Announced during the latest Nintendo Direct, Donkey Kong Bananza is getting additional content added to its paid DLC that will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. Puzzlingly, however, you'll only be able in play it for a limited time.

The DK Island and Emerald Rush DLC will soon allow you to dress up both Donkey Kong and Pauline in Mario Bros. outfits. Donkey Kong can equip Mario's recognizable red hat and blue overalls, while Pauline will be able to use Luigi's green hat and slap a mustache on her face. It's all rather cute and fitting for the series.

What's confusing are the limitations around it. Starting today, you'll be able to access the costumes for a limited time, with three additional waves coming in the next few months. Miss those allocated times, or all the waves entirely, and you'll not have access to the costumes again. It's an extremely strange way to celebrate Nintendo's biggest franchise, but also, somehow, entirely unsurprising for Nintendo.

You can access the DLC during the following times:

• June 9, 2026 - June 30, 2026
• July 14, 2026 - July 21, 2026
• August 4, 2026 - August 11, 2026
• August 25, 2026 - September 1, 2026

The bigger update for Donkey Kong fans came in the form of new achievements for classic Donkey Kong games. Starting with Donkey Kong 64, which was recently added to the N64 library of games, you'll be able to chase in-game challenges for digital card rewards. It's a lot like RetroAchivements, but baked into the Nintendo Switch 2's backwards-compatible catalogue.

Nintendo showed off a new limited-time Donkey Kong event for Switch Online subscribers on Switch 2 at today's Nintendo Direct. Called DK Challenge, the experience sees players completing tasks across Donkey Kong games, ranging from Donkey Kong Country to even Donkey Kong Bananza (if you own the Switch 2 exclusive).

DK Challenge is accessed through the Nintendo Switch Online app on the Switch 2 Home Screen. From there, tasks are available to complete: There's a mine-cart challenge in Donkey Kong Country, for example. By successfully finishing one of these mini-sessions, the game will reward you with challenge cards.

There are apparently easy challenges to get a feel for games, like Donkey Kong 3. But Nintendo noted there are harder tasks titled Developer Challenges to check out, too.

Later today will see DK Challenge go live, with the event running through September 1. It's only available on Switch 2. That wasn't the only Donkey Kong news either, as Nintendo revealed a Mario-inspired update for Donkey Kong Bananza.

Every Nintendo Switch 2 Exclusive (So Far) View Images

As part of today's Nintendo Direct, Nintendo announced Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, the latest entry in its series that has so far included Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resorts, Wii Sports Club, and Nintendo Switch Sports.

The new game has 12 sports in all, including an unexpected one: thumb-wrestling. The game launches on October 22, exclusively for Switch 2. You can check out the game's announcement trailer below.

https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/2064355768648843405

Nintendo Switch Sports Resort takes players to Wuhu Island, where they can participate in 12 different sports. These include:

• Boxing
• Table Tennis
• Archery
• Tennis
• Volleyball
• Bowling
• Basketball
• Golf
• Thumb Wrestling
• Skateboarding
• Power Cruising
• Prop Plane
• Jump Rope

The game's October 22 release date is not long after Nintendo raises the price of the Switch 2 to $500 starting in September.

If you weren't already overwhelmed by the choice of game releases coming this September, the latest Nintendo Direct has just confirmed that Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave and Orbitals will be releasing in the busiest month in the gaming calendar.

The new entry in the turn-based tactical RPG series, with an Ancient Roman-like theme, releases September 17. The retro-anime co-op adventure releases on September 3.

Also confirmed to come to Switch 2 in the Nintendo Direct is Onimusha: Way of the Sword, releasing on September 25. This means, as with Capcom's other new releases in 2026--Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata--it will be launch simultaneously with other announced platforms.

This adds to an exceptionally busy month for new releases, which already include The Blood of Dawnwalker, Halloween, Marvel's Wolverine, Dune Awakening, Silent Hill: Townfall, and more. It's also a month that sees more ports coming to Switch 2, including Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight and Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age.

Nintendo and Intelligent Systems showed more of Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave during the latest Nintendo Direct, ensuring turn-based-tactics fans will continue having an absolutely grand time when it launches as a Switch 2 exclusive on September 17.

Players will be able to choose between four different main characters, each with a unique storyline. Each hero will be seeking to win The Heroic Games for their own reasons, as whoever emerges victorious will be granted one wish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl5_C4sc5zk

The latest trailer highlighted each hero. Kai, a young boy, seeks to win the games in order to save his father. Meanwhile, Dietrich, a mysterious swordsman, joins the games in search of strong opponents. Theodora is a queen of an entire kingdom, and seeks to fulfill her homeland's dream. Leda, a muscian, joins the games seeking revenge.

Each hero will have their own special techinques to deploy, and ones that are said to be capable of turning the tide of battle. Between official Heroic Games matches, players will have free time to spend. That time can be spent gearing up and improving their forces through training, recruiting new warriors, and venturing outside of the main city's walls to battle monsters and gain XP.

The Fire Emblem series has been extremely active on Nintendo Switch, including two mainline games and multiple spin-offs. The latest game, Fire Emblem Engage, offered a more streamlined story than its predecessor Three Houses, with a return to classic Fire Emblem combat and a simpler story. We will continue to wait for Nintendo to do the right thing and bring the Radiant games to Switch.

For more news, be sure to check out our round up of all the biggest Nintendo Direct announcements.

The upcoming film adaptation of Helldivers has lost its leading man, with Jason Momoa exiting the project.

Deadline reports that Momoa, who joined the production in February, departed from the movie, but the reason for his withdrawal is not clear. Regardless, the film is still in production and set for a November 2027 premiere.

Sony Pictures and PlayStation Productions are said to be searching for a new star. While it's understandable that any major studio would want a big-name actor in the lead, Helldivers might be better suited for an ensemble cast, as one of the key elements of the games is the expendability of every Helldiver in the never-ending battle for managed democracy.

Regardless, Momoa would have been a boon for a Helldivers adaptation; he has video game adaptation cred with A Minecraft Movie and the upcoming Street Fighter film, in which he portrays Blanka--inspired casting, to say the least. With production on A Minecraft Movie Squared firing up, it's possible that schedule conflicts emerged for Momoa.

The Helldivers movie has Fast & Furious director Justin Lin at the helm, and although his reported lack of experience playing video games sparked some concern, his track record with action movies should largely quell any worries.

50 Video Game Movies In The Works: How Many Of Them Will Actually Come Out? View Images

An Xbox marketing boss has denied that Gears of War: E-Day skipping PlayStation 5 was a last-minute decision despite fans discovering what they believe is overwhelming evidence that it was.

After it was discovered that Microsoft hastily removed a recent video showing a PS5 logo for Gears of War: E-Day (see below), marketing boss Aaron Greenberg said it is "not true" that Microsoft canceled a PS5 edition of the game at the last minute.

"We just limited the knowledge of this news to a very small internal group. Intention was to share this news first with our players and everyone watching showcase," he said.

"It is not true that it was a last-minute decision" to have E-Day be an Xbox console exclusive, he added.

https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/2064094012600889582

Asked when Microsoft made the call to not bring E-Day to PS5, Greenberg said he became aware of it "roughly a month in advance," but he didn't clarify any further.

On the night before the Xbox Games Showcase, reporter Jeff Grubb said Microsoft had been working on a PS5 edition of E-Day but canceled it.

“Gears of War: E-Day was going to be on PS5–it’s not anymore. That just happened. That’s a decision that just got made," Grubb said on June 6.

After the Xbox Games Showcase on June 7 where E-Day was announced as a console exclusive on Xbox, Grubb said there is a "basically finished version of Gears for PlayStation sitting on a drive." Retailer listings for a PS5 edition of the game were also discovered, though these can be unreliable.

People also thought that E-Day was going to release on PS5 because Microsoft brought Gears of War: Reloaded to PS5 in 2025. It was the first Gears game ever on a PlayStation platform.

This may not have been the first time that Microsoft told one of its teams to stop working on a version of a game for Sony's console. Redfall director Harvey Smith said in an interview in 2023, following Microsoft's buyout of Bethesda, that Microsoft told him "No PS5." At the time, Microsoft said it had not "pulled" any games from PlayStation, but it did not deny what Smith had said or that it had canceled a Redfall PS5 edition.

E-Day and Clockwork Revolution are two of Microsoft's upcoming Xbox console exclusives, and more are coming as part of Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's efforts to "reset" the Xbox business and convince people to buy an Xbox.

E-Day and Clockwork Revolution are not timed exclusives for Xbox on console, Microsoft has said, suggesting they will never come to PS5. At the same time, Greenberg said in 2021 that Starfield was not a timed exclusive on Xbox ... and then it came to PS5, so it was indeed a timed exclusive.

During the Microsoft vs. FTC court case to help get Microsoft's blockbuster deal for Activision Blizzard across the line, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella discussed why he is so against exclusives on consoles.

"If it was up to me I would love to get rid of the entire exclusives on consoles, but that’s not for me to define especially as a low-share player in the console market. The dominant player there [Sony] has defined market competition using exclusives, so that’s the world we live in. I have no love for that world."

Things are different now.

Microsoft is taking a case-by-case approach to exclusivity, as Halo: Campaign Evolved and the Fable reboot are still coming to PS5, and other games will as well.

Under Xbox's previous leadership, including Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond, Microsoft began to release more of its games across competing platforms in an effort to reach more people, and make more money. The plan seemed to have worked, at least in some cases, as Forza Horizon 5 alone made more than $300 million on PS5.

Xbox's new chief strategy officer, Matthew Ball, recently discussed how Xbox--as a brand and a business--"languished" under Spencer and Bond.