Nintendo packed a whole bunch of news into Mario Day this year, including the announcement of release dates for two classics that have been modernized for the Switch: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD. Both titles were announced last fall during Nintendo Direct. Paper Mario will drop first, on May 23, followed by Luigi’s Mansion on June 27, but both are available for pre-order now on the Nintendo Switch store for $60.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Doorwas first released for the GameCube (deep breath) 20 years ago, and Nintendo says the new Switch version will have “revamped graphics, and a suite of additional changes that make the game easier than ever to enjoy.” Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, which you may remember as Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, originally came out for the 3DS in 2013. Now that just leaves the first Luigi’s Mansion that we’re still waiting on for Switch...
Alongside the games’ release dates, Nintendo also announced that it’s working on a followup to last year’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie. That’s set to come out in 2026. Lego and Nintendo also announced three new Mario-themed Lego sets that will be released this year — the Bowser Express Train, King Boo’s Haunted Mansion and Battle with Roy at Peach’s Castle — and a Mario Kart set that will drop in 2025.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/paper-mario-the-thousand-year-door-and-luigis-mansion-2-hd-get-switch-release-dates-172653147.html?src=rss
Lego and Nintendo are releasing a Mario Kart-themed set, but you’ll have to wait quite a while until you can actually get it. The companies announced the upcoming addition to their collaborative line in a brief teaser today ahead of Mario Day (March 10), which said only “Mario Kart — Ready, set, build! Racing in 2025.” That’s a long way off for anyone whose immediate reaction was, “I need this now.” In the meantime, though, Lego has three other sets coming to its Super Mario collection before that: the Bowser Express Train, King Boo’s Haunted Mansion and Battle with Roy at Peach’s Castle.
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) March 9, 2024
Those three sets will be available starting August 1 of this year from $64-$120, with the Bowser Express Train being the most expensive of the batch. If you want a better look at what they’ll include, check out the announcement video from Lego, which goes in-depth on each build.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-mario-kart-lego-set-is-in-the-works-and-it-cant-come-soon-enough-203749692.html?src=rss
Lego and Nintendo are releasing a Mario Kart-themed set, but you’ll have to wait quite a while until you can actually get it. The companies announced the upcoming addition to their collaborative line in a brief teaser today ahead of Mario Day (March 10), which said only “Mario Kart — Ready, set, build! Racing in 2025.” That’s a long way off for anyone whose immediate reaction was, “I need this now.” In the meantime, though, Lego has three other sets coming to its Super Mario collection before that: the Bowser Express Train, King Boo’s Haunted Mansion and Battle with Roy at Peach’s Castle.
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) March 9, 2024
Those three sets will be available starting August 1 of this year from $64-$120, with the Bowser Express Train being the most expensive of the batch. If you want a better look at what they’ll include, check out the announcement video from Lego, which goes in-depth on each build.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-mario-kart-lego-set-is-in-the-works-and-it-cant-come-soon-enough-203749692.html?src=rss
As is always the case between seasons, Epic Games took Fortniteoffline early on Friday to perform some maintenance and get the game ready for all the new stuff fans are about to enjoy. While the downtime typically lasts a few hours, Epic has encountered a problem that's forcing it to delay the start of Chapter 5 Season 2.
"Hey everyone, we encountered an unexpected issue during our maintenance and we need to extend downtime at least 8 additional hours," a 9:14AM ET post on the Fortnite Status X account read. "We apologize for making everyone wait longer than usual to drop into Chapter 5 Season 2 of Battle Royale. The team is working through this as quickly as possible, and we’ll provide another update when we have more info."
Epic provided an update at 4PM, letting fans know that work to bring the game back online was ongoing. "Players will be able to pre-download an updated version of v29.00 in approximately 5 hours," it said. "We’re grateful for your patience and can’t wait for everyone to be able to jump in." That means players won't be able to hop into the new season until at least 9PM, meaning Fortnite will have been offline for around 18 hours.
We’re continuing the work to bring Fortnite back online. Players will be able to pre-download an updated version of v29.00 in approximately 5 hours.
We’re grateful for your patience and can’t wait for everyone to be able to jump in. ⚡💛 pic.twitter.com/lcresJjEuc
The delay is a bit of a pity as the new season looks pretty compelling. It's called Myths and Mortals and it's focused on Greek gods. Along with earning skins for the likes of Aphrodite, Medusa and Poseidon through the battle pass, you can wield mythical powers such as Zeus' lightning bolts and the Wings of Icarus. Epic has added some intriguing new areas to the island as well, including Mount Olympus and Hades' Underworld. A spooky-looking version of the River Styx, which is guarded by Cerberus, leads up to the latter.
Update 3/8 4:40PM ET: Added more details about how long the technical issues are taking to resolve.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/fortnites-new-season-is-delayed-due-to-tech-issues-161538098.html?src=rss
As is always the case between seasons, Epic Games took Fortniteoffline early on Friday to perform some maintenance and get the game ready for all the new stuff fans are about to enjoy. While the downtime typically lasts a few hours, Epic has encountered a problem that's forcing it to delay the start of Chapter 5 Season 2.
"Hey everyone, we encountered an unexpected issue during our maintenance and we need to extend downtime at least 8 additional hours," a 9:14AM ET post on the Fortnite Status X account read. "We apologize for making everyone wait longer than usual to drop into Chapter 5 Season 2 of Battle Royale. The team is working through this as quickly as possible, and we’ll provide another update when we have more info."
Epic provided an update at 4PM, letting fans know that work to bring the game back online was ongoing. "Players will be able to pre-download an updated version of v29.00 in approximately 5 hours," it said. "We’re grateful for your patience and can’t wait for everyone to be able to jump in." That means players won't be able to hop into the new season until at least 9PM, meaning Fortnite will have been offline for around 18 hours.
We’re continuing the work to bring Fortnite back online. Players will be able to pre-download an updated version of v29.00 in approximately 5 hours.
We’re grateful for your patience and can’t wait for everyone to be able to jump in. ⚡💛 pic.twitter.com/lcresJjEuc
The delay is a bit of a pity as the new season looks pretty compelling. It's called Myths and Mortals and it's focused on Greek gods. Along with earning skins for the likes of Aphrodite, Medusa and Poseidon through the battle pass, you can wield mythical powers such as Zeus' lightning bolts and the Wings of Icarus. Epic has added some intriguing new areas to the island as well, including Mount Olympus and Hades' Underworld. A spooky-looking version of the River Styx, which is guarded by Cerberus, leads up to the latter.
Update 3/8 4:40PM ET: Added more details about how long the technical issues are taking to resolve.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/fortnites-new-season-is-delayed-due-to-tech-issues-161538098.html?src=rss
For Engadget’s 20th anniversary, we put together a package of stories about the most pivotal pieces of technology from the past two decades, and mine was on Steam. It’s difficult to overstate how influential Steam is to PC gaming, or how rich the storefront has made Valve. As a private company with infinite piles of Steam cash, Valve has the freedom to ignore market pressure from consumers, creators and competitors. It famously has a flat hierarchy with no strict management structure, and developers are encouraged to follow their hearts.
This has all resulted in an incredibly rich studio that doesn’t produce much. It may be a tired joke that Valve can’t count to three in its games, but we’re not talking about Half-Life today. We’re talking about Valve’s history of buying exciting franchises and talented developers, playing with them for a while, and then forgetting they exist. Real fuckboi behavior — but it’s just how Valve does business.
Let’s take a look at Valve’s history of talent acquisition. One of its oldest franchises, Team Fortress, started as a Quake mod built by a small team in Australia, and Valve bought its developers and the rights to the game in 1998. Team Fortress 2 came out in 2007 and it received a few good years of updates and support. Today, the game has a devoted player base, but it’s riddled with bots and it’s unclear whether anyone at Valve is consistently working on TF2.
Portal began life as a student project called Narbacular Drop, and Valve hired its developers after seeing their demo in 2005. Portal officially came out in 2007, Portal 2 landed in 2011, and both were instant classics. There hasn’t been a whiff of another Portal game since, even though one of the series writers, Erik Wolpaw, really, really wants Valve to make Portal 3.
Of all the Valve franchises that have been left to wither and die, I miss Left 4 Dead the most. Turtle Rock started building Left 4 Dead in 2005, and by the time that came out in 2008, Valve had purchased the studio and its IP outright. Citing slow progress and poor communication, Turtle Rock left Valve before helping the company make Left 4 Dead 2 in 2009. Turtle Rock went on to release Evolve in 2015 and Black 4 Blood in 2021, and is now owned by Tencent. Meanwhile, I’m here, dreaming of that third Left 4 Dead game.
In 2010, Valve secured the rights to the Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients, and hired its lead developer. Dota 2 came out in 2013 and became an incredibly successful esports title. Now, eleven years later, Dota 2 players are complaining about a lack of support and communication from Valve, especially in comparison with games like League of Legends.
Counter-Strike has received the most attention from Valve in recent memory, with the rollout of Counter-Strike 2 late last year. The original Counter-Strike was a Half-Life mod, and Valve acquired it and its developers in 2000. Counter-Strike 2 is the fifth installment in the series, released 11 years after its predecessor, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. After this recent attention, it’s about time for Valve to start ignoring the Counter-Strike community again.
Valve has quietly continued to make acquisitions. In 2018, Valve hired all 12 developers at Firewatch studio Campo Santo, who were at the time working on a very-rad-looking new game, In the Valley of Gods. This could turn out to be another spectacular, genre-defining franchise for Valve’s resume of acquired IP, but there have been no updates from that team in nearly six years. In April 2018, Campo Santo said they were still building In the Valley of Gods at Valve, and promised regular blog posts and quarterly reviews. And then, nothing.
Matt Wood worked at Valve for 17 years, where he helped build Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal 2, CS:GO and both episodes of Half-Life 2. He left in 2019 and is now preparing to release his first independent game, Little Kitty, Big City. Wood told me in 2023 that Valve was “sitting on their laurels a little bit, and it’s like they weren’t really challenging themselves, taking risks or doing anything. Steam’s making a lot of money so they don’t really have to.”
Steam’s unwavering success has helped turn Valve into a senior resort community for computer science nerds, where game developers go to live out their final years surrounded by fantastic amenities, tinkering and unsupervised. It’s a lovely scenario. At least developers there aren’t getting laid off — and I mean that sincerely. Steam is a great service, and Valve seems at least temporarily committed to the Steam Deck hardware, which is very cool. Still, I miss the games that Valve devoured. I have to wonder if the developers there do, too.
Valve’s treatment of legendary franchises and developers raises questions about its commitment to… anything, including Steam. What happens if Valve decides to pivot, or sell, or Gabe Newell retires and blows everything up? What would happen if Steam shut down? As a service with native DRM, all of our games would instantly disappear. Just like all those game devs.
This week's news
Playdate update
Playdate is one of my favorite gaming gadgets of the past decade, not only because it has an incredibly cute crank, but also because its low-res screen belies a buffet of strange and beautiful experiences pushing the boundaries of traditional play. Panic held a showcase for new Playdate games last week and the headliner was Lucas Pope’s Mars After Midnight, which is coming out on March 12. Pope is the developer of Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn, two incredible games, and Mars After Midnight is set in the doorway of a crowded alien colony. Pope’s games were made for Playdate, this time literally.
Yuzu and Citra are gone
A week after Nintendo threatened to sue the creators of Yuzu into oblivion, the popular Switch emulator has been pulled off the market as part of a $2.4 million settlement. To make matters worse for the emulation community, the lead developer of Yuzu announced that they are also killing the 3DS emulator Citra. Both emulators were open-source, so it’s likely we’ll see Citra at least maintained by the broader community. It’s not clear whether anyone is willing to take on a fork of Yuzu and risk a lawsuit.
Bonus Content
Ghost of Tsushima will hit PC on May 16. It comes with all of its DLCs, and Sony says it’ll run on anything from high-end PCs to portable PC gaming devices.
Capcom's Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is apparently coming out this year on PC, PlayStation and Xbox. It debuted at Summer Game Fest and looks pretty unique.
Hadeshits iOS as a Netflix mobile exclusive on March 19. There are currently no plans for an Android version, which sucks for me.
Now Playing
I found This Bed We Made while doing research for the GLAAD Gaming report I covered a few weeks ago, and I’m incredibly pleased about it. This Bed We Made is an exploration and narrative-driven game set in a 1950s hotel, and it’s absolutely oozing drama and mystery. The writing is fantastic, the characters are complex, and there’s a thrilling storyline running through the whole thing. It’s available on PC and consoles now.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/valves-strange-history-of-talent-acquisitions--this-weeks-gaming-news-153020318.html?src=rss
For Engadget’s 20th anniversary, we put together a package of stories about the most pivotal pieces of technology from the past two decades, and mine was on Steam. It’s difficult to overstate how influential Steam is to PC gaming, or how rich the storefront has made Valve. As a private company with infinite piles of Steam cash, Valve has the freedom to ignore market pressure from consumers, creators and competitors. It famously has a flat hierarchy with no strict management structure, and developers are encouraged to follow their hearts.
This has all resulted in an incredibly rich studio that doesn’t produce much. It may be a tired joke that Valve can’t count to three in its games, but we’re not talking about Half-Life today. We’re talking about Valve’s history of buying exciting franchises and talented developers, playing with them for a while, and then forgetting they exist. Real fuckboi behavior — but it’s just how Valve does business.
Let’s take a look at Valve’s history of talent acquisition. One of its oldest franchises, Team Fortress, started as a Quake mod built by a small team in Australia, and Valve bought its developers and the rights to the game in 1998. Team Fortress 2 came out in 2007 and it received a few good years of updates and support. Today, the game has a devoted player base, but it’s riddled with bots and it’s unclear whether anyone at Valve is consistently working on TF2.
Portal began life as a student project called Narbacular Drop, and Valve hired its developers after seeing their demo in 2005. Portal officially came out in 2007, Portal 2 landed in 2011, and both were instant classics. There hasn’t been a whiff of another Portal game since, even though one of the series writers, Erik Wolpaw, really, really wants Valve to make Portal 3.
Of all the Valve franchises that have been left to wither and die, I miss Left 4 Dead the most. Turtle Rock started building Left 4 Dead in 2005, and by the time that came out in 2008, Valve had purchased the studio and its IP outright. Citing slow progress and poor communication, Turtle Rock left Valve before helping the company make Left 4 Dead 2 in 2009. Turtle Rock went on to release Evolve in 2015 and Black 4 Blood in 2021, and is now owned by Tencent. Meanwhile, I’m here, dreaming of that third Left 4 Dead game.
In 2010, Valve secured the rights to the Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients, and hired its lead developer. Dota 2 came out in 2013 and became an incredibly successful esports title. Now, eleven years later, Dota 2 players are complaining about a lack of support and communication from Valve, especially in comparison with games like League of Legends.
Counter-Strike has received the most attention from Valve in recent memory, with the rollout of Counter-Strike 2 late last year. The original Counter-Strike was a Half-Life mod, and Valve acquired it and its developers in 2000. Counter-Strike 2 is the fifth installment in the series, released 11 years after its predecessor, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. After this recent attention, it’s about time for Valve to start ignoring the Counter-Strike community again.
Valve has quietly continued to make acquisitions. In 2018, Valve hired all 12 developers at Firewatch studio Campo Santo, who were at the time working on a very-rad-looking new game, In the Valley of Gods. This could turn out to be another spectacular, genre-defining franchise for Valve’s resume of acquired IP, but there have been no updates from that team in nearly six years. In April 2018, Campo Santo said they were still building In the Valley of Gods at Valve, and promised regular blog posts and quarterly reviews. And then, nothing.
Matt Wood worked at Valve for 17 years, where he helped build Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal 2, CS:GO and both episodes of Half-Life 2. He left in 2019 and is now preparing to release his first independent game, Little Kitty, Big City. Wood told me in 2023 that Valve was “sitting on their laurels a little bit, and it’s like they weren’t really challenging themselves, taking risks or doing anything. Steam’s making a lot of money so they don’t really have to.”
Steam’s unwavering success has helped turn Valve into a senior resort community for computer science nerds, where game developers go to live out their final years surrounded by fantastic amenities, tinkering and unsupervised. It’s a lovely scenario. At least developers there aren’t getting laid off — and I mean that sincerely. Steam is a great service, and Valve seems at least temporarily committed to the Steam Deck hardware, which is very cool. Still, I miss the games that Valve devoured. I have to wonder if the developers there do, too.
Valve’s treatment of legendary franchises and developers raises questions about its commitment to… anything, including Steam. What happens if Valve decides to pivot, or sell, or Gabe Newell retires and blows everything up? What would happen if Steam shut down? As a service with native DRM, all of our games would instantly disappear. Just like all those game devs.
This week's news
Playdate update
Playdate is one of my favorite gaming gadgets of the past decade, not only because it has an incredibly cute crank, but also because its low-res screen belies a buffet of strange and beautiful experiences pushing the boundaries of traditional play. Panic held a showcase for new Playdate games last week and the headliner was Lucas Pope’s Mars After Midnight, which is coming out on March 12. Pope is the developer of Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn, two incredible games, and Mars After Midnight is set in the doorway of a crowded alien colony. Pope’s games were made for Playdate, this time literally.
Yuzu and Citra are gone
A week after Nintendo threatened to sue the creators of Yuzu into oblivion, the popular Switch emulator has been pulled off the market as part of a $2.4 million settlement. To make matters worse for the emulation community, the lead developer of Yuzu announced that they are also killing the 3DS emulator Citra. Both emulators were open-source, so it’s likely we’ll see Citra at least maintained by the broader community. It’s not clear whether anyone is willing to take on a fork of Yuzu and risk a lawsuit.
Bonus Content
Ghost of Tsushima will hit PC on May 16. It comes with all of its DLCs, and Sony says it’ll run on anything from high-end PCs to portable PC gaming devices.
Capcom's Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is apparently coming out this year on PC, PlayStation and Xbox. It debuted at Summer Game Fest and looks pretty unique.
Hadeshits iOS as a Netflix mobile exclusive on March 19. There are currently no plans for an Android version, which sucks for me.
Now Playing
I found This Bed We Made while doing research for the GLAAD Gaming report I covered a few weeks ago, and I’m incredibly pleased about it. This Bed We Made is an exploration and narrative-driven game set in a 1950s hotel, and it’s absolutely oozing drama and mystery. The writing is fantastic, the characters are complex, and there’s a thrilling storyline running through the whole thing. It’s available on PC and consoles now.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/valves-strange-history-of-talent-acquisitions--this-weeks-gaming-news-153020318.html?src=rss
Microsoft is deepening its ties with the Ukrainian cloud gaming company Boosteroid. Beginning today, Xbox Game Pass subscribers (PC Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate) with a Boosteroid membership can stream Game Pass titles along with supported titles purchased through the Microsoft Store on Windows.
Boosteroid, founded in 2016 in Kyiv, Ukraine, said last year it had over four million users globally. In May 2023, Microsoft inked a 10-year deal with the company to try to convince antitrust regulators it would handle its Activision Blizzard acquisition responsibly. Around the same time, Microsoft struck similar decade-long deals with Nintendo and NVIDIA to bring Call Of Duty games to their platforms.
To stream Game Pass (or Microsoft Store) titles, install the Boosteroid app and sign in. Then, browse to the Library tab and select Xbox as a filter. Choose the game you want, click “Play” and log into your Microsoft account with an active PC Game Pass or Game Pass Ultimate membership and confirm.
Boosteroid is available on Windows, macOS, Android and ChromeOS. It also has beta apps for webOS and Android TV.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsofts-game-pass-now-supports-boosteroid-a-third-party-game-streaming-service-194437608.html?src=rss
Microsoft is deepening its ties with the Ukrainian cloud gaming company Boosteroid. Beginning today, Xbox Game Pass subscribers (PC Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate) with a Boosteroid membership can stream Game Pass titles along with supported titles purchased through the Microsoft Store on Windows.
Boosteroid, founded in 2016 in Kyiv, Ukraine, said last year it had over four million users globally. In May 2023, Microsoft inked a 10-year deal with the company to try to convince antitrust regulators it would handle its Activision Blizzard acquisition responsibly. Around the same time, Microsoft struck similar decade-long deals with Nintendo and NVIDIA to bring Call Of Duty games to their platforms.
To stream Game Pass (or Microsoft Store) titles, install the Boosteroid app and sign in. Then, browse to the Library tab and select Xbox as a filter. Choose the game you want, click “Play” and log into your Microsoft account with an active PC Game Pass or Game Pass Ultimate membership and confirm.
Boosteroid is available on Windows, macOS, Android and ChromeOS. It also has beta apps for webOS and Android TV.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsofts-game-pass-now-supports-boosteroid-a-third-party-game-streaming-service-194437608.html?src=rss
Ubisoft+ Classics is now available as a standalone subscription on PlayStation consoles. This is Ubisoft’s curated collection of its back catalog, letting PS4 and PS5 owners play Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed titles until the heat death of the universe. Subscribers can choose from more than 50 games going back more than a decade.
This isn’t a dumping ground for low-reviewed shovelware, as there are plenty of recent hits to choose from. Members can play the well-reviewed Assassin's Creed Valhalla, the squad shooter Rainbow Six Siege, the sidescrolling platformer Rayman Legends and the Giancarlo Esposito simulator Far Cry 6, among many others. All told, there are five Far Cry installments and a whopping 12 Assassin’s Creed games to pick from. The catalog also includes standalone titles like Immortals Fenyx Rising, Child of Light and Valiant Hearts: The Great War.
A subscription to Ubisoft+ Classics for PlayStation costs $8 per month on its own, though it’s still available as part of PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium. So this membership is for Ubisoft superfans who don’t want access to all of the other perks that a dedicated PS Plus membership provides. There must be a few people like that out there, right?
There’s also the Ubisoft+ Premium tier, which costs $18 per month. This pricier membership includes premium editions of the entire back catalog, in addition to day-one access to new releases, early access games, monthly rewards and more. Ubisoft+ Premium, however, is currently only available for Xbox, Amazon Luna and PC.
There is, though, a multiplayer elephant in the room. Games like Rainbow Six Siege aren’t really any fun without other people, but it looks like an Ubisoft+ Classics subscription only provides access to the games and not any online multiplayer component. For that, gamers would have to pony up for a PS Plus membership, which eliminates any of the savings from opting for Ubisoft+ Classics instead of PlayStation Plus Extra or Premium. We reached out to Ubisoft for clarification on this matter.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ubisoft-classics-is-now-available-as-a-standalone-subscription-on-playstation-consoles-173750071.html?src=rss