After a productive early access period--and a few "final" patches--Hades 2 is ready for its full release. During the September Nintendo Direct, Nintendo announced that Hades 2 will launch digitally for Switch 2 and the original Switch on September 25. It will be a timed-exclusive on console for Switch, but is also launching that day for Steam and the Epic Games Store.

A physical version of Hades 2 for Switch 2 will arrive on November 20.

Hades 2 has spent just over a year in early access, adding a substantial amount of content and fine-tuning the gameplay across a number of major updates since May 2024. A new v1.0 launch trailer for Hades 2 was released during the Nintendo Direct--check it out below.

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Nintendo has revealed Mario Tennis Fever, a new installment in the sports series coming exclusively to Switch 2. Announced at today's Nintendo Direct, the game is set to launch February 12, 2026.

The big new feature for Mario Tennis Fever is found in the name--Fever rackets. These special rackets have a Fever gauge that can be built up to "unleash a Fever shot," like blasting the court with fire or ice. Another example is the Mini Mushroom racket, which will litter your opponent's side of the court with the item that can shrink them down. Nintendo noted that there are 30 Fever rackets in all, each with a special ability.

Mario Tennis Fever will also offer 38 playable characters--the most ever for the franchise, according to Nintendo. Most of the familiar faces are here, such as Yoshi and Donkey Kong, and Nintendo didn't seem to showcase any new characters in the game's first trailer.

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Super Mario Bros. Wonder is receiving a Nintendo Switch 2 edition, one that will include a new suite of multiplayer modes called Meetup in Bellabel Park.

Bellabel Park is a large plaza filled with various minigames where players can team up or compete against one another. On the competitive side, there is a coin-collecting game, a Smash Bros.-esque platformer battle game where players use items to push others off the level, a version of hide-and-seek where players can transform into objects to hide, and more.

For those who are looking for more of a co-op experience, Nintendo showed a Bob-omb Relay mode where players must work together to ferry a Bob-omb across a level before it explodes, a mode where one player places blocks that another uses to traverse gaps, and one where a group of players must time their jumps in order to raise a platform.

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Today, during the Nintendo Direct livestream, Nintendo revealed that both Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 will be released on Nintendo Switch 2 in a $70 single bundle and individually ($40 each) on October 2.

The bundle will be part of the Super Mario 40th Anniversary celebration, which also includes the newly-titled Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which was teased just before the Galaxy announcement. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hits theaters in April 2026.

The two space-faring adventures weren't the only Mario-related games announced during the Nintendo Direct, with Super Mario Bros. Wonder Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park and Mario Tennis Fever also revealed. A brand-new game starring Mario's loyal steed, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, rounded out the Super Mario Bros. 40th Anniversary block of announcements.

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The sequel to the Super Mario Bros. Movie is coming in 2026, and Nintendo shared more details during its latest Nintendo Direct presentation. The movie is called The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and it's set for release on April 3, 2026. The movie carries the Super Mario Galaxy name, but will appear to fans of all Mario games, producer Chris Meledandri said.

The cast has been confirmed as well, including the returning cast from the 2023 film:

• Chris Pratt as Mario
• Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach
• Jack Black as Bowser
• Charlie Day as Luigi
• Keegan-Michael Key as Toad
• Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek

The first teaser trailer has been revealed as well, showing off the movie's impressive-looking visuals. Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, who directed the 2023 blockbuster Mario animated movie, are coming back. Screenwriter Matthew Fogel is also returning, with Brian Tyler coming back as well to compose the score.

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Anyone who has played Donkey Kong Bananza can tell you the best part is the natural feeling of destroying terrain. So what if you could do that forever? A roguelike mode, Emerald Rush, will let you smash stuff indefinitely and earn rewards along the way. The paid expansion is $20, and available now.

In Emerald Rush, Void Kong recruits you to gather a new currency, Emeralds. Emeralds work just like Gold does in the main game, but in Emerald Rush you need to collect it quickly. Void Kong will give you quotas to gather Emeralds, and you'll need to smash like mad for a few minutes at a time to gather them. Each round will also have several special objectives to complete for an Emerald bonus, like defeating a particular herd of enemies, smashing through a certain amount of rock, or high-fiving a rhino. Completing one objective in the chain prompts another, urging you to rush across the map to find it.

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You need to have completed the base game to unlock Emerald Rush, but your abilities will be wiped clean, so you won't immediately be the destructive force that you built up over the course of the story campaign. Instead, you'll find bananas mixed into the earth that grant you specific abilities like Turf Surf and Wind Up Punch, or Bananza skills like the Ostrich egg drop. To mix things up, every few rounds those skill-granting bananas are randomly reassigned. Meanwhile, finding fossils will unlock perks like increased Emeralds, higher chances of treasure chests, and so on, and you can stack those perks to multiply their effects.

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8BitDo has revealed an officially licensed controller themed around the popular free-to-play RPG Honkai: Star Rail. Just like the recently released Wuchang: Fallen Feathers collaboration, the Honkai: Star Rail model is an Ultimate 2 Wireless Controller for PC, Apple devices, and Android. The design revolves around Evernight, the mysterious upcoming playable character that's set to join Honkai: Star Rail soon.

The Honkai: Star Rail: Evernight 8BitDo Ultimate 2 is available to preorder starting today for $70, which is 10 bucks more than the price of the regular editions (and five bucks more than the Wuchang model). The controller is slated to release this fall; Amazon currently lists the launch date as October 16.

8BitDo is also releasing a Collector's Bundle that comes with four stick caps, a themed, hardshell carrying case, temporary tattoo stickers, and a glittery coaster featuring Evernight.

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As part of Mario's 40th anniversary celebrations, Nintendo announced a new Yoshi game for Nintendo Switch 2 at the September 2025 Nintendo Direct. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book takes the eponymous dinosaur into a storybook for a new adventure. The colorful platformer is scheduled for a Spring 2026 launch.

The trailer begins with a giant sentient book named Mr. E (for "encyclopedia") crash-landing onto Yoshi's Island. One of the Yoshis jumps into the book to investigate the menagerie of mysterious creatures documented inside the book in an unknown language.

Instantly, Yoshi befriends a flower creature, which rides its back. The 2D art style resembles a hand-drawn, illustrated children's book, and the characters move in a stylistically and deliberately choppy animation style, similar to that of the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse films.

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Battlefield Studios has kicked off testing for the Battlefield 6 battle royale mode for Battlefield Labs testers, and while people in the test are forbidden from publishing their footage, that's exactly what has happened. Footage has emerged online, showing off a good look at the map, vehicles, and combat.

People are reacting positively to the leak, but it remains to be seen if Electronic Arts will attempt to scrub the footage from the internet. A second video reveals the drop-in sequence in the battle royale mode. You can see the footage for yourself in the videos below (via Insider Gaming).

Battle Royal RHIB boat and Tank Gameplay
byu/RevivedTitangil inBattlefield

Earlier this week, Battlefield Studios opened the floodgates on the battle royale mode for Battlefield 6 in terms of information and specifics. The game will support 100-player matches and it will feature Battlefield's trademark destruction elements. The developers also said the battle royale mode will have the deadliest ring in the entire battle royale genre--if you simply touch it, you're dead.

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There's some bad news for those of you who were excited about checking out the early access release of Slay the Spire 2. In a recent Steam news post from developer Mega Crit, it's been announced that the upcoming sequel has been pushed to a "secret Thursday" in March 2026. The roguelike deckbuilder was originally slated for release some time in 2025.

In the post, Mega Crit acknowledged that this isn't news anyone wanted, including itself, but said that the team ultimately needs a bit longer to get it ready for its early access launch. "There's no single dramatic reason," the post explains. "Some personal life stuff hit the team (everyone's okay!), we kept saying, 'wouldn't it be cool if …' one too many times, and honestly, the game just needs more polish to meet our standards."

The post did come with an FAQ to get ahead of some likely questions, the first of which asking whether the delay is due to noted game delayer Hollow Knight: Silksong. Mega Crit explained that the team had actually discussed the game's delay prior to Silksong's release date being announced, saying, "but on the bright side, everyone can keep busy playing Silksong during the wait!"

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Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is the next chapter in Nintendo's long-running fantasy RPG franchise, and it'll be coming to Switch 2 in 2026.

The trailer for the latest entry in the turn-based tactics series invokes ancient Rome and its famous coliseum, with a cast of characters all choosing to participate in the arena's battles for their own personal reasons. A new blue-haired protagonist, Cai, enters the coliseum to save his father's life, while another main character, Theodora, looks to build her strength to better serve her people.

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave definitely looks to be set in the same continuity as 2019's Fire Emblem: Three Houses. An adult version of a familiar character, the mysterious Sothis, appears at the end of the trailer for Fortune's Weave and comments how "the years were long" and wonders if she's been forgotten. The trailer also shows characters wielding bone-like weapons called Heroes' Relics, another feature from Three Houses.

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As Valve changes the way it handles adult content on Steam, it's been revealed that games containing "mature themes" will no longer be accepted for Steam Early Access. The update comes as anti-porn lobbyists continue to put pressure on adult games, working through the payment processors that storefronts like Steam and Itch.io rely on.

Dammitbird, the developer behind adult action RPG Heavy Hearts, revealed on X that their game had been rejected from Early Access due to its adult themes. "Your app has failed our review because we're unable to support the Early Access model of development for a game with mature themes," the rejection message from Steam, as shared online by Dammitbird.

"Due to current events, I panicked and contacted my publisher to help me get on Steam Early Access," Dammitbird said to GamesMarkt about their application. "The general rule is that your game should be about 65% done before doing EA. Well, we are about 70% done so the time was right anyway. But now, all of a sudden and without a policy announcement, the rules have changed and now I can't join Steam EA."

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Since its release in 2020, there have been a number of small DLC releases for Crusader Kings 3. But few have inspired the overwhelmingly bad word of mouth that the recently dropped Coronations has received on Steam. Players aren't just disappointed in this release, they're angry as well. Now, PDS Black QA Manager has come forward to apologize to players and accept the blame for the DLC's broken state.

The QA Manager, Riad, shared his message on Steam alongside update 1.17.0.1, which is meant to fix some of the players' complaints. Coronations added the ability for players to have their rulers crowned in an official ceremony, and introduced oaths made to the people of their kingdom. However, many of the oaths are either incredibly difficult to achieve, or the game simply didn't register them as complete. The Steam reviews for Coronations have been merciless, and the response is currently marked as "overwhelmingly negative."

"I'm sorry," wrote Riad. "Coronations was not up to the standard you deserve, and that's on me. As the QA Manager for the studio, it is my job to ensure that our releases meet the [quality assurance] vision we have set out. It is clear we didn't give the project the resources and attention it needed, and the result was a release that let you down. You have every right to be upset, and I want to acknowledge that openly."

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Borderlands 4 has been one of the most anticipated games of the year. It launched on Steam earlier this week with over 175,000 concurrent players. However, the game's negative reviews on Steam are also piling up, and the most common complaints come down to Borderlands 4's poor performance on PC.

Steam user Satan Claus calls Borderlands 4 the "unholy trio of pricing, UE5, and Denuvo." Although Satan Claus calls the title "the best Borderlands since 2"--with praise for the writing, gunplay, and the world--he added that "none of that matters when you can't play for more than ten minutes without a hitch, a crash, or your frames falling off a cliff. It's like locking a gourmet meal behind a glass case and handing us a plastic fork."

Rej cited Borderlands 4's "terrible optimization" and noted that it's "not worth buying in its current state unless you have a NASA PC." Nate left a positive review, but still felt the need to mention that "it really is [frustrating] when even me with a 4070ti super can barely get 60 fps with upscaling. This is a cartoon game. Fix optimization with a few updates and I think this could be really good. But wow, this may be some of the worst optimization ever."

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Hollow Knight: Silksong has only been out for a little over a week, and this sequel is putting up some crazy numbers. Silksong pulled in five million players in just a few days, and that's without any mobile options. There isn't an official mobile port of Silksong yet, but there is a way you can play your Steam cloud saves on your Android phone.

As seen on The Verge, GameSir's newly released GameHub version 5.0 emulates Windows so well that Silksong is playable on Android phones. As alluded above, players can access their saved games from Steam and essentially pick up where they left off at home.

There are some drawbacks to using GameHub to continue your Silksong adventures. For one thing, it's not currently possible to make a save on GameHub that can be uploaded to Steam. That's an issue GameSir is currently trying to solve. Silksong also proved to be very taxing on Android, and it achieved the best results when attached to a cooling plate and fan that allowed the game to hit 100 fps.

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In 2014, the original Endless Legend was a turn-based 4X fantasy-strategy game that sent players to a world called Auriga. Later this month, Endless Legend 2 is charting a course for an oceanic world named Saiadha. Now, developer Amplitude Studios has revealed that Endless Legend 2 will be a day one release on PC Game Pass as it hits early access.

Earlier this year, Amplitude Studios announced this sequel with an unsettling trailer that suggests the planet is a prison for an unnamed god-like entity and that the oceans are its chains. The "god" narrating the trailer was also confident that one of the warring factions would be foolish enough to release it.

Endless Legend 2 gives players the option to pick from six different factions and races as they strive to dominate the ever-changing landscape of Saiadha. Their actions will determine how quickly the players' faction is able to expand the reach of their territory at the expense of their rivals. Players will be able to control four factions during the game's early access period, with two more factions to follow when the game gets its full release.

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After being abandoned by his wife, Medoo faces his disgrace going to the nearest bar to drown his sorrows in vodka. What started as a marriage crisis will soon become an unexpected, surreal and twisted journey surrounded by quirky fellow travelers. NetherWorld is a pixel art action-adventure narrative experience, and also a dark and decadent land full of filthy creatures.

A great selection package has been introduced that allows four types of RPG to be enjoyed at once. Asdivine Kamura - Take back a stolen world in the new saga from the acclaimed RPG series of Asdivine, this time based in a world reminiscent of ancient Japan! Alphadia Genesis - Full-fledged fantasy RPG experience with stunning 3D battles! Lost Dragon - Find the Dragon Tools of legend to stand up to the Evil Dragon in a fantasy RPG! Dragon Lapis - The dawn of a new hero! A tale spanning a thousand years now begins to unfold!