Nintendo has announced that Pokemon Champions will officially launch for Switch 2 and Switch 1 consoles on April 8. The competitive battling game is free to start, but Nintendo and The Pokemon Company will also release a Starter Pack bundle on launch day that includes additional Pokemon storage space, an extra battle song, and more. Switch 2 players will also be able to download a free upgrade for the game that improves its visuals on the hybrid console.

In case you missed it, Pokemon Champions focuses purely on the battle aspect of the franchise. Familiar gameplay mechanics like turn-based combat and each Pokemon having four moves to use in battle will be present, and like the main games, strategies will revolve around type affinities and abilities.

The new overview trailer also revealed three different modes of Pokemon battles--Ranked Battles, Casual Battles, and Private Battles--and how they can be tackled in both Singles and Doubles formats.

Epic Games has announced a sweeping round of layoffs impacting more than 1,000 employees. In an internal message later shared publicly, CEO Tim Sweeney described the decision as difficult but necessary, pointing to a sustained decline in player engagement for Fortnite that began in 2025. Despite the title's ongoing popularity and high-profile collaborations, the company admitted it has been "spending significantly more than we're making." These layoffs are part of a broader restructuring effort that includes over $500 million in cuts across marketing, contractors, and unfilled roles.

Epic emphasized that its struggles are not isolated, but instead reflect broader challenges across the gaming industry. Sweeney cited that player spending has slowed, current console generations have underperformed compared to past cycles, and games now face increasing competition from other forms of digital entertainment. Even Fortnite, one of the most successful games of this generation, has had difficulty maintaining consistent seasonal engagement. In response, Epic has taken steps such as raising the price of in-game currency V-Bucks to stabilize revenue.

The layoffs are also having a ripple effect across Epic's ecosystem, with several projects and games being shut down or scaled back. Rocket Racing, Ballistic, and Festival Battle Stage are scheduled to go offline in 2026, while Horizon Chase and Horizon Chase Turbo will be removed from digital stores starting June 1. Horizon Chase 2, however, will remain available.

Apple created one of the most compelling technology products of all time in the iPhone, and it quite literally changed the world. Its influences on people and society haven't been 100% positive, though, as experts agree that people spend too much time on their phones. Now, Apple CEO Tim Cook has joined in to say people should put their phones down and go outside.

"I don't want people using them too much," he said on Good Morning America. "I don't want people looking at the smartphone more than they're looking in someone's eyes. Because if they're just scrolling endlessly--this is not the way you want to spend your day. Go out and spend it in nature."

Stanford's Maris Loeffler said the negative effects of screen time are "insidious." She said negative effects of excessive screen time would be "minimal" if people didn't do it often. "But if it becomes a habit, day after day, month after month, this behavior can take a toll," she explained.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is a record-setting product, quickly becoming the fastest-selling console of all time--even so, sales were reportedly below Nintendo's expectations at the end of 2025, which is said to spur the company into cutting down production output of the device.

That's according to a Bloomberg report, which claims that Nintendo will now make only 4 million Switch 2 units this quarter, a roughly 33% reduction from the 6 million units the company originally planned to make. The report adds that the revised output rate will continue in April. Shares in Nintendo fell by 6.3% in Tokyo after the report.

Despite the purported decrease in production, Nintendo should still be able to meet analyst predictions of about 20 million Switch 2 units sold in the fiscal year through this month, according to Bloomberg's sources. Back in November, Nintendo increased its hardware forecast for the business year from 15 million units to 19 million. As of December 31, Nintendo has sold 17.37 million Switch 2 consoles.

New data shows that most gamers just do not care about the use of generative AI in video games and that a vocal minority is making a lot of noise on the subject. At the same time, there is a growing share of people who say they are more likely than before to refuse to buy a game if they found out it uses generative AI.

New data from Circana's PlayerPulse showed that just over 25% of US video game players surveyed in December 2025 said a game using generative AI would make them less likely to buy it.

"The majority were neutral or unsure," Circana's Mat Piscatella said. "At the moment, a vocal minority is against genAI usage, while the majority of video game players don't currently care that much either way."

Korean developer Pearl Abyss has announced that its RPG Crimson Desert has now reached another sales milestone. The game has surpassed 3 million copies sold worldwide, up from 2 million units sold over the game's first 24 hours after releasing on March 19.

In a statement, Pearl Abyss said, "To everyone who has stepped into Pywel and shared the journey with us, thank you."

The developer went on to say it continues to listen to fan feedback to help "shape the experience," and that effort will continue as the team aims to make Crimson Desert "even more enjoyable for our players."

Crimson Desert's region of Pywel is vast, a continent brimming with mystery, adventure, and plenty of opportunities to drop enemies with pro wrestling finishers. But what lies beyond the borders of Pywel? Instant death, delivered by 150 metric tons of mammalian adventurer-squashing marine life. From hell's heart, this whale shall smash thee.

Highlighted by Intelligent-You-7002 on Reddit (via Questlive.in on Instagram), Crimson Desert's method for keeping players in Pywel is one of the more imaginative invisible walls we've seen in gaming lately. We've also verified this ourselves--painfully--and you can see the sudden demise of a wayward adventurer in our video below.

The concept isn't new, as many open-world games use everything from automated turrets to near-instant death to keep players on the golden path, but we're fairly confident no open-world game has ever used whales to body-slam players out of forbidden territory before.

Warning! This post contains spoilers for the entirety of Resident Evil Requiem's story, as well as some spoilers for the larger Resident Evil canon. Finish the game before you read this.

You don't get Resident Evil Requiem without Resident Evil 6.

When it was released in 2013, the return of Leon S. Kennedy, Chris Redfield, and Ada Wong was set to be the pinnacle of the series. With RE6, the series was going to merge its survival-horror roots with its action-horror evolution. It was going to add even more co-op, and it was going to tell the biggest story Resident Evil had ever seen, featuring a bunch of its major characters.

Marvel's Spider-Man was one of Magic: The Gathering's many Universes Beyond mainline sets released last year. It brought a handful of product types with it when it launched in September, from Scene Boxes to a highly coveted, serialized version of the Soul Stone card. One of the more unique kits you could pick up from the Spider-Man set is the Marvel's Spider-Man Gift Bundle. These specialized boxes are similar to a regular bundle included in every set drop, but they offer a few exclusive perks--and in this case, it was unique cards and box art based on one of Spider-Man's most iconic comic book covers. If you've been looking for this pack, you're in luck--it's currently in stock and on sale for just $60 (was $90) at Amazon for a limited time. Just note that we don't know how long the discount will last, nor how many units are available, so it's worth grabbing while you can.

The Gift Bundle comes in one convenient storage box featuring cover art of our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man's most iconic depictions, including his first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15. The storage box fits everything listed below, and once you crack open your packs, it even has room for plenty of other cards if you're looking for another space to store your sleeved decks.

• Exclusive Alternate Art Card
• 9 Play Booster Packs
• 1 Collector Booster Pack
• 30 Basic Lands (15 foil, 15 nonfoil, and 10 full art)
• Spider-Man Spindown Life Counter
• Storage Box
• Rules Insert

Marvel's Spider-Man was Magic: The Gathering's penultimate set of 2025. The 233-card main set featured plenty of your favorite heroes and villains from Spider-Man's vast and storied history, with almost 100 unique Legendary Creatures for you Commander players. As a Limited format, Spider-Man's inclusion of so many Legendary Creatures made deck building a bit more of a challenge, but it's hard to deny that collecting your favorite version of these heroes from throughout the Spiderverse is a ton of fun. This Gift Bundle offers a great way to bolster your Magic collection, with 10 booster packs to rip into and hope for your chase card, and the inclusion of basic lands ensures that you'll have plenty of resources to cast your spells.

The free TV and movie streaming service Tubi has announced a young adult romance movie called Game On, and it will feature veteran gaming actor Nolan North (Uncharted, Assassin's Creed).

The film follows the talented gamer Casey, played by Sky Katz, who is trying to win her high school's first gaming tournament for the game Eon Rush. Her main competition is a boy she has a crush on named Theo (Case Walker). The twist is that Casey tries to "stay undercover and use their budding romance to study his moves and take him down from the inside."

The report from Variety did not specify, but it seems North plans Casey's father, a man who seeks to remind Casey "who she is beyond the headset." And in classic soap opera form, Casey's "carefully calculated plan begins to unravel as fake feelings turn real," according to the movie's official description.

Square Enix and Google have partnered to inject the tech giant's AI, Gemini, to help advise and guide players in the popular Japan-only MMO, Dragon Quest X.

Announced at a press event over the weekend, the partnership with see Square Enix turn one of the loveably blue slimes of the Dragon Quest universe into an AI-powered chat bot called Chatty Slimey. Players can converse with the bot through both voice and text, with the bot responding with generated voice lines that can help guide a player through different stages of the game and remark on their actions. Gemini is trained off data publicly available on the internet, although Google didn't specifically mention where this bot might get the required content for these responses.

Speaking to Japanese publication Sankei (via VGC) Square Enix's head of development, Takashi Anzai, said that the chat bot will make the game more inviting to new players. “New players won’t feel lonely wondering where to start playing; it will become their own personal companion," he concluded.

Electronic Arts has announced that Battlefield Hardline--the 2015 FPS entry in the series focused on police and heists, not traditional military warfare--will shut down on console this June.

The game will be removed from the PS4 and Xbox One storefronts on May 22, and that's also when people won't be able to buy any more in-game content. The game's servers, meanwhile, will close on June 22.

Hardline's single-player campaign will remain playable after the server shutdown date for anyone who owns the game currently or buys it before it's removed in May. Physical copies of the game will also remain playable offline.

Stephen "Votesaxon07" McCullagh, a YouTuber who primarily engages with science fiction entertainment (like Battlebots toys and Star Wars sets), was convicted of murdering his 32-year-old girlfriend who was 15 weeks pregnant with a baby boy in December 2022.

According to the BBC, McCullagh--who was on trial for more than four weeks--appeared in a Belfast court in Northern Ireland on March 23. After just over two hours of deliberations, the jurors returned to deliver a guilty verdict, with McCullagh facing a potential life sentence, according to the presiding judge.

During the trial, the jurors learned exactly how McCullagh committed the crime. On December 18, 2022, he went "live" with a six-hour Grand Theft Auto broadcast. However, the livestream was a ruse, and McCullagh--who reportedly admitted in a written statement to police--used the pre-recorded livestream to show up at his then-girlfriend Natalie McNally's Lurgan house in disguise to beat, strangle, and stab her before taking a cab home to call 999 on December 19.

Diablo 4's Season of Slaughter brought new, bloody challenges to Blizzard's ARPG, among them one so difficult that many players couldn't "reasonably" complete it.

As detailed in Diablo 4's most recent patch notes, an update going live on March 24 will make it so the season's Bloodsoaked Sigils are "significantly" less difficult. Blizzard explained its logic in a developer's note.

"We've received feedback that many players cannot reasonably complete Bloodsoaked Sigils after unlocking them," Blizzard writes. "By lowering the difficulty significantly, we hope to guarantee that all players who have earned access to Bloodsoaked content have a better chance of success."

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has clarified that he is also not a fan of AI slop, but that DLSS 5 is not aiming to turn games into it. Instead, it's a tool that developers can, or cannot, choose to use for development.

Appearing on Lex Fridman's latest podcast episode, Huang was asked about DLSS 5 and the criticism of it, a week after Nvidia announced the new AI-powered tool at GTC. Huang stated that he now understood where the criticism stemmed from, just a few days after proclaiming all critics of DLSS 5 as "completely wrong."

"I think their perspective makes sense, and I can see where they're coming from, because I don't love AI slop myself. You know, all of the AI-generated content increasingly looks similar, and they're all beautiful, and I can...so I can...I'm empathetic to what they're thinking," Huang stated.

High on Life 2 for Nintendo Switch 2 has been delayed. The game was originally set to launch on April 20--a date with the same humorous association as the game's title--but it's now coming out in July. The franchise is called High on Life in the first place because the plot involves aliens coming to Earth and using humans as a recreational drug, so 4/20 would have been very fitting for a release date.

Developer Squanch Games said in a statement that it aims to release the "highest quality experiences," and to that end, it's delaying the Switch 2 version to July 1, 2026. "The additional elbow grease towards production will ultimately allow the studio to better meet not only our high standards for gaming, but yours as well," the studio said.

Digital preorders will be canceled, while physical preorders are intact through this change, Squanch said. "We appreciate your patience and continued support!" the studio added.

Call of Duty is set to deliver a new batch of content with Season 3 of Black Ops 7 and Warzone. Season 3 includes a new battle pass, more multiplayer content, and map changes for Warzone's Avalon. The season will likely include a new Zombies map as well. Here we'll highlight all the announcements and rumors for Call of Duty Season 3 so far.

• Call of Duty Season 3 start times
• What to expect from Season 3

Season 3 of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Warzone arrives on April 2. Call of Duty updates usually go live at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET / 5 PM BST across all platforms.

A new season of Call of Duty means a new battle pass packed with cosmetics, more DLC weapons to unlock, new maps, and additional game modes. A season generally includes limited-time events, and while the specifics aren't confirmed yet, Call of Duty typically has events this time of year that are themed around the upcoming Easter holiday.

Capcom's 2024 open-world RPG Dragon's Dogma 2 could be set to follow in the footsteps of its predeccesor with a major expansion, with the game's community convinced a recent piece of artwork celebrating the game's second anniversary is holding a number of clues.

A post on March 22 from the official Dragon's Dogma account on X states it had prepared a "special celebratory artwork" for the game's anniversary, one depicting a party in a tavern. That's not exactly out of the ordinary, but upon closer inspection, fans think there is good reason to believe an expansion could be on the way.

Hail, Arisen! The 2nd anniversary of Dragon's Dogma 2 is upon us. To celebrate the milestone, we've prepared this special celebratory artwork.

Thank you for your support!#DragonsDogma2 #DD2 #2YearDD2 pic.twitter.com/xV6tkzxBeQ

As pointed out by user PaiDuck on the Dragon's Dogma 2 subreddit (via Restart), the artwork sports a number of teases. A letter prominently shown on the table translates to "Sightings of griffins flying in from the northern region of Organ have been confirmed."

Pokemon Pokopia was created to give players the opportunity to build a comfortable home for their Pokemon, but some fans are already pushing the game's ability to craft and create to another level. At least two players have come up with different methods of creating calculators in Pokopia through a virtual electrical system.

A player going by Tarnow0530 on X (via IGN) has shared a look at their in-game calculator in Pokopia. It's a very simple calculator that can only do single-digit addition, but it works.

次はぽこあポケモンで電卓作った
1桁の足し算できる#ぽこあポケモン #ぽこポケ #電卓の日 https://t.co/rQlnRRTdBO pic.twitter.com/7PVPufJmxE

Tarnow0530 went on to show the work behind the calculator with a picture of its circuit diagram. They also acknowledged using the pulse circuit designed by kyuphd as the building block for this creation, which is powered by lasers, doors, and gates lined up in an intricate pattern.

Crimson Desert has a lot of skills, tools, and abilities that let you interact with the world in unconventional and unexpected ways. Players are learning this for themselves and have discovered that one of the game's earliest skill unlocks has multiple use cases that developer Pearl Abyss doesn't outright tutorialize.

Blinding Flash is an ability you unlock super early in the game--like, within the first hour or two of entering Pywell. Pressing your lantern and normal attack buttons (L1+R1 on PlayStation 5; LB+RB on Xbox Series X|S) reflects light from your weapon's steel. Doing this does several actions, including revealing points of interest (like fast-travel locations, collectibles, and Abyss Artifacts for unlocking skills) in the world, blinding enemies in combat, and illuminating weak spots on bad guys. This ability has a plethora of other uses as well, many of which the game doesn't explicitly explain to you.

While you can use Blinding Flash to solve puzzles by burning vines blocking your path and eradicate your foes with the OP BFF (Blinding Flash Finisher, a skill that unleashes several heavy attacks after blinding enemies), a redditor named Jec1027 discovered that you can use the ability to cook meat on the fly. Meanwhile, redditor kakanuikid learned that if you're near explosive barrels, Blinding Flash sets them on fire. Redditor CETQ found the move is a great way to get past enemies hiding behind shields. And redditors Accurate_Capital_930 and Lopsided_Cow_3057 figured in separate posts that the move works wonders at stunning bosses.