During the February 2025 Pokemon Presents show, Nintendo revealed the three starter Pokemon players can choose from in Pokemon Legends Z-A: Chikorita, Tepig, and Totodile.

So far, that's all the information we have on the three starters. Pokemon Legends Arceus had alternate Hisuin final evolutions for its starters, each with a different typing compared to their original forms. It hasn't been confirmed whether the starters in Pokemon Legends Z-A will have alternate final evolutions as well.

However, Nintendo confirmed that Mega Evolutions will be making a return, so it's possible that the starters could receive those. There's been a precendent set with Mega Evolutions where some get new typing, such as Mega Ampharos being Electric/Dragon instead of pure Electric type and Pinsir becoming a Bug/Flying type when it Mega Evolves instead of staying pure Bug.

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The second season of The Last of Us hits HBO on April 13, continuing Joel and Ellie's journey through the bleak, fungal-infected post-apocalypse. If you need something to bide your time until it premieres the next month, check out the recently released The Last of Us: Escape the Dark board game. Launched last December, the survival game supports up to five players and even offers a solo mode, making it a unique way to explore the haunting universe of The Last of Us.

The Last of Us: Escape the Dark $71.85

Based on the hit series, The Last of Us: Escape the Dark was first announced way back in 2022, so it’s been a long road for this board game. However, it seems as if the lengthy development and delayed release were worth it, as it’s earning solid reviews. Players join familiar faces like Joel and Ellie as they trek from the Quarantine Zone to Jackson. Along the way, you’ll encounter various scenarios via chapter cards, which put you up against FEDRA agents, the Infected, and other obstacles. Your only way to survive is quick thinking and constantly upgrading your weapons, ensuring you always have the best gear available for your next battle.

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Matches last up to 90 minutes and support anywhere from one to five players. That makes it a great choice even if you don’t have an established group for weekly game nights, as you can attempt to survive the unforgiving landscapes on your own. The board game and all its pieces look pretty sharp, too, thanks to a black-and-white color scheme that does an excellent job of recreating the foreboding atmosphere of the video games and TV show.

Cards, tokens, and dice from The Last of Us: Escape the DarkGallery

While The Last of Us: Escape The Dark is a great way to experience Joel and Ellie's story in a new way, if you're looking to catch up on The Last of Us TV series, The Last of Us: The Complete First Season 4K Steelbook is up for preorder ahead of its release on March 18. It has already gone out of stock at Amazon, but copies are still available at Walmart. You can also pick up the cool Joel & Ellie Action Figure 2-Pack, which is discounted to $40.20 (was $50). And for those who haven't played the games, you can grab The Last of Us Part 1 and The Last of Us Part 2 Remasterd at Best Buy.

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Are you curious about Support Hunters, also known as the NPC companions in Monster Hunter Wilds? Well, you don't have to go at it alone when you're trekking across the Forbidden Lands. By default, your Palico cat companion will stay by your side. However, it's also possible to have other adventurers come to your aid. Our guide has all the details you need to help you with this particular gameplay mechanic.

Table of Contents [hide]

• How to use AI-controlled companions in Monster Hunter Wilds - Companions and SOS Flare guide
  • SOS Flare and multiplayer settings
  How to use AI-controlled companions in Monster Hunter Wilds - Companions and SOS Flare guide

  You can summon companions whenever you're on a quest by using the SOS Flare. However, before we get to that part, it's important to discuss some related facets. Most of the information is already mentioned in our crossplay/multiplayer guide. But, when it comes to the SOS Flare itself, you might want to check a few options.

  SOS Flare and multiplayer settings

  You can see the Monster Hunter Wilds SOS Flare settings by talking to Alma at your camp. The Settings panel has the following:

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You might be eager to battle creatures in Monster Hunter Wilds, but there are a few things to prepare before you head out on a quest. One of these is having the right buffs to bolster your character further. Our Monster Hunter Wilds cooking and recipes guide has a few tips to help you with this particular gameplay facet.

Monster Hunter Wilds cooking and recipes guide

You can cook food in between hunts through the following means:

• Player Tent - This is your personal tent in the main base of a particular region/biome.
• Pop-up Camps - These are specific spots that you discover as you explore. You can then talk to the Palico cat NPCs at your camp to set up the structure.
• Portable BBQ Grill - This tool is available to you at all times. Simply access your inventory panel and select it, then press the item use button to get started.

You can combine a basic ingredient from Rations, as well as Additional Ingredients and Finishing Touches, to come up with ideal buffs.

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Are you planning to capture monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds? While most objectives in the campaign require you to slay beasts that you encounter, there are a few where you're asked to incapacitate them instead. However, this process is a lot more involved. Fortunately, our guide here has all the tips that you need to help you with this task.

Table of Contents [hide]

• How to trap and capture monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds
  • How to craft traps and tranquilizers
  How to trap and capture monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds

  Capturing a monster requires weakening them in battle, before using traps and tranquilizers. Sadly, the game doesn't really give you all the information that you need. Managing your inventory can also be an arduous task, leading to a bit of confusion.

  How to craft traps and tranquilizers

  Here's how to make traps in Monster Hunter Wilds:

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Velan Studios' Midnight Murder Club will be taking hide-and-seek into some lethal places on the game's new early-access launch date, March 13. This first-person shooter places 1-6 players on equal ground by forcing them to explore Wormwood Manor in complete darkness except for their flashlights and the flicker of light when a gun is fired. But things are going to get even wilder with a new gameplay mode.

Within Midnight Murder Club's new Wildcards mode, the battle royale in the mansion is upended by cards that can rewrite the laws of reality around them. When players pick cards from their collection, they can given special abilities like super speed or the power to self-detonate upon death. Some of those powers will extend to the other players in the match as well. At the end of each battle, players are given new cards to experiment with as they embrace the chaos around them.

Similar to the feature recently revealed for Split Fiction, Midnight Murder Club offers a Guest Pass via the Guest Pass Edition. This allows additional players to join in even if they don't own a copy of the game themselves. As long as at least one person owns Midnight Murder Club, they can invite five other people to play the game for free.

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Change is in the air for the Metro developer previously known as 4A Games, as the studio has announced a rebrand to Reburn and its next game, La Quimera. Originally founded in 2006, the newly rechristened Reburn says that La Quimera will represent a big departure when compared to its work on Metro, and the studio describes the game as an action-packed first-person shooter with a "heavy focus" on narrative, world design, and characters. A release date has not yet been set for the game, but it is coming to PC.

The new game also features some Hollywood star power, as its world and narrative has been created and written by Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, The Neon Demon) alongside Reburn's EJA Warren. A combination of Latin-American folklore with highly advanced weaponry and technology, La Quimera can be played either in single-player or with two other people in its co-op mode. La Quimera puts players inside the exosuit of a down-on-their-luck PMC soldier, and it'll feature both metropolitan and jungle settings to explore.

"Reburn is proud to introduce La Quimera, which draws upon our success crafting narrative-driven shooter games for the Metro series,” Reburn CEO and founder Dmytro Lymar said in a press release. "We look forward to sharing this mysterious new world with players and hope they revel in suiting up to join the fight."

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As part of a big Pokemon Presents showcase event, The Pokemon Company made a series of announcements, including a brand-new game: Pokemon Champions.

It's a new Pokemon game focused exclusively on the franchise's popular Pokemon battle system. The game is in the works for Nintendo Switch and mobile devices--here's everything we know about it.

Table of Contents [hide]

• What is Pokemon Champions?

What is Pokemon Champions?

Pokemon Champions is a battle-focused game that features "familiar mechanics" from the series, including Pokemon types, abilities, and moves. The Pokemon Company said the game is aimed at newcomers and experienced players alike.

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The Pokemon Company revealed a bevy of upcoming additions to Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket during the latest Pokemon Presents showcase, while a press release confirmed that the popular mobile game has surpassed 100 million downloads.

During the Pokemon Presents, the Triumphant Light expansion was revealed. Triumphant Light is themed around Arceus and brings new Pokemon "ex" cards, trainer cards, and immersive cards with it. Certain cards also now have Link abilities that buff them when an Arceus or Arceus ex card is in play. Triumphant Light launches tomorrow, February 28.

Pokemon TCG Pocket launched last October and was one of GameSpot's picks for the best mobile games of 2024. It has seen a steady stream of updates since then, and its latest additions celebrate Pokemon Day 2025 and expand to features available in the game. The end of that Pokemon Presents trailer and a press release about the event reveal even more about upcoming additions to Pokemon TCG Pocket. To celebrate Pokemon Day, two promotions are being run.

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Today is Pokemon Day, the annual celebration of the original Pokemon games--Red and Green--releasing in Japan. With it comes a new Pokemon Presents video, and today's ended with a new look at Pokemon Legends: Z-A, along with a release window of "late 2025."

Pokemon Z-A will take Trainers on a tour of Lumiose City, the bustling Paris-themed city from Pokemon X and Y's Kalos region, which in this game is undergoing a "high-tech urban redevelopment" by a company called Quasartico for both people and Pokemon to enjoy. The city will feature multiple open areas for exploration, including rooftops--which players can jump off and glide back down to the ground--and Wild Zones where new Pokemon can be battled and caught.

We see multiple Pokemon encounters during the trailer, some of which resemble the turn-based battling featured in many previous games, as well as the "throw a Poke Ball without battling" mechanic seen in Legends: Arceus. Along with those came a new type of battling system where distance and movement play a key role, as attack moves have a certain amount of reach, and moving a Pokemon out of the way will cause the attack to miss.

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Warner Bros. Discovery has released its latest earnings report, and included in the filing are details about how the company's much-discussed gaming business is doing--and it's not great.

The company reported "impairment" charges of $50 million for the latest quarter and a $384 million for the full year ended December 31, 2024. As announced previously, 2024's Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League led to a $200 million negative impact for WBD's bottom line.

WBD did not provide a full accounting for the $384 million in total yearly impairment charges. Impairment charges are defined as a process through which a company writes off assets for, among other things, tax purposes. Impairment charges can also pertain to acquisition costs. WBD bought MultiVersus studio Player First Games in 2024, only to just recently announce its closure, alongside the shutdown of Monolith and WB San Diego.

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It might not share the Pokemon Stadium name, but Pokemon Champions looks like a new entry in the battling-focused series. The game was announced during today's Pokemon Presents livestream for Nintendo Switch and mobile devices.

Game Freak has planned out Pokemon Champions, but the actual developer is The Pokemon Works. This studio formed last year and has previously assisted with Pokemon Home. One of the goals with Pokemon Champions is appealing to a wider audience. Here's a part of the official description for the game:

"This new, battle-focused game will feature familiar mechanics such as Pokémon types, Abilities, and moves, creating an environment conducive to rich and varied strategies for new and experienced trainers alike."

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EA Sports College Football 25 was a huge success for the company, and the franchise is coming back this year with potentially even more features that the studio didn't get into 2024's game.

EA Sports executive Daryl Holt told The Athletic that the team knew it was never going to be able to get everything it wanted to in 2024's game. "So there's a lot of meat left on the bone," he said.

Holt declined to get into specifics regarding new features for CFB 26, but teased, "We've got a lot of things still to come."

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Capcom has revealed the release window of Title Update 1 for Monster Hunter Wilds and teased some of what players can expect from it. Specifically, it looks like more content is coming to the game for players who beat the story and want more of a challenge.

Title Update 1 will come out in early April, placing its launch over a month after the base game's release. That might seem like a big gap between launch and the first update, but the official Monster Hunter X account explains that Capcom wanted to "give hunters enough time to prepare for the new content, and challenges, that await them!" Capcom had previously teased this update with a vague Spring 2025 release window during a State of Play earlier this month.

Title Update 1 – Release Date!

We’re pleased to confirm that TU1 for Monster Hunter Wilds will arrive in early April!
This will give hunters enough time to prepare for the new content, and challenges, that await them! pic.twitter.com/xbbPY2z5B9

— Monster Hunter (@monsterhunter) February 27, 2025

While Monster Hunter Wilds is one of the most approachable games in the series yet, Capcom will also add more-difficult monsters in TItle Update 1. There will be two new monsters for players to hunt, including one with strength "at a level above Tempered." During the State of Play, it was confirmed that Mizutsune from Monster Hunter Generations and Monster Hunter Rise will be one of these monsters.

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Riot Games' League of Legends has been around since 2009, and it has attracted a large group of fans from around the world since its release. And when those fans aren't happy, they aren't afraid to be vocal about it. Some of Riot's most recent moves--including the removal of Hextech chests--angered players so much that the company is now walking back that decision as well as a few other unpopular changes.

In the video above--and in the accompanying post on Riot's site--Senior Vice President Andrei Van Roon and League of Legends executive producer Paul Bellezza explained why the company is reversing its recent decisions. Bellezza noted that their choices had eroded some of the trust that fans had for Riot, and they want to fix that.

The first step in rebuilding that trust is coming in next week's patch, which will restore Hextech chests to the game. Eight chests will be available through the free seasonal pass, while players can earn two additional chests through the game's Honor system. The dev post notes that the Honor system is still being worked out, but it's meant to reward players who are good teammates and respectful opponents.

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Since the latest Sims 4 update released, players have noticed some odd bugs--even by the Sims' standards. As of the latest patch, which introduced burglar Robin Banks to the game, child and baby Sims may appear pregnant, have beer-bellies, or be oddly muscular.

Some players on The Sims subreddit, as picked up by Eurogamer, noticed that some of their child sims were suddenly appearing pregnant--in one case, the user claimed the bug was affecting every male child in their game.

Umm guys… My kid is pregnant…
by u/FutureApricot8074 in thesims Since today's patch all the male children in my game have pregnant bellies.
by u/ninjaconor86 in thesims

The bug appears to be visual only--the child Sims have thankfully not been given the actual pregnancy state and are not about to give birth to other Sims--but in a game like this, visuals are important to most players.

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