Call of Duty has featured famously small maps like Shipment before, but Black Ops 7 takes things further for April Fools' Day, adding a hilariously tiny map in a limited-time game mode.

Developer Treyarch shared what looked like the layout of a small map on social media, and you can play on it right now. The game mode called "GRWM" (an acronym for "get ready with me") puts you in a free-for-all match with a max of eight players in what appears to be a walk-in closet or changing room, the most intimate setting for a firefight that Call of Duty has conceived.

Unsurprisingly, with all players together in such close quarters and very little cover, chaos and carnage follow as soon as the match starts. Matches end once a player reaches a score of 67, a not-so-subtle reference to the 6-7 meme that has arguably gone out of fashion.

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Many Crimson Desert players are getting lost in the world of Pywell, doing things like watching NPCs or managing inventories, all while killing bosses and recruiting allies to revive the Greymanes. You need a good outfit to go along with your adventuring in Pearl Abyss' action-adventure RPG, and Redditors are out here posting the drippiest fits around for everyone to consume and copy.

There are likely hundreds of pieces of equipment for you to collect in Pywell. From unique swords and legendary shields to iconic chestplates to rare helmets, Crimson Desert players on Reddit are finding and sharing it all. And in the process, they're swagging out the playable characters in idiosyncratic garb and familiar cosplay. Redditor frankiexile posted a Jon Snow cosplay, with their Kliff donning what appears to be an archetypal Night's Watch uniform, replete with an all-black ensemble and a big sword to match. Meanwhile, user Jaycoon335 dressed all three characters--Damiane, Kliff, and Oongka--in more East Asian-inspired outfits with ornate adornments, expensive plating, and gold accents.

Elsewhere in the official Crimson Desert subreddit, users DrGreenThumb117 and MrSkits94 shared Kliffs who look like a human boss you'd see roaming around The Lands Between in Elden Ring. Redditor xehparr posted a red-clad Kliff who'd fit perfectly as a Red Mage in a, say, Final Fantasy XIV party. And posters Agreeable-Wall-9781, ovingzz, and Hor-Re-Behedeti put their Kliffs on display, all of which wouldn't look out of place inside the fantasy settings of Skyrim and Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon.

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Nothing lasts forever, and that includes Fortnite's "cultural moment," according to one industry expert.

Researcher and industry expert Joost van Dreunen said on his blog that Epic's recent round of 1,000+ layoffs are further evidence of the "real-time collapse of American cultural dominance in interactive entertainment." US-based game developers are now facing a "bevy of strategic and economic challenges," and this has contributed to a scenario where Fortnite's star is burning less brightly.

"We can observe the signs of this decline when even the largest, most innovative, and most successful entertainment firms begin to struggle. As I see it, Epic Games is more than a casualty of bad timing or a bad quarter. It is the most legible example yet of what happens when structural conditions make decline inevitable," he wrote.

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The Super Mario Galaxy Movie introduces Fox McCloud and other characters not seen in the 2023 movie, but getting him in the movie was not Nintendo's idea. Not only that, but adding Fox required Nintendo to break its rules about mixing IPs. And when it came to finding a voice actor, it turned out that Glen Powell had already pitched himself, not knowing Illumination and Nintendo were planning to put Fox in the movie.

Speaking to Forbes, Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto said it was Illumination boss Chris Meledandri who came to him to pitch Fox. It wasn't an immediate yes, though, as Miyamoto pointed out that Nintendo tends to "avoid mixing IPs." However, Miyamoto ultimately agreed to the idea, in part because The Super Mario Galaxy Movie takes place in space and Fox is a character who flies through space.

"I felt that I wanted to see that," Miyamoto said of putting Fox in the movie, even if he expected the idea to face an uphill battle with the powers-that-be at Nintendo.

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Anyone who plays World of Warcraft knows the real endgame is looking cool, and Blizzard is giving players another way to do just that with a new transmog feature coming in patch 12.0.5.

As revealed in the latest 12.0.5 public test realm development notes, players will soon be able to choose how to sheath their one handed weapons using the game's transmog system. Those options include sheathing weapons on the back, hip, or whether to be hidden entirely. For those classes or specializations that dual wield one-handed weapons, each weapon can be transmogged independently, meaning one weapon could be on the back while another could be on the hip.

Unfortunately, two-handed weapons aren't currently able to be worn on the hip (likely because they would be dragging through the ground), but they can still be hidden if desired. In the live game, the only way to do this currently is by using certain cloak transmog appearances that hide weapons.

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Dandadan Season 2: Collector's Edition Blu-ray

$65 | Releases June 30

Preorder at Crunchyroll Store

Dandadan Season 2: Standard Edition Blu-ray

$35 | Releases June 30

Preorder at Crunchyroll Store

Several new anime series have made a splash in the last couple of years, with Dandadan considered one of the biggest breakout hits. The second season of the critically acclaimed series is headed to Blu-ray in July, and like its first home media release, fans can choose between a standard Blu-ray for $35 and a $65 deluxe version loaded with extras.

Dandadan Season 2: Collector's Edition Blu-ray

$65 | Releases June 30

Preorder at Crunchyroll Store

The Collector's Edition Blu-ray includes all 12 episodes from the second season across two discs. On-disc special features include scene breakdowns, behind-the-scenes featurettes, clean opening and closing credit sequences, and trailers. It also comes with a 76-page booklet of illustrations, three sticker sheets, and is bundled inside a slipcase with exclusive cover art of the show's cast. Audio options include English and Japanese dubs, with optional subtitles.

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Crimson Desert has loads of systems for you to engage with, like fishing, bounty hunting, armor dying, and cooking. There's even a point where you'll start recruiting NPCs to join your camp, and players are enamored by watching Pywell's many denizens get to work in real time, as they're replete with schedules and everything.

Over on the game's official subreddit are three separate posts of three redditors requesting the same construction: a stone statue. After unlocking the Greymane Camp at the start of Chapter 3, you can begin to recruit and dispatch workers to complete activities. This ranges from lumbering and mining to building and guarding, and some redditors have captured the activity in real time. Users lakitu76, TopSeaworthiness1679, and Responsible-Wind1788 shared posts of a time-lapse of workers hammering away at a statue, fiddling with and sticking on pieces of stone as Kliff just stood idly by. Meanwhile, user Vinjulmik posted a screenshot of their entire camp working on a bridge as Kliff watched them sweat.

When you send your recruits to do some work, they actually leave, too. According to users in the game's subreddit, your hires will head to the location you send them to and stay there until the job is finished; once they're gone, they'll be greyed out in your Comrades tab, indicating that they've not yet returned from their duties.

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One of the most-requested Pokemon is making their debut in Pokemon Go today, and it's not an April Fool's Day prank. Mimikyu has finally come to Pokemon Go, and dedicated players will be able to add them to their lineup starting today. The decision to debut the character on April 1 may be an unusual choice, but Mimikyu's silhouettes are already appearing in the game.

Pokemon Go's Spotlight Hour--which starts tonight at 6pm local time--will feature multiple Mimikyu spawns, as well as Pikachu appearances. But if you can't play during that time, Mimikyu will still spawn for players in addition to appearing in random task rewards.

Mimikyu won't be the only creature debuting Pokemon Go this month. Silicobra and shiny Toedscool are both slated to arrive as part of April's Pokemon Go events. Players will also have the opportunity to catch some Pokemon that are dressed in wild costumes in Fashion Raid Day, which will take place on April 4.

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The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is now in cinemas, and while it's expected to be a commercial hit, it's not doing so well on the critical front currently. Early reviews for the sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie have gone live, and on GameSpot's sister site Metacritic, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie currently holds a "generally unfavorable" metascore of 37. That's even lower than 2022's Mario movie (46) and just two points better than the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. movie, but there's more to this story than just simple digits.

Generally, gaming websites are offering more positive reviews, ranging from a 6/10 at IGN to 8.5/10 at Game Informer. The general consensus is that The Super Mario Galaxy Movie looks great, has plenty of Easter eggs for fans, and its story isn't going to win any Academy Awards. Most importantly, it's clearly designed for its target market of kids while adults can enjoy spotting all the references to decades of Mario history.

Film industry and news sites like Variety, The Wrap, and SlashFilm have delivered scathing reviews so far, describing it as hollow and lacking in any cinematic substance. In one brutal review, The Times scored the movie a 0/10 and called it a "torturous" slog. And that's fair, because reviews are opinion pieces after all. The Super Mario Bros. Movie also had plenty of detractors when it first hit cinemas, but it does have a positive user review score of 8.1 and a global box office gross of over $1.2 billion, so those negative reviews didn't dampen the enthusiasm for it.

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PlayStation has revealed this month's batch of free games for PlayStation Plus subscribers. All PS Plus members will be able to claim a trio of freebies starting April 7: Lords of the Fallen, Tomb Raider I-III Remastered, and Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream. If you haven't claimed March's PlayStation Plus free games yet, make sure to do so before next Tuesday, April 7.

Lords of the Fallen sees players embark on a quest as one the legendary Dark Crusaders, warriors sworn to stop a demonic tyrant from plunging the world into darkness. The 2023 game features all the hallmarks of the souls-like genre, from intimidating enemies to risk-and-reward gameplay, but the brutal checkpoint system, confusing level design, and bosses that took forever to kill made it a tough game to recommend to fans of the genre.

If you're feeling like taking a trip back to the '90s, you can check out Tomb Raider I-III Remastered. This trilogy of classic Lara Croft adventures contains all expansions and secret levels, as well as an option to switch between the upgraded graphics and the original polygons instantly. A new Challenge Mode was also added, and it's a great option for revisiting the janky games ahead of the upcoming Tomb Raider remake for PC and console.

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Mortal Shell 2 developer Cold Symmetry has shown off the first gameplay trailer for the upcoming souls-like, and unsurprisingly, the sequel isn't straying from the foundation established in the original 2020 game. The deep-dive video shows off three playable Shells--Tiel the Acolyte, Eredrim the Venerable, and Proxima the Broodseeker--as they explore the dangerous world around them.

Each Shell offers a different approach to combat, with all the action now taking place in the cold and marshy patches of Fallgrim. Unlike the more confined spaces of its predecessor, Mortal Shell 2 goes all in on an open-world environment, which is naturally populated by dark and bloodthirsty monsters. The world is also designed to be deliberately compact, as Cold Symmetry says that it wants to respect a player's time.

Just like the first game, the dormant forms of forgotten warriors are scattered throughout the game, and once a Shell has been discovered, it can be awakened and possessed to unlock new abilities. Billed as a standalone sequel, Cold Symmetry says that no familiarity with the first Mortal Shell game is required to play Mortal Shell 2 to its fullest, and Fallgrim will have more than 60 dungeons to explore.

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While PS5 console prices are rising on April 2, there's a unique PS5 accessory that's actually getting a price cut. Right now, you'll find the popular dbrand Darkplates 2.0 with a 50% discount. That means you can customize your rig for as little as $40 (was $80), though add-on content like lightstrips and additional skins are also quite cheap. An end date for the sale isn't being advertised by dbrand, so be sure to check out the savings while you can

Dbrand Darkplates 2.0$40 (was $80)

See at dbrand

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Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto has said there are "only so many people" that Nintendo can reach through games, so the company wants to expand its presence in other areas to help draw in more people. This is an approach best exemplified lately with Nintendo's further expansion into the world of film with The Super Mario Bros. Movie in 2023 and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (out now).

Speaking to Polygon, Miyamoto said Mario as a character has "always evolved alongside the evolution of digital media," and that's no different today as Nintendo brings him to movies.

"As we approach Mario and developing Mario games, I start to feel like there's only so many people that we can reach through Nintendo's systems and consoles. And so now with things like digital streaming and the expanse and the reach of what the technology allows now, I feel like that's a great way to get Mario involved too, and really be able to evolve alongside with digital media," he said. "So going from being able to have a touchpoint with Nintendo only through Nintendo consoles, we want to expand."

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Crimson Desert is the hottest game around right now, selling over 4 million copies worldwide and breaking its own concurrent player records since its March 19 release. While everyone appears to be loving it, some are still finding it quite frustrating and unwieldy, particularly when dealing with the stuff you loot and carry in Pywell.

Inventory management has been a sore spot for developer Pearl Abyss' open-world action-adventure game. Critics dragged inventory management for its tedium, with reviewer Richard Wakeling calling it "aggravating" and a "prickly source of frustration" in GameSpot's 7/10 Crimson Desert review. The South Korean studio has somewhat addressed the issues surrounding fiddling with your stuff by introducing more inventory slots in a March 29 update, but the headaches are still pounding all over the game's official subreddit.

Players took to the Crimson Desert subreddit to air out even more of their grievances with Pearl Abyss' inventory management system. The hottest post right now, created on March 30, is a discussion about how "key" items--typically something purple in your bag, such as those Deluxe Edition bonuses--shouldn't take up any inventory space. They don't add any weight to Kliff, and they don't technically impede the now 240 available slots in your inventory. But while they don't fill up your inventory in the same way a bug or a flower or a sword might, these "key" items--bounty notices, quest items, treasure maps, etc.--do sit in your inventory, cannot be discarded, and contribute to the overall clutter you'll accumulate as you explore the world of Pywell.

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Ubisoft's The Division 3 is moving ahead without executive producer Julian Gerighty, who recently left the company to join EA to work on the Battlefield franchise. At the time, Ubisoft told fans they needn't worry about The Division 3 losing him, and now senior producer Fredrik Brönjemark has echoed that sentiment, saying the roadmap for The Division 3 had been "planned and secured for some time already."

"Julian's departure isn't a distraction. We're happy for him and obviously sad to see him go. He was a friend. But as far as The Division 3 goes, we have our future and our roadmap that is already secure, and we know exactly where we are going and exactly what we want to do," Brönjemark told GI.biz.

The Division 2 creative director Yannick Banchereau went on to say he has "zero doubt" that The Division will remain popular for at least another decade.

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Fortnite never had a serious tone, but the game's battle royale modes will be a lot sillier during a 24-hour April Fools' Day update.

The game's v40.10 patch temporarily adds a suite of madcap modifications to unranked battle royale and Blitz matches, giving every player an enlarged head and the ability to ride teammates' shoulders. Llamas are also rideable, and players can literally turn their fingers into guns. As an added comedic effect, fall damage has been disabled, and landing will produce a cartoony splat sound effect.

All of these are also in effect in Unranked Reload, except for the big heads.

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Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian Studios is working on a new Divinity game currently, and now the company's CEO has provided an update on how it's progressing.

Swen Vincke said on social media that a recent development at the office helped him feel like Divinity was "coming alive."

"I realized I was having a good dev day when Adam--our writing director--started discussing the game with me," Vincke said. "He just spent a week running through various permutations of one particular situation, tweaking the words, and had plenty of ideas. The things he said made sense but it wasn't that which struck me. He often has good ideas. Instead, it was the energy level he was at."

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Pokemon Go's Memories in Motion season continues in April with a new slew of events and activities to look forward to over the next few weeks. Kicking things off is a Fashion Raid Day, which will give players another chance to catch some fancy costume-wearing Pokemon, while Riolu is returning for an encore Hatch Day on April 18.

This month also sees the arrival of a few new Pokemon, including Silicobra and shiny Toedscool, both of which are set to debut during this year's Sustainability Week. The Paldean Pokemon Tinkatink is also stepping into the spotlight during April's Community Day, and some fan-favorite legendaries and Mega Pokemon are returning to Raids.

There are plenty of other activities lined up for this month. You can read more about all of April's biggest Pokemon Go events below.

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The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hits theaters this week, and by current estimates, it's going to be another blockbuster. One of its biggest surprises, the appearance of StarFox's Fox McCloud, was revealed last week, and it looks like that might be the tip of the cameo iceberg (which we're not going to spoil here). Currently, fans are wondering if McCloud's appearance is teeing up an eventual Avengers-style Smash Bros. crossover movie for the big screen. Nintendo's answer? It's not that simple.

In a new interview, Nintendo and film producer Illumination explained that they're tackling one movie at a time, and that there aren't any plans for a shared cinematic universe…yet.

"I don't think you'll have a situation [where] all Nintendo characters would be joining [together in one film]," Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto said to Polygon. Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri added that the collaboration between Nintendo resulted in several discussions, including "fun" ways to drop characters from other game franchises in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

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Speed Racer (4K Blu-ray)

$31 | Releases May 19

Preorder at Amazon Preorder at Walmart

Almost two decades after it first raced into theaters, the live-action adaptation of Speed Racer is finally getting a 4K Blu-ray release. Directed by The Matrix creators Lana and Lilly Wachowski, preorders are now open at Amazon and Walmart, and priced at $31 ahead of its release on May 19.

Speed Racer (4K Blu-ray)

$31 | Releases May 19

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