In an announcement few could have predicted, Universal Pictures has confirmed that it has committed to lengthening--not shortening--the time that many of its movies stay in theaters. This begins with the company's 2026 slate, including the soon-to-release The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

As part of the new agreement, Universal will give each of its major movies a minimum of five weekends in theaters for 2026 and seven weekends in 2027 before coming to home video. This is a significant change from the past when Universal--and other movie companies--took movies out of theaters much faster--as quickly as 17 days in some cases--in part due to the pandemic.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie arrives in theaters on April 1. With the new five-weekend guarantee, that means The Super Mario Galaxy Movie likely won't come to home video until around early May at the soonest. If it follows the historical model, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie will come to paid video on-demand (PVOD) stores first, before hitting a subscription streaming platform later.

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The latest set of changes coming to the Pan-European Games Information (PEGI) rating system will impact how games that feature loot boxes, microtransactions, and NFTs will be rated going forward.

As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, games that have loot boxes or similar random items, like card packs or gacha pulls, will be rated PEGI 16 once these changes take effect in June. If a game has more traditional, yet limited-time microtransactions like a battle pass, it'll usually be rated PEGI 12. That can be dropped to PEGI 7 if there's an in-game option to disable spending. The same rating will be given to games that have daily quests or login rewards.

New games will also now be given a PEGI 18 rating instantly if they feature NFTs, are a social casino game, or have communication features with reporting systems or community standards. These are all sweeping, online-gaming focused changes to the PEGI rating system that are much more intense than the in-game purchases content descriptor that it previously used.

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World of Warcraft's factions of the Horde and Alliance are a key part of Blizzard's MMORPG, but it was far from set in stone during development, with the decision to divide the playerbase into two camps coming together "nine months to a year" before WoW shipped in 2004.

That nugget of information comes from former Blizzard veteran Jeff Kaplan in a recent interview with Lex Fridman (via PC Gamer). Kaplan, a devout Everquest player, joined Blizzard during WoW's development as a quest designer. He said the team would argue about whether to force players into joining the Horde or the Alliance, and that the feature's biggest proponent was Blizzard co-founder Allen Adham.

"The Horde/Alliance decision was really controversial," Kaplan said. "Because in Everquest it was mixed…[Rob Pardo] and I came from Everquest, where we felt like this was a horrible decision [Allen Adham] was making. And we argued."

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Google has announced several updates to Google Play, including paid games, game trials and what the company describes as "buy once, play anywhere pricing."

"We're actively expanding our library to include more paid games," Google said in a recent blog post. "Over the coming months, some of the most anticipated indie games are coming to Play, including Moonlight Peaks, Sledding Game, and Low-Budget Repairs. You can dive into these worlds across both mobile and PC with Google Play Games, and your Gamer Profile syncs your progress across devices."

The Google Play app is also implementing a new PC section to allow players to more easily find, bookmark, and buy PC games that suit their interests. A new wishlist feature will alert users when a game they've been eyeing goes on sale, and a new Game Trials feature is set to roll out soon, allowing players to try before they buy.

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Actor Rosamund Pike has called 2005's video game movie Doom that she appeared in alongside Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson one of the worst films ever made and a project that could have ended her career.

Appearing on How To Fail with Elizabeth Day (via ScreenTime), the Oscar-nominated Pike said she was off to a promising start in the action-movie genre after appearing in the 2002 James Bond movie Die Another Day as Miranda Frost opposite Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. When Pike was offered a part in Doom, it was going to star Ray Winstone as Sgt. Asher "Sarge" Mahonin, but he dropped out and The Rock took over in that role. The "whole thing was reimagined" at this point, Pike said.

The Rock "couldn't be nicer" as a person, Pike said, but he was a "completely different beast" from Pike, who was 24 years old at the time. The Rock had a team of "macho guys" around him, Pike said. They were hyping him up and brought weights to the film set. And when guns came out on set, they were presented like "holy relics for the Doom fans." Before takes, The Rock would get ready with a routine similar to what New Zealand's national rugby teams does before a rugby match, Pike said.

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Capcom's Street Fighter franchise is no stranger to live-action adaptations, but there's a good reason why the 1994 film is still talked about to this day. The '90s film is an unabashed tribute to the arcade games, but the one thing it was missing was a gloriously dumb hairstyle for its all-American brawler, Guile. Fortunately, it looks like the new Street Fighter movie is rectifying this issue.

While actor Jean-Claude Van Damme's hairstyle was short and gelled up, the new incarnation of the character being played by WWE superstar Cody Rhodes has him beat in the game-accurate hairstyle department--and we wouldn't have it any other way.

This isn't our first look at the wig that Rhodes donned during the filming of Street Fighter--the recent Game Awards trailer featured a quick scene of Guile somersault-kicking Vega through a wall--a new behind-the-scenes look at the film's production gave us a closer look at the impressive hairpiece. During principal photography, Street Fighter 6 game director Takayuki Nakayama paid a visit to the set, and even had a chance to sit down with Rhodes and school him in the game, leading to a memorable snapshot of the two together. "Nakayama squashed me, no mercy," Rhodes wrote in an X post.

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Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks hasn't had the smoothest run since taking over the company in 2022. But the CEO says the toy giant's next act is clear: More video games--and no generative AI in some of its franchises, especially on the video game front.

Speaking on Decoder with Nilay Patel, Cocks discussed a slew of topics, including tariffs and how they're affecting everyone, especially amid layoffs, and how he wants to lean harder on digital games built around its most valuable properties.

Cocks joined Hasbro in 2016 after a stint at Microsoft to run Wizards of the Coast, the division behind Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. Those brands remain central to Hasbro's gaming push, which includes major investments and new projects like the sci-fi RPG Exodus from Archetype Entertainment.

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Phasmophobia developer Kinetic Games is branching out into publishing, and the studio has created a new division--Kinetic Publishing--to spearhead its new venture. In a new interview with GameSpot, Kinect Games CEO Daniel Knight and Director of Marketing and Partnership Asim Tanvir revealed more details on its plans to offer the kind of support that Knight, the original sole developer of Phasmophobia, wanted when work began on the popular multiplayer horror game.

"We're there for full support. Essentially, any service a studio needs, we will be able to offer it," Knight said. "Funding is the main part, but one of the biggest things we can offer is marketing support. And on the development side as well. We have so many different connections in the industry. We've gone through essentially everything any game would ever go through, and then development. We have, yeah, we've been there. We just want to lean on the experience that we've gathered over the past five years to offer all of that to a studio that needs it."

Tanvir added that Kinetic Publishing will be looking at each project and figuring out what type of support is needed so that a partnership can exist between the publisher and the studio. "Some teams might just want that funding, and that's absolutely fine. And some things might want the funding, plus Daniel's advice and support from what he's learned over the five years," Tanvir explained. "Some might want legal advice. They might want financial support outside of the funding as well.

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Almost five years after Overwatch co-creator Jeff Kaplan left Activision Blizzard, the developer explained what led to his exit from the company and the hit multiplayer game he led. According to Kaplan, his time at Blizzard soured after being given an egregious ultimatum.

Speaking to podcaster Lex Fridman, Kaplan claimed that Activision Blizzard's financial arm told him in a meeting that Overwatch had to produce a certain amount of revenue in 2020 and a recurring amount of revenue in subsequent years. Kaplan claimed he was told that if Overwatch failed to hit those targets, Blizzard would "'lay off 1,000 people, and that's going to be on you,'" attributing the demand to an unspecified CFO.

Kaplan called this meeting "the biggest f--k you moment I've had in my career--it felt surreal to be in that condition." While Kaplan verbalized Blizzard's revenue figures in the podcast, they were bleeped out due to his confidentiality agreement with the company.

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Rockstar Games has announced a new event in GTA Online through which players can easily earn $1 million or more of GTA$. Now through April 1, Rockstar Games is holding the Community Series Showcase, which is described as a "blowout celebration" of GTA Online creators and their works.

Players who take on any of the Community Series events will get a gift of $1 million worth of GTA$, and that's just the beginning. Anyone who completes any five Community Series jobs each week will get a bonus of GTA$ 500,000 each week, capped at $1,500,000. The deposits will hit players' Maze Bank accounts within 72 hours, so don't panic if the money doesn't hit right away.

Additionally, all Community Series jobs pay out triple RP and GTA$ through April 1. These are fan-made missions created using GTA Online's user-generated content tools, spanning racing and combat multiplayer modes.

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There aren't a lot of open-world Western games like the Red Dead Redemption franchise, but former Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan's upcoming title, The Legend of California, looks like the most intriguing thing in that genre since Red Dead Redemption 2 was released in 2018.

The Legend of California takes place in the Golden State during the gold rush of the 19th century. It appears to be a first-person game, but your activities aren't limited to shootouts with bad guys. Players can also go hunting or even chop down trees and build cabins for themselves.

Gathering and crafting goods will play a part in the game, which can be enjoyed as a single-player experience or with friends collaboratively. The goal of The Legend of California isn't just to survive, it's to stake your claim and thrive.

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Nearly all evidence of Microsoft's "This is an Xbox" campaign has been quietly removed from the internet (via Game Developer). The news post that kicked it all off is now a blank webpage, though the YouTube video unveiling the campaign is still up. The change comes less than a month after Microsoft named Asha Sharma as Xbox's new executive vice president and CEO.

Sharma took on her new role in late February, after former CEO Phil Spencer suddenly retired. Spencer's long-time protege Sarah Bond left her role as Xbox president immediately thereafter. Bond was said to be the driving force behind the "This is an Xbox" campaign, which debuted in November 2024 with the goal of showing consumers that Xbox isn't just a console.

Bond was apparently the driving force behind the campaign, which confused consumers and reportedly offended internal Xbox employees. The campaign debuted shortly after the departure of Xbox executive Kareem Choudhry and chief marketing officer Jerret West, which left Xbox's marketing reporting directly to Bond. According to some Xbox employees, Bond was "tough to work with."

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One of my biggest criticisms of Black Ops 7's initial integration into Warzone was that nothing about the update screamed futuristic Black Ops style or gameplay. Black Ops 7 only added its weapon pool and some of its gadgets to Warzone, but the battle royale's maps weren't pushed into Black Ops 7's futuristic setting and players didn't get the advanced wall-jump omnimovement introduced in Black Ops 7. It felt like Call of Duty was uninspired or playing it too safe, making for one of the weaker integrations we've seen with Warzone.

Now, several months after launch, Black Ops Royale looks and feels like the Black Ops 7 integration that Warzone should've initially received. This new mode is heavily inspired by Call of Duty's original Blackout battle royale that was introduced in 2018 alongside Black Ops 4. Black Ops Royale utilizes the grappling gun and wingsuit mechanics originally featured in Blackout and reintroduced in Black Ops 7's campaign and Endgame. The mode also integrates Call of Duty's latest wall-jump omnimovement, and all of these additions make for more fluid and interesting movement and player engagements on Warzone's new map.

A new Blackout-inspired map

Technically, Avalon is a "new" map for Warzone, but it's one you had plenty of time to get familiar with if you played Black Ops 7's Endgame mode. Warzone's version of the map is not an exact replica, and the devs aren't just retrofitting the map for Black Ops Royale, as it was designed in part to support it. The battle royale version drains some of the water to provide more land for players to traverse and reduce how much swimming is needed to get from island to island.

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After six years, the multiplayer horror game Phasmophobia is getting a 1.0 release later this year. This upgraded version of the game will offer a bevy of enhancements--from overhauled character models to new maps--but with developer Kinetic Games also branching out into publishing, has development on the 1.0 release been impacted? Not at all, studio CEO and game director Daniel Knight said to GameSpot, as the developer and his team are still locked into the game while the studio hires the right people to manage its publishing duties.

"We've grown to about 45 people at our studio, and we're still growing. So we're making sure anything we're doing outside of Phasmaphobia doesn't affect the development," Knight said. "For me personally, I am exclusively on Phasmaphobia. "We have more than enough people on our team to cover the publishing. We're hiring people on the publishing side as well, so we're making sure that I'm not spread too thin between everything that we are doing."

Director of Marketing and Partnership Asim Tanvir added that the company has a publishing production manager to handle this side of the business, and that Kinetic Games has continued to grow out of necessity, not just for the sake of it.

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Pokemon Pokopia is off to a stellar start in sales shortly after its release on Switch 2, already joining the ranks of other popular spin-offs in the franchise. The Pokemon Company and Nintendo say that sales for the cozy life sim surpassed 2.2 million copies.

That's according to a news release from the two companies, which added that the game reached this figure only four days after its March 5 launch.

Serebii editor Joe Merrick compared Pokopia's sales figures to those of other Pokemon spin-offs in an X post, showing that the new release is already the twelfth-best-selling spin-off. It's already overtaken fighting game Pokken Tournament, Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire, and the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX remake.

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Marathon has plenty of contracts for you to tackle, and one of them will task you with finding where to download data from the terminal inside south Maintenance. This is part of the Order/Chaos mission, which is granted by the rebellious faction MIDA, led by troublemaker Gantry.

As you make progress through the game and gain access to more factions, MIDA won't take long to ask for your services. After completing the contract that tasks you with destroying 15 windows, you'll gain access to Order/Chaos. It's a three-step contract that sounds simple enough on paper, but the third and final item can be hard to find, especially in the midst of battle against other players.

If you're wondering where to download data from the terminal inside south Maintenance, this guide covers the exact location.

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Chances are that you have stumbled across the sleepy Mosslax in Pokemon Pokopia and are wondering how to wake them up. While you do encounter Mosslax as part of the story, its notorious ability to sleep proves to be quite the issue that only a good amount of light can resolve. Once you've roused this Snorlax from its slumber and sorted out the Pokemon Center issue, you'll have the opportunity to give it berries, crops, and other foods to chow down on.

Feeding Mosslax different foods gives them their own buffs to bestow upon you, including an elevated chance of encountering rare items. You'll want increased storage space to hold as many items at once to take advantage of this, and that's one of the many tips and tricks you'll find in our Pokemon Pokopia guides hub. Whatever the reason, it's rather vague as to what foods have which effect, so we'll focus on the steps to wake up the sleeping Pokemon and which food has what effect after Mosslax consumes it.

This Trubbish's naps are being interrupted by a loud snoring that only a big Pokemon has.How to wake up Mosslax

You can find Mosslax in Bleak Beach, one of the two areas that unlock after raising your trainer level enough in Withering Wastelands. From the Pokemon Center, go through the mountain pass and walk past Drilbur's garden. Keep going until you get to the gate. Incidentally, the other side leads to Rocky Ridges, which is where you can find Chef Dente and unlock Pokopia cooking recipes.

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For fans of old-school shooters like Duke Nukem, Quake, and Doom, Humble’s got a new Bundle that’s right up your alley. The Best of Boomer Shooters Penta Boom 5 bundle includes up to PC seven games, each one offering its own take on the signature high-speed pulse-pounding wall-to-wall action we’ve come to expect from this subgenre of shooters. Since this is a Humble Bundle, the pricing is a little tricky, but it can work in your favor. You choose how much you pay, and the more you pay, the more games your bundle includes--and the more money goes to charity. For this bundle, the charity cash goes to Oceana, a group dedicated to ocean conservation, preventing overfishing, and protecting threatened species. If you grab the full seven-game bundle, you'll pay just $20, which saves you quite a bit compared to the deal's $158 value.

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One of the most stylistically interesting games in this bundle is the boomer shooter Sulfur. You take on the role of a gunslinger delving deep into the dark to shoot adorably spooky little goblins and monsters with a dizzying array of powerful firearms. With a roguelite progression system, you have the freedom to craft a build that perfectly suits your playstyle--but don’t overextend yourself, or you’ll end up losing that hard-won loot.

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Fanatical is celebrating Game Master’s Day with a treasure trove of tabletop RPG bundle deals. The promotion includes eight themed collections of RPG rulebooks, adventure supplements, and even a set of books you can use to roll your way to a no-prep RPG campaign. If you picked up all of these bundles, you’d be spending $113 for $2,388 worth of books. That’s an entire library. You can also mix and match which books and bundles you want to pick up, tailoring each bundle to exactly your table’s needs--just keep in mind these limited-time deals won't last forever.

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One of the most enticing offers in the collection is the Introduction Pathfinder 2nd Edition Bundle--which, just like every other deal in the collection, is itself its own bundle of books. With this one, you get everything you need to run a Pathfinder campaign--even if it’s your first time ever picking up a tabletop roleplaying game. It includes all the core books, plus several individual adventure supplements and battlemats, all in ebook format. Pathfinder is a great setting for tabletop beginners because it blends the usual high fantasy setting with a richly detailed world that feels both familiar and strange--it’s a setting where you’ll find gothic horror and classic fantasy alongside sci-fi ruins and an empire ruled by devils. It’s pretty varied, and it can get as weird as you’d like.

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Pokemon Go is celebrating the launch of Pokemon Pokopia with a special crossover event. On top of adding a new hat-wearing Ditto to the game, the event offers a slew of missions to complete, including two Collection Challenges and a new Timed Research line.

These missions will only be available for a limited time, and they dole out some nice rewards, including guaranteed encounters with the new Ditto variants, so you'll want to complete them while they're around. Some will require a bit of time and effort, however, so we've rounded up the full list of tasks and rewards to help you complete them all before the event ends.

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• Pokemon Pokopia Timed Research Tasks and Rewards

Pokemon Pokopia Timed Research Tasks and Rewards

Available until March 16, 8 PM local time

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