think some of its new ideas would have been possible at CD Projekt Red.

Tomaszkiewicz was asked by IGN if he thought he could have made the game's "narrative sandbox" and time-loop elements at CD Projekt Red or another large studio, and he said, "I think I couldn't."

"When you have the big companies which have established IPs, it's really hard to change something or do something really innovative because it's always about being same-but-new," he said. "You already know the playerbase wants almost the same, but new, in comparison to doing something really fresh and new."

Season 3 of Battlefield 6 arrives next month, and the update is set to introduce the game's largest map to date. Railway to Golmud is revealed as a reimagining of Battlefield 4's popular Golmud Railway map, and the developer has shared a closer look at the map and some key changes players can expect, including major changes to the train.

In the latest blog, Battlefield Studios calls this reimagined version of Golmud Railway a "tribute to the veteran Battlefield community."

"We have better technology than we did 13 years ago," said level designer Luka Grepl-Malmgren. "Two of the original level artists of Golmud Railway are still here at DICE, so we all worked together to not only recreate their work, but also understand what was not possible in Battlefield 4 and bring those ideas to life in Battlefield 6."

Next to its effective scares, Phasmophobia is a game known for its janky player characters and animations. For some, these rough edges, like the remarkably silly way player-characters move through the world, have been more like a feature than a bug. Kinetic Games has recognized that some players like the jank, but has always maintained its plans to buff out these rough edges, and has today revealed the forthcoming update that will do exactly that.

On May 5, Phasmophobia will get a free patch that the team is calling the Player Character Update, which will bring with it several changes to what investigator avatars look like, but perhaps even more dramatically, how they move and interact with their haunted locales.

The update will finally populate the in-game shop, which has been visibly empty in the safehouse's computer for a long time. Players will be able to choose from one of 12 base character models, then customize their features like clothing, hair color, and "much more," according to the studio. More cosmetic options will arrive in the game over time, and in the week following the patch, players can grab the High Priestess t-shirt via Twitch Drops.

Maybe it's because of how long it takes to make video games these days, but I've been surprised to see so few games going for what Helldivers 2 does so well. Its gameplay loop is extraction-ish in nature, but decidedly different too, as specific objectives keep players more focused than something like Arc Raiders, in which players might hop in just to screw around and see what happens. But one new game that just came out is wearing its inspiration on its sleeve, remolding Helldivers 2's core into a first-person co-op shooter set in a Western world full of color and personality.

Far Far West comes from Evil Raptor, a team I really hope you're already familiar with. If not, you've missed a few bangers. The team's debut, Pumpkin Jack, was an ode to the 3D platformers of yesteryear made even better by its Halloween-inspired characters and setting. The small studio followed that up with Akimbot, a more on-the-nose homage to Ratchet and Clank specifically, and it's well worth playing if you're waiting for more from Insomniac's mascots. Now, Far Far West retains those games' vibrant color palettes, but shifts to first-person for a game that feels like Helldivers and looks like a Saturday-morning cartoon.

In Far Far West, teams of up to four players will choose their destination and mission parameters, drop into an open-world setting, and giddy up. Around the world, hordes of skeletal six-shooters, charging bulls, and vultures flying overhead will take aim just below your cowboy hat. if played solo on normal difficulty, the game packs quite a punch. You'll need to complete a main objective, but you'll always face a boss before you can extract, too, which differs from Helldivers but fits right in anyway. It's definitely made for co-op, as some of the mission objectives can be completed alone, but just barely.

Former The Elder Scrolls Online director Matt Firor has further discussed the cancellation of ZeniMax's Project Blackbird, which was aiming to be a cross between Cyberpunk 2077 and Destiny.

Speaking to MinnMax, Firor said, "Making games is always a heartbreaking business." Project Blackbird was canceled for financial reasons, Firor said. He previously said it was the game he had been waiting his entire career to make.

"You could be at the best studio in the world, and decisions happen that impact people. I didn't agree with what happened, but I understood the reasoning behind it. It is just financial," he said, as reported by Kotaku.

Helldivers 2's latest update seriously buffs the game's Exosuits, with developer Arrowhead Studios agreeing with players that the mechs could "take too little damage and break too easily."

That doesn't seem like it will be the case any longer. As detailed in the patch notes for Helldivers 2's Machinery of Oppression 6.2.2. update, Exosuits are now a stratagem to be reckoned with. Their main health has been nearly doubled, as has the health of their arms. Speaking of arms, while they were previously the most commonly destroyed part of the mech prior to the update, they now have 50% explosion resistance like the main Exosuit body. The suits also no longer lose all mobility when both legs are broken, which should keep them in the fight longer.

That's a whole lot of Exosuit buffs, but there were a few downsides added, too. Exosuits can now be staggered, slowed by gas effects, and are far more vulnerable to acid attacks. To help the Terminids better damage these new, extra-durable Exosuits, a number of Terminid enemy types (and even a few Illuminate and Automatons) have had the durablility damage they deal against vehicles increased.

The next big action-RPG of 2026, The Blood of Dawnwalker, has a September release date, and if you're looking to grab it for PC, you can check now to see if your rig is ready for the dark fantasy adventure. As revealed during today's official livestream, The Blood of Dawnwalker requires some hefty processing power, but there's a catch here.

As developer Rebel Wolves noted, the specifications below are for PCs that are not running upscaling and frame-generation technology like Nvidia DLSS or AMD FSR. With those tools activated, performance will be improved, and they are supported in the game. Without those options, the GPU requirements are on the steep side, with the best graphical options requiring 40-series and up Nvidia graphics cards with a minimum of 12GB of VRAM to get the game running at a high resolution and 60fps.

The rest of the specs are more modest and standard by now, with the game requiring 60GB of storage capacity on an SSD, relatively small amounts of RAM, and decent CPUs. You can see the full list below.

Rockstar has just announced a new series of Grand Theft Auto Online missions created by players using Rockstar's Mission Creator tool, which was first added to the game back in December.

"This week, we’ve teamed up with talented and long-time Rockstar Games supporters GTA Series Videos to feature Old School Hits--inspired by the original Grand Theft Auto trilogy--as the first creation in our Community Mission Series on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, built using the Rockstar Mission Creator," the studio shared in an official blog post.

Old School Hits goes live on Thursday, April 30, and players who partake in its nostalgic throwback missions will earn four times the GTA$ and RP. Rockstar describes the Old School Hits event as being available for a "limited time," but hasn't shared when the event will end, nor which specific missions from GTA, GTA 2, and GTA 3 will be featured in the event.

Guild Wars Reforged, the recent quasi-remaster of ArenaNet's 2005 MMORPG, is coming to mobile for free, though there is a catch if you don't already own the game on PC.

The free mobile version of Guild Wars Reforged is slated to launch globally this summer for iOS and Android devices and will include the game's original Prophecies story campaign. However, that initial, free campaign will include ads. To unlock the game's additional campaigns and go ad-free, players will need to buy each campaign separately on PC for $7 (or in the case of the Eye of the North expansion and bonus mission pack, $10).

There is a silver lining for those who already own Guild War Reforged. Those who have already purchased the PC version of the game can link their ArenaNet account to gain access to the complete, ad-free mobile version free of charge. Once accounts are linked, progress between the PC and mobile version will be synchronized between devices. Players on PC and mobile will play on the same servers, enabling cross-play between platforms.

Actor Tom Taylorson, who played Scott Ryder in Mass Effect: Andromeda, has reflected on working on the game, saying it was one of the best things he's ever done but it was "done dirty" by EA and criticized by "online chuds."

Speaking to We Are Mass Effect, Taylorson said he had an "immense amount of fun" working on Andromeda, labeling it "hands down one of the best things I've ever worked on."

The game got a "bum rap," Taylorson said, saying it was "done dirty by a publisher expecting too much from it." He also said the game was not "fully cooked" and was "forced out the door early." He said the developers were "forced" to use EA's Frostbite 3 engine, even though "many of the team didn't know how to work with it and it was not suited to the storytelling part of the game."

Former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra has reacted to World of Warcraft's recent string of issues, saying the long-running MMO needs a "reset." He also commented that the "reset" he advocated for when running Blizzard included a whole new game called World of Warcraft 2.

Posting on social media, Ybarra said the recent WoW bugs are "unfortunate," going on to say, "WoW has to reset and the commitment has to be clear and firm or it will continue to decline."

Asked to list specific things Ybarra advocated for while he was running Blizzard to help improve WoW, he said there were multiple priorities he was going after. He said WoW should be a game about war, and it should make players feel and experience things like conflict, struggle, risk, reward, and achievement. "This is what WoW is all about," he said.

Arc Raiders' Riven Tides update may largely be based around its titular new map, but that doesn't mean old maps have been left out of the fun. You'll be heading back to good ol' Spaceport for A Wrench in the Works, for instance--but you should be able to knock this one out pretty quickly.

You don't need to extract to complete A Wrench in the Works, so you can come in with a free loadout to be a bit safer and protective of your favorite gear. Of course, it doesn't hurt to bring in some extra firepower if you're feeling like PvPing, though.

When you're ready to complete A Wrench in the Works, follow the steps below.

While Nintendo hasn't made an official tool to export, share, or import Mii designs to your Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream island, we've found the next best thing. Tomodachi Share, a fan-made website, lists tens of thousands of creations made by real players. You can filter by recency, the most-liked Mii designs, and more.

When you find a Mii you like the look of, you can click through to their page to find a detailed tutorial on how to recreate their design in your own copy of Tomodachi Life. There are multiple steps and explanations on which parameters to change during the characte-creation process. Due to the uncensored nature of the game, keep an eye out for anything explicit--we can't be held responsible for the creations you may stumble upon.

Some of the more creative options will require using the detailed version of the Tomodachi Life drawing tool. I managed to successfully recreate some of the planet designs, including Moon and Earth, and now I've got some adorable globe-shaped people jumping about my island. Let's ignore the fact that it took me about two hours to perfect their face paint.