The developer of the popular game Crimson Desert has seen its stock price surge on the Korea Exchange, recovering the losses that came after reviews for the game came out.

Crimson Desert has now exceeded 3 million copies sold, and it appears investors are happy about that, as developer Pearl Abyss is trading up more than 26% today. The stock crashed by 30% last week when reviews came out, but those losses have now been largely erased.

Pearl Abyss stock is now up 26% year-to-date and up 56% over the past year. Over the past five years, however, Pearl Abyss is trading down about 18%. Stock-price fluctuation is a normal thing, and ongoing geopolitical events are adding to volatility on the Korea Exchange and others globally.

Next month, Pokemon Champions will bring the turn-based action of Pokemon battles to Nintendo Switch 2--and later this year, to mobile devices. Champions will be making some impactful changes to the core battling mechanics of the Pokemon franchise, including the removal of one of the game's most long-lasting statistics: Individual Values, or IVs.

IVs are stat modifiers that every individual Pokemon is assigned at random once caught by the player, and they impact how that Pokemon's attack, defense, and HP grow as it levels up and evolves. Pokemon Champions will remove this randomization from the equation, though the reason for the change has not been fully explained.

Speaking with a roundtable of journalists over Zoom, development director and game producer Masaaki Hoshino says the decision to remove IVs was not taken lightly. In his words, it took a "heated discussion with [Shigeki] Morimoto," one of Pokemon's original designers, to get the change made, in the hopes of making the game's barrier of entry lower for new players.

Pokemon Champions will soon bring the heat of Pokemon battles to Nintendo Switch 2 and mobile devices. If you've been planning your perfect team of Pokemon for the occasion, there's a wrinkle you may not have considered, as development director and game producer Masaaki Hoshino has confirmed that Champions will only feature fully evolved forms of Pokemon with evolutionary lines at launch.

Speaking to a roundtable of journalists over Zoom, Hoshino confirmed the approach, though he did not dive into the specific reasons for the choice. "Yes, only final evolutions will be introduced at launch," Hoshino said, "[...but] at some point they might consider earlier evolutions."

The choice will have an impact on the competitive circuit, as Champions will become the featured game of the VGC (Video Game Championship) division as soon as it launches, replacing Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. This means the pool of Pokemon will feature fewer viable options, and competitive players will have to shift their strategies.

Pokemon Champions' development director wants to keep Pokemon battles around "forever."

This may seem like a weird thing to say given nearly every mainline game since 1996 has featured turn-based Pokemon battles. However, if last year's Pokemon Legends: Z-A is any indication, developer Game Freak isn't afraid to experiment with Pokemon's combat. In a surprising twist, Legends: Z-A ditched turn-based battles in favor of real-time combat. For many, this change breathed new life into Pokemon's combat, but it did leave others curious about the future of Pokemon battling. If Pokemon Champions is a success, then that future should be clear: Pokemon Champions will be the de facto way to compete in traditional Pokemon battles.

After nearly an hour of hands-on time with Pokemon Champions, development director and game producer Masaaki Hoshino sat down with a room of journalists over Zoom to talk about Game Freak's upcoming battle simulator. Set to release in April on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 in addition to mobile devices at a later date, Pokemon Champions aims to bring the depth of turn-based Pokemon battles to a free-to-play, live service model. As Hoshino puts it: "Regardless of what battle [mechanics] are introduced in the future[…] we wanted to make turn-based battles [always] available."

Epic Games recently conducted mass layoffs affecting 1,000 people at the Fortnite studio, and the cuts included the character artist who created Jonesy, one of the most recognizable characters in the game.

Vitaliy Naymushin said on LinkedIn that they were part of the cuts. The developer had worked at Epic Games for more than 11 years. "It's been a wild ride. Lots of ups and downs," the artists wrote. "Seeing Fortnite from pre-launch to today and being a part of making that happen was the experience of a lifetime."

Naymushin created not just Jonesy, but also Ramirez, Penny, and the majority of the game's original cast of characters, he said. He rose up to become the director of character art for Fortnite, and in that role, he hired and onboarded new artists and leads on Fortnite and also personally directed the art for 15 seasons of Fortnite.

With the 2026 World Cup coming up very soon, FIFA has announced a brand-new soccer/football game, and it's unlike any other FIFA game that's come before it.

The fast-paced, arcade-style FIFA Heroes is a 5v5 game featuring both real-world players and playable mascots and even people from mythology like Thor and Sun Wukong. Some of the real-world players in the game include people living and dead, including Diego Maradona, Harry Kane, Jordan Pickford, Eduardo Camavinga, Jack Grealish, Emiliano Martinez, and Lautaro Martinez.

FIFA Heroes releases on April 26 for mobile, and it will come pre-downloaded on new Motorola devices. The free game is developed by Enver, a studio behind games aimed at the Gen Z and Alpha crowd.

I like donuts and I bet you do as well, so it's exciting news today to learn that there are officially licensed donuts based on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie coming to Krispy Kreme soon.

The collab launches April 8 in Japan and runs through May 26. As part of the campaign, Krispy Kreme will sell donuts based on Mario, Yoshi, and Luma. There is also Question Block donut. The Mario donut has strawberry icing and red and blue sprinkles. The Yoshi donut includes a white chocolate coating and custard cream inside. The Luma donut is themed around space and has silver toppings and a blueberry glaze.

As reported by Dexerto, people can buy these donuts individually or in a six-pack that also comes with classic Krispy Kreme flavors, packaged inside a themed box for the movie.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is set for release on April 16, but thanks to a free demo in the Nintendo eShop, you can play it right now. Even better--any progress you make in the demo will carry over to the full version of the game at launch.

Living the Dream is the third game in the Tomodachi series, and sees you create a bunch of customizable Mii characters who will work together to improve to island's happiness levels. The life sim will also allow players to customize the island and its inhabitants, as well as featuring a drawing tool to create imaginative objects that the Mii characters can interactive with.

It's important to note that there will be "certain" restrictions on image sharing though, in order to maintain a "fun and safe" environment for everyone. Having said that, some players are already finding that the game's filter leaves a lot to be desired. One user on Bluesky has discovered that naming certain characters questionable names will not prevent NPCs from bringing them up in conversation, leading to some pretty chaotic interactions.