Microsoft is bringing back the Xbox FanFest event this year, and it's going on tour to help celebrate Xbox's 25th anniversary. Microsoft announced today that in addition to the Xbox FanFest that was already announced for Los Angeles, the show will hit the road and make seven stops globally.

These will include:

• Cologne, Germany
• London, UK
• Mexico City, Mexico
• Seattle, USA
• Sydney, Australia
• Tokyo, Japan
• Toronto, Canada

Microsoft said each FanFest will be "unique to the location in which it's held." Fans can expect "in-person experiences that bring the worlds of Xbox to life with opportunities for players to connect with one another," Microsoft said.

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Lego Toy Story: Slinky Dog Bookends (1,311 pieces)

$150 | Releases May 1

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Lego Toy Story: Lotso (570 pieces)

$40 | Releases May 1

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Lego Toy Story: Alien with Pizza Planet Rocket Ride (714 pieces)

$60 | Releases May 1

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Buzz, Woody, and Jessie are returning for another animated adventure, as Toy Story 5 is scheduled for a June 19 release. This time around, they'll be facing competition from modern electronics (more specifically, a frog-shaped tablet), but a decidedly old-school way to celebrate the upcoming film is to pick up one of the three new Toy Story Lego sets launching later this year. Preorders are now open, and they'll begin shipping on May 1, giving you plenty of time to snap them together before heading to the theaters the following month. Here's a look at the Slinky Dog, Lotso, and Alien sets up for grabs. There's also a cute Toy Story Celebration Train & RC Car Lego set available right now, in case you're itching for a set to build today. Plenty of existing Lego Toy Story sets can be found on the Lego Store, so if none of these four catch your eye, there are plenty of others to peruse.

Lego Toy Story: Slinky Dog Bookends (1,311 pieces) $150 | Releases May 1

Not only is this the largest of the trio at over 1,300, but it might just be the coolest, too. It lets you build a model of the iconic Slinky Dog that can be attached and detached from two buildable books. Inside the books are a few hidden secrets--including a tiny Slinky Dog figurine and a Woody minifigure. Whether you decide to use the build as bookends on your shelf or standalone figures throughout your home, it looks like a pretty unique model.

The $150 price tag might be a bit hefty, but you're getting a Slinky model that spans more than 17 inches, two minifigures, and two buildable books. And because Slinky can be displayed standalone or attached to the books, there are plenty of ways to change up its appearance. Like all the other sets on this list, it's compatible with the Lego Builder App.

Preorder at Lego Store Preorder at Amazon Lego Toy Story: Lotso (570 pieces) $40 | Releases May 1

Standing over 6.5 inches tall, this adorable version of Lotso features posable eyebrows, arms, hands, and a tilting face. You can also pose him with or without his walking stick, making it a robust model to display in your home theater. It can even double as a toy for young builders.

Aside from all its posable pieces, Lotso comes with a few hidden Easter eggs that you'll discover throughout the build. As usual, you'll get a set of instructions in the box, though it's also compatible with the Lego Builder App, which gives you a rotatable 3D model to explore and makes the build process smoother than ever.

Preorder at Lego Store Lego Toy Story: Alien with Pizza Planet Rocket Ride (714 pieces) $60 | Releases May 1

While the adorable Alien has moveable arms, hands, feet, and head, that's not what makes this set exciting--it's the functioning rocket ride machine. By turning a handle on the side of the machine, you can make the toy shift up and down. Other cool bonuses include a coin dispenser with space for two coins, a tiny slice of pizza, and a few hidden Easter eggs scattered throughout the set.

The Alien can be placed inside the rocket ride or taken out and posed separately, and because many of his joints can move around, it's easy to find a funky pose for him in your home theater. Considering it has a unique interactive feature, its $60 price tag is actually pretty reasonable for a brand-new Lego set.

Preorder at Lego Store Preorder at Amazon Lego Toy Story: Celebration Train & RC Car (206 pieces)$40

Though it's not exactly new (it launched last summer), this kid-friendly set was released to celebrate Toy Story's 30th anniversary. Along with minifigures for Woody, Jessie, Buzz, and Bo Peep, it lets you build a train engine, two floats, and a car. The train engine can connect to the two floats, which feature interactive components like a seesaw and a spaceship with a cockpit that opens to hold a minifigure. This is ideal for young builders, as it includes Starter Bricks that should speed up the construction process, and each bag in the box comes with a character--so they can start playing with the toys before the entire set is completed.

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Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami has sold his new studio, Unbound, to Stellar Blade owner Shift Up.

Unbound is currently working on "original" PC and console based games that Shift Up said are being designed to appeal to the "global market." You can watch the announcement video for the partnership below.

Fans have theorized that some of the eerie-looking art mixed in with the developer quotes might be for whatever Unbound is working on, but that remains to be confirmed. Mikami is known for his work on spooky games, and the art in the video surely seems to be in line with that.

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The RPG Crimson Desert from developer Pearl Abyss continues to put up strong sales numbers. The Korean studio has now confirmed that Crimson Desert has passed 4 million in sales.

That's up from 2 million sales in the game's first 24 hours and 3 million in sales after less than a week. "Thank you to all the Greymanes who have been a part of this journey with us and for all of your incredible love and support," Pearl Abyss said of the new sales milestone.

Crimson Desert released on March 19, and Pearl Abyss has released numerous updates since then to address issues and fan feedback. One of the biggest updates replaced AI-generated art that fans noticed. Pearl Abyss hasn't fixed or addressed everything, though, as fans are still irked by the game's inventory management. On the more positive side, fans have discovered all kinds of cool stuff in the game, including the best drip and how NPCs will do work for you.

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The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hit theaters on April 1, and it's putting up huge numbers right out of the gate. The animated film brought in $34 million in the US for its opening day, which is good for the biggest opening day so far in 2026, outpacing Project Hail Mary ($33.1 million).

It's also the highest opening for a movie that opened on a Wednesday in April in US history, beating a record set by April 2023's The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($31.7 million), according to Deadline.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie went on to make $146.3 million over its first three days on Easter weekend in 2023 and $204.6 million over the five-day period from Wednesday-Sunday. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, meanwhile, is projected to make $128.2 million over its first three days and $186 million for its first five.

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It's going to be a busy weekend at theaters with the release of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and preorders for its upcoming Blu-ray release have already gone live at multiple online retailers. While the home video release doesn't have a release date yet, the Mario Movie sequel will be in cinemas for at least 5 weekends, and Blu-ray editions tend to drop a few months after their theatrical runs, so you've got plenty of time to preorder. It also gives you plenty of time to decide which version of The Mario Galaxy Movie Blu-ray editions to bring home. In addition to the standard 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD releases, there are also steelbook and collector's edition versions available to preorder, some of which are exclusive to specific stores. Here's a breakdown of each version and what you can expect to pay. One thing to note about all of these releases is that special features and tech specs have yet to be revealed, but we'll update this post when we know more.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie: Walmart Exclusive Collectible Tin (4K Blu-ray)

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Like lots of games, Minecraft is celebrating April Fools' Day with a good, old-fashioned joke. But rather than simply making a silly social media post, developer Mojang is fully committed to the bit, and this year's joke comes in the form of a playable game update.

The Herdcraft Update is live now, and gets rid of the inventory system entirely, leaving players' inventory items to follow them around the in-game world like sheep.

"Herdcraft is a completely new (and very permanent) way to play Minecraft," creative communications director and writer Cristina Anderca explained in a blog post announcing the update. "Instead of spending minutes, hours, years on end trying to organize the chaos in your inventory, you get to be present in the world, together with your new friends: all the items and blocks that you own!"

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Embark Studios released a bonafide hit in Arc Raiders, and its use of AI was controversial. The studio's top boss, Patrick Soderlund, was recently promoted to executive chairman of publisher Nexon, and now he's given a presentation in which he shed more light on the company's approach to AI in gaming.

"Every company has a plan; most will get it wrong," he said about how game developers will use AI (via GamesRadar).

He said there is a "race" going on now to find and implement the best AI-based strategies to help developers, but he said the winners "won't be the first movers."

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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)

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