Pokemon Champions will soon bring the heat of Pokemon battles to Nintendo Switch 2 and mobile devices. If you've been planning your perfect team of Pokemon for the occasion, there's a wrinkle you may not have considered, as development director and game producer Masaaki Hoshino has confirmed that Champions will only feature fully evolved forms of Pokemon with evolutionary lines at launch.

Speaking to a roundtable of journalists over Zoom, Hoshino confirmed the approach, though he did not dive into the specific reasons for the choice. "Yes, only final evolutions will be introduced at launch," Hoshino said, "[...but] at some point they might consider earlier evolutions."

The choice will have an impact on the competitive circuit, as Champions will become the featured game of the VGC (Video Game Championship) division as soon as it launches, replacing Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. This means the pool of Pokemon will feature fewer viable options, and competitive players will have to shift their strategies.

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Pokemon Champions' development director wants to keep Pokemon battles around "forever."

This may seem like a weird thing to say given nearly every mainline game since 1996 has featured turn-based Pokemon battles. However, if last year's Pokemon Legends: Z-A is any indication, developer Game Freak isn't afraid to experiment with Pokemon's combat. In a surprising twist, Legends: Z-A ditched turn-based battles in favor of real-time combat. For many, this change breathed new life into Pokemon's combat, but it did leave others curious about the future of Pokemon battling. If Pokemon Champions is a success, then that future should be clear: Pokemon Champions will be the de facto way to compete in traditional Pokemon battles.

After nearly an hour of hands-on time with Pokemon Champions, development director and game producer Masaaki Hoshino sat down with a room of journalists over Zoom to talk about Game Freak's upcoming battle simulator. Set to release in April on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 in addition to mobile devices at a later date, Pokemon Champions aims to bring the depth of turn-based Pokemon battles to a free-to-play, live service model. As Hoshino puts it: "Regardless of what battle [mechanics] are introduced in the future[…] we wanted to make turn-based battles [always] available."

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Epic Games recently conducted mass layoffs affecting 1,000 people at the Fortnite studio, and the cuts included the character artist who created Jonesy, one of the most recognizable characters in the game.

Vitaliy Naymushin said on LinkedIn that they were part of the cuts. The developer had worked at Epic Games for more than 11 years. "It's been a wild ride. Lots of ups and downs," the artists wrote. "Seeing Fortnite from pre-launch to today and being a part of making that happen was the experience of a lifetime."

Naymushin created not just Jonesy, but also Ramirez, Penny, and the majority of the game's original cast of characters, he said. He rose up to become the director of character art for Fortnite, and in that role, he hired and onboarded new artists and leads on Fortnite and also personally directed the art for 15 seasons of Fortnite.

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With the 2026 World Cup coming up very soon, FIFA has announced a brand-new soccer/football game, and it's unlike any other FIFA game that's come before it.

The fast-paced, arcade-style FIFA Heroes is a 5v5 game featuring both real-world players and playable mascots and even people from mythology like Thor and Sun Wukong. Some of the real-world players in the game include people living and dead, including Diego Maradona, Harry Kane, Jordan Pickford, Eduardo Camavinga, Jack Grealish, Emiliano Martinez, and Lautaro Martinez.

FIFA Heroes releases on April 26 for mobile, and it will come pre-downloaded on new Motorola devices. The free game is developed by Enver, a studio behind games aimed at the Gen Z and Alpha crowd.

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I like donuts and I bet you do as well, so it's exciting news today to learn that there are officially licensed donuts based on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie coming to Krispy Kreme soon.

The collab launches April 8 in Japan and runs through May 26. As part of the campaign, Krispy Kreme will sell donuts based on Mario, Yoshi, and Luma. There is also Question Block donut. The Mario donut has strawberry icing and red and blue sprinkles. The Yoshi donut includes a white chocolate coating and custard cream inside. The Luma donut is themed around space and has silver toppings and a blueberry glaze.

As reported by Dexerto, people can buy these donuts individually or in a six-pack that also comes with classic Krispy Kreme flavors, packaged inside a themed box for the movie.

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Nintendo has consistently leaned on Switch 2 upgrades to fill gaps in its release calendar, enticing fans to return to their favorite games from the Switch 1. Those upgrades usually enhance graphical fidelity or add some new bells and whistles, like the Zelda Notes feature added to Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. The upgrade for Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Meetup at Bellabel Park, is pricier than some other Switch 2 upgrades, but its novelty comes from transforming Mario Wonder into an almost completely different game. And that new game is a well-made party experience, even if it may not be exactly what Mario Wonder fans are looking for.

Bellabel Park is almost entirely focused on its multiplayer component, which is admittedly a strange turn for a game and series so known for its single-player platforming prowess. That isn't to say that there's no regular single-player content whatsoever, though. The story of Bellabel Park, such as it is, involves a new area of the map: the eponymous park that houses special Bellabel flowers. The Koopalings show up to steal the flowers, so Captain Toad and the Poplins agree to scour the world map for them. You'll find a new brigade tent belonging to a Poplin scout in each world, which leads you to one of the Koopalings.

If you're making your way through Mario Wonder for the first time, this will be a neat little throughline that you encounter occasionally, but if you've already finished the game, you can easily just jump into the series of boss-fight stages. This time the Koopalings are enhanced by the Wonder Flower, so each one reimagines the Koopa kids with some fantastical effect. Wendy turns into a bulbous Cheep-Cheep-like fish, while Morton becomes a massive marionette puppet. You have to traverse a stage being terrorized by their special effects before confronting them as bosses, and it's fun how these classic baddies--who, let's be honest, haven't gotten much to do lately--are recontextualized with wild, stage-changing effects.

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Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is set for release on April 16, but thanks to a free demo in the Nintendo eShop, you can play it right now. Even better--any progress you make in the demo will carry over to the full version of the game at launch.

Living the Dream is the third game in the Tomodachi series, and sees you create a bunch of customizable Mii characters who will work together to improve to island's happiness levels. The life sim will also allow players to customize the island and its inhabitants, as well as featuring a drawing tool to create imaginative objects that the Mii characters can interactive with.

It's important to note that there will be "certain" restrictions on image sharing though, in order to maintain a "fun and safe" environment for everyone. Having said that, some players are already finding that the game's filter leaves a lot to be desired. One user on Bluesky has discovered that naming certain characters questionable names will not prevent NPCs from bringing them up in conversation, leading to some pretty chaotic interactions.

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Shrine maiden Yono takes on the challenge of escaping from numerous haunted houses in this roguelike! Following in the footsteps of her missing Onmyouji brother, shrine maiden Yono arrives at a terrifying place where Mononoke(yokai and other vengeful spirits) live. The very structure of the mansion changes every time you enter. There are three game modes: "Harai," "Misogi," and "Gyou" with "Gyou" being the highest difficulty mode, in which players compete to see how long they can survive in an endless dungeon.

Select your weapons, pack your other equipment and step out into the wilderness. Track animals, use hunting towers or follow your intuition and see what you find. How you decide to hunt is totally up to you! Each hunt is always a new adventure and seeing as you get a fresh spawn of animals each time, a new challenge! With our weapon stabilization system, you can make very accurate shots, even at longer distances. Taking a clean shot is important, the animal will go down faster and save you a long tracking job! Experience the thrill of a hunt together with up to 6 players. Hike, hunt and strategize together to bag the biggest trophy. Gather at the lodge to share stories behind each trophy.