Destructoid

The Switch UI has been surprisingly dormant since it was released.

While it gets the job done in some respects, it lacks a lot of modern features like folders and other perks. Plus, the menu sound design is a huge downgrade compared to the Wii and Wii U. So every few months someone takes it upon themselves to upgrade the UI with a fan mockup: and I have to say, pretty much all of them are on point.

Take this one from Redditor Frieznburg. It's still elegant and clean, like the current official UI, but it allows users to add games to folders that look uniform with the other game icons. What I really like about it is that it showcases the "hours played" data right there on the main page when you highlight a game, as well as the release date. For reference, they used Figma to craft all this.

This isn't as drastic as some other redesigns, so I suspect that a lot of folks are going to be down with it. One common complaint when it comes to fan mockups is that they're "too busy or superfluous," and to some extent, I do agree that the official setup does look great when juxtaposed to the somewhat messy PS5 OS, or the Xbox interface.

But still, there is a way to add both functionality and flair to the Switch UI, and I'm eagerly awaiting the day that Nintendo actually implements some of these features.

Switch Home Redesign (Fan-Made) [Reddit]

Sony Interactive Entertainment, alongside Insomniac Games, have released a brand new — and very impressive — gameplay trailer for the upcoming platformer Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, which will see the steampunk duo return for another exciting adventure this summer, exclusively on PS5.

[Update: Daisy has also been unlocked via the million dollar stretch goal. Just head here to redeem her for free. You have until August 1, 2021 to claim the rewards for this initiative.]

Look into the eyes of that monkey. He totally wants to eat your player character after you sit down to take a nap. But he's a charity item! So it's probably wholesome. Still...I'm watching you.

Wait where were we! Oh yeah, talking about World of Warcraft freebies. As part of a drive for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), a monkey pet named Bananas is now free for everyone. They were part of the $500,000 goal, with a further stretch goal of $1 million.

At the moment, the drive is sitting at just under $700,000 at publication, so it'll probably take a bit more time to finish out. Note that the Daisy pet can ride on your back though, it seems, so I'm a little more interested in that perk. Oh, and it doesn't look like it wants to murder you.

You can grab Bananas here from the Battle.net Blizzard Shop, in the pets section of World of Warcraft. It's right there at the top, for free, and listed first. The next stop on the charity train is Daisy the sloth at the $1 mil mark. Eventually, that should get unlocked through the same means and will be available in the Blizzard Shop.

Bananas Unlocked! Claim Yours Today and Donate to Unlock Daisy [Battle.net]

This weekend saw the U.S. opening of Warner Bros.' long-in-development adaptation of its gory fighting franchise, Mortal Kombat. And, all things considered, the film has been a success, pulling in domestic box office sales of around $22.5 million USD.

As noted by Deadline, this is the highest opening for an R-rated movie since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has understandably left cinema sales reeling over the past 13 months. Mortal Kombat was screened in almost all re-opened theaters (estimated to be around 60% of the U.S. total) and is available to stream at home on paid service HBO Max — though the money made via the latter is not taken into account.

I don’t have much to say about the sport of sumo. It’s really old and has held onto many of its traditions. It’s also not difficult to get the gist of. Push the other rikishi out of the ring or knock them off their feet. Because of this, size is a major advantage and that gives us the typical image of a sumo wrestler: a rotund mass of human. Immovable objects that walk like men.

It’s interesting to me, but not enough that I’ve gone to the effort of actually seeking it out. If I want a dose of Japanese culture, I typically turn to dating simulators and my Famicom. What luck! Crossover! Way back in 1987, Tecmo released Tsuppari Oozumou, a simulation of the sport. Sort of.

Cblogs of 4/17 to 4/23/2021

-Egg&Brewsterjr gives thanks for the fan translation of Marvelous: Mohitotsu no Takarajima.

-BRAV0 F1VE reviews indie game Narita Boy.

-Gamingnerd looks back at the history of the Metal Slug franchise on its 25th anniversary.

-Lord Spencer writes a report about 11 games as part of his PS1 REVIEWS blogging series.

-Dinoracha reviews Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Switch.

-Gamingnerd looks back at the history of the Wonder Boy franchise on its 35th anniversary.

-Lord Spencer updates his PS1 REVIEWS List where you can suggest games for him to review.

-Mr. Knives share his thoughts on the Dread X Collection of bit-sized games.

-Osc updates us on the progress of their hobbyist game.

-ABowlOfCereal continues the discussion on balancing Guardian Heroes.

-ChronoLynxx opens another TGIF open community forum thread.

Nightdive Studios does important work. Sure, there are a lot of companies out there that are all about remaking and remastering old games, but few of them dredge the bottom of the swamp for games that lay forgotten by time. It’s one thing to resurrect a game that was near and dear to many, but it’s another thing to dust one off that a lot of people may have missed out on. Not everyone remembers Strife or Forsaken, but they’re no less deserving of a remaster than, say, Kingdom Hearts.

This time they’ve dug up a body that I recognize, but I swear I don’t know how it got there. Shadow Man is a 1999 game from Acclaim that landed on the PC, N64, PS1, and Dreamcast. I recall seeing it on the rental shelf enough that I at least remember it, but I think it was too out there for my young mind, so I never picked it up. This is my first visit to Deadside, and I almost wish I dropped in sooner.

The new Mortal Kombat was always going to be a hard sell.

Not only do you have the stigma of video game movies lingering throughout the industry (I don't think Detective Pikachu completely "solved" it), but you have the nostalgia for the 1995 original to compete against.

It's an uphill battle for sure, and we spoke to director Simon McQuoid, Lewis Tan (Cole), and Mehcad Brooks (Jax) about that Sisyphean theatrical journey.

2018's Wandersong was a game about a bard, who used the power of music and singing to change people's lives for the better. There were grander stakes for sure, but at its core, it was about helping people and singing. A lot of singing.

Developer Greg Lobanov is back, but rather than dulcet tones, he's turned to brushstrokes and watercolors with Chicory: A Colorful Tale, an upcoming game about painting the world. The titular Chicory is a hero, a legendary artist who wields the powerful and magical Brush. You don't play her; you're just her number-one fan, who cleans up after Chicory's messes, until one day Chicory vanishes and you're left in possession of the Brush in a world that's suddenly devoid of color.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. I think about that title a lot.

It may not even be the weirdest game name. But it stuck in my mind as one of the quintessential "Square Enix" titles in recent memory.

The thing is, NieR actually earns the right to be weird. So I'll type out NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139... just this once! Because the game deserves that respect.

After last weekend's first of two demo slices for Resident Evil Village, I feel like we're a bit better equipped to handle Capcom's ridiculous constraints. Tomorrow evening, the castle portion will be playable — but only for a limited time in-game and a limited time in real life. Let's do another rundown.

Plenty of people pre-loaded the PS4 or PS5 early access demo for Resident Evil Village only to realize that it wasn't playable by the time they showed up and settled in. As it turns out, you have to be online to play, and if you fall outside Capcom's strict access window, the demo won't let you do anything.

As you can see in this demo schedule, there's an eight-hour window in which PS4 and PS5 players can fully launch the castle demo, and it starts on Saturday, April 24 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific. The double-whammy caveat is that within this window, you only get 30 minutes of playtime with the castle.

Twisted Metal was an institution on the PlayStation. Much like the landmark titles Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Resident Evil, it exploded its genre, resulting in a bevy of pretenders. For Twisted Metal, it was vehicular combat; average, everyday cars with guns taped to them battling it out for supremacy. Games like Interstate ‘76 and Carmageddon would step up to try and take the throne over the next decade.

It was followed up a year later with Twisted Metal 2, a game that had a significant impact on my childhood. It was creepy, edgy, and the right amount of goofy. Discomforting cutscenes, creepy characters, lots of fire; it fit with the mid to late ‘90s theme of pushing the limits of taste. It was also really, stupidly fun.

But then developer Singletrac got bought up and the rights to Twisted Metal stayed with Sony. They passed development onto 989 Studios, a division of theirs that normally just acted as a publisher. Their first result was Twisted Metal III, and we're going to need the jaws of life to get through this wreckage.

_{[Narrated by Josh Picard]}

The year is 2011, and the haunting, distant sounds of the Aperture facility are reverberating through our unfinished basement. My brother's at basketball practice, I have free reign of the Xbox. I've spent the past half hour trying to solve this puzzle, but I'm not getting up until I solve it. "Hello, who's there?" the turrets chirp at me.

They always kind of creeped me out, but I push it aside and… aha! I climb up to the tallest platform in the room, throw myself off with reckless abandon, and land my portal at the last second. Now I'm hurtling through the air, and land gracefully in front of the exit. I pump my fist, celebrating my victory, and feeling like the smartest kid in the world.

Like many of last year's conventions and trade shows, TennoCon, the yearly event that celebrates all things Warframe, had to go all-digital in 2020 due to Covid-19. Because we're still months, if not years, away from nipping this pandemic in the bud, TennoCon 2021 is following suit as Digital Extremes revealed the streaming event will take place on Saturday, July 17.

Just as it was last year, TennoCon 2021 will be free to all, with multiple panels planned for the day-long stream, as well as a community art show and a cosplay contest. While the full schedule of events has yet to be announced, you can throw down some cash early to buy this year's TennoCon Digital Pack and Merch Pack for $24.99 and $44.99, respectively. A bundle of both packs is also available for $64.99, but it can only be redeemed on PC.

This year's charity partner for the event has also been announced. Digital Extremes will make a donation to the Unity Project for Relief of Homelessness with funds raised by the sale of its TennoCon packs. The Unity Project provides emergency housing and shelter for people of all genders age 18 and up in London, Ontario, Canada.

TennoCon 2021 [Warframe]

Believe it or don't, there are still plenty of old-school shmups yet to join Hamster's enormous Arcade Archives release. At least this week's sees one more knocked off the list, with the arrival of Konami's '80s hybrid-shmup A-JAX, now available to download on Nintendo Switch.

Released in arcades in 1987, (before making the leap to home computers under the title Typhoon), A-JAX puts players in the pilot seat of a "Tom Tiger" helicopter and a "Jerry Mouse" jet fighter (I don't know either) as they fire-and-forget their way through alternate vertically scrolling and into-the-screen shmup sequences. Set in the future times of 2007, it is up to Earth's remaining military forces to liberate the planet from alien invasion, blasting swarms of enemy ships out of the skies while gathering power-ups and other alt weaponry.

A-JAX is a title I remember well, not in its arcade form but certainly in its Typhoon ZX Spectrum form. Today, it's still a pretty playable example of the classic shmup, although the switch between top-view and into-the-screen isn't convincing, with the forced perspective on the latter just feeling a little false. It's still a neat little title, though one might question its $8 price tag. It should also be noted that A-JAX is also available on Konami's Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection.

Check out the action in the video below, courtesy of YouTuber World of Longplays.

My Steam library is far larger than it should be given I'm primarily a console player and I don't even own a gaming PC. But several years ago, it exploded in size when a coworker got me into Humble Bundles. Before then, I'd buy the occasional PC title, usually heavily discounted. With the bundles, I saw it as a fantastic opportunity to purchase a hell of a lot of games that I would ultimately never play while also supporting some of my favorite charities.

I'll admit, whenever I bought a bundle, I didn't give much of my money to the developers or Humble Bundle itself. I'd always move the slider to ensure as much of my purchase as possible would go to charity. Is that a dickish way for me to treat the developers who made their games available through the service? Absolutely. But back when I bought into Humble Bundle, that's just where my priorities were.

Come next month, that will no longer be an option.

As announced on its official blog, Humble Bundle will begin experimenting with a new system that replaces its well-known sliders with two donation options: Default Donation and Extra to Charity. With Default Donation, a $25 purchase will give $21.25 to the publisher, $1.25 to charity, and $2.50 to the Humble Bundle platform. If you select Extra to Charity, the publisher cut will be dropped to $20, Humble Bundle will get $1.25, and the charity will receive $3.75. Basically, you're choosing between a 5% donation or a 15% donation to charity.

For developers, this means a more consistent amount of money from each bundle they participate in. For charities, well, you should probably just start donating money directly to your favorite non-profits. The switch to the new allocation system is set to happen around the end of May alongside some changes to the interface for bundle pages.

Have you had your jab yet? I haven't had my jab yet. This seems pretty weird, as most of my American pals have had theirs, as have my British pals, as have my family. And I'm as old or older than all of these people. Well, except for my parents. I wonder if my clinic has forgotten my number... me, their No.1 customer. I have my own parking spot and everything. The worst part is, in 15 years when you all turn into raving psychotic killers ala Blue Sunshine, it'll be up to me to find a cure to save you and the entire world... And I'm really tired.

Oh, also, welcome to the weekend...

Bandai Namco's action-RPG Scarlet Nexus is set for the summer, and today we got some new looks at what it will look like to smack enemies around with your brain powers while playing as its protagonists.

In the first cut, Yuito takes on a big enemy called the "Slippy Chinery" by using Pyrokinesis on it. Like I've always said, when in doubt, fire is probably the way forward.

And while Yuito can do plenty of rad-looking slams and mind attacks, fellow controllable character Kasane can also use telekinesis, taking out groups of monsters (called "Others") at a time.

Bandai Namco has been slowly trickling out more about Scarlet Nexus leading up to its June 25 launch date, including looks at some of its massive battles and the gameplay outside of those scraps too. It's got a fantastic look to it, and after the success of other stylized action games like Astral Chain, maybe this is a next-gen mind-masher to look out for.

Scarlet Nexus comes to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on June 25, 2021.

Since launching on March 26, Hazelight's co-op adventure game It Takes Two has sold a million copies across PC and consoles, and it's "still going strong," according to the developer. You love to see it.

Wow!!! Just found out #ItTakesTwo has sold over 1 million copies and is still going strong!
Thank you so much for all the love you’ve shown our game, it means the world to us ❤️

— Hazelight Studios (@HazelightGames) April 23, 2021

As a bigger, bolder, and more inventive follow-up to A Way Out, it'll be interesting to see where these two games end up, sales-wise, once the dust settles — I feel like It Takes Two is only getting started. Quick throwback for context: in 2018, A Way Out cleared a million sales in "just under two weeks."

It Takes Two looked fun and varied leading up to launch, it got high marks from critics, and the word of mouth from the general public has been overwhelmingly positive so far. I've seen people call it a game-of-the-year contender, and while I'm not quite at that level of enthusiasm, I had a wonderful time tearing my way through oversized household locales as a shrunken-down dad doll. It's a perfect long-weekend, nothing-else-going-on game that you can really sink into. For $40, I have no regrets.

New Pokemon Snap is coming very soon to Switch, and in case people didn't know about it, Nintendo just put up a new series of Platinum Point quests.

Here's a quick explainer on how to earn 200 Platinum.

This past week has been one of the biggest in the history of the Call of Duty series. Activision's legendary franchise, which remains the standard-bearer for the shooter genre (at least from a branding and success standpoint), has been dropping explosive headlines daily.

Most of the excitement has been centered around the popular battle royale title Call of Duty: Warzone, which dropped a literal bomb on the multiplayer locale of Verdansk. After the recent zombie infestation became too much to contain, some shady authority decided to go all Return of the Living Dead on us, hitting the big red button and leveling the entire district. In the blast's aftermath, the retro-themed "Verdansk '84" has risen, signifying the merging of CoD: Warzone with CoD: Black Ops: Cold War.

The next Act of Riot Games' tactical FPS Valorant is on the way, but rather than a frigid Icebox, things will get a little brighter. Next week, the Agents of Valorant are headed to Breeze.

A new map, Breeze, is launching alongside the Act 2, Episode 3 battle pass on April 27, 2021. Today, Riot showcased the new locale, set on a remote island within the southern part of the Bermuda Triangle. Totally normal place to have a gunfight.

Senior game designer Sal Garozzo said one of the main goals for Breeze was building "larger and more open spaces with longer sightlines" than other maps in the Valorant pool at the moment. While that sounds great for snipers, it also opens up the potential for some Agents to use their abilities in new ways—long-reaching sight-denial moves, like Viper's Toxic Screen or Astra's ultimate, probably come in handy for those long lines.

There's also a new battle pass to dump experience into, with new gun skins, player cards, gun buddies, and sprays to pick up. As always, there is a free track and a paid track for $9.99, and the pass will run from April 27 through June 21, 2021.

It's been a long time coming, but Bethesda is basically ready to launch the next big update for Fallout 76: Locked and Loaded.

Everything is good to go for April 27, and it's been tested in the PTR for quite some time and is bug-free enough to launch. Let's start with the new video showcasing the finalized features.

The Switch just turned four this past year, which means that it has quite a hefty amount of history already.

It's hard to believe that it's been around that long, but publishers have been drawn to it like a prospector to a gold mine: as evidenced by the 30-40 games that flood the eShop each and every week. Also, if there's a game that can possibly be ported to it, it probably exists.

That list is growing all the time, and now it includes all five Shantae games throughout WayForward history. With the original hitting Switch just yesterday, the catalog is complete.

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) has revealed its winner's list for the 2021 iteration of The DICE Awards, celebrating some of the fine releases that hit the market during last year — arguably one of the best gaming years in recent history.

The list reads as a who's who of 2021's finery, with awards dished out to Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II, Sucker Punch's Ghost of Tsushima, Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII Remake, Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Activision's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2. Even VR got in on the action, with an appearance by Valve's Half-Life: Alyx.

I can't say I'm surprised at this point that Bungie would take a concept as old and as simple as transmogrification (cosmetic changes) and "Bungiefy it." They've done it so many times in both Destiny 1 and 2 that I'm immune to it.

Did anyone expect the long-awaited transmog system to go swimmingly?

It's a one-two blow of news from Team Yakuza's violent detective thriller Judgment, which launches today on PS5, Xbox Series X, and Stadia. In fitting with the occasion, Sega has opened a mysterious website, which is counting down the hours to a forthcoming announcement.

The simple site, which features support for multiple languages, features a single fish-eyed image of the fictional district of Kamurocho, which plays host to both Judgment and the legendary Yakuza franchise. A foreboding clock counts down to "Judgment Day," which will apparently take place on May 7, 2021. Looks like Sarah Connor was wrong all along.

A whole lotta folks got into Monster Hunter Rise this past month, and now they're going to be riding on the typical Monster Hunter wave of free content.

That first wave is coming very soon, as Capcom has confirmed that the free Version 2.0 update will be coming soon, and will include Apex Rathalos and Chameleos, as well as "much more." That will actually debut on April 27 at 7AM PT, and you can find the link to the stream here.

Thankfully, Capcom is giving us a little heads up from a practical point of view even if Version 2.0 is still shrouded in mystery. They're warning players that you'll need roughly 0.9GB of space to install it if you already have the game housed on your Switch; or 1.5GB of space in total for new players. Handy!

With Iceborne being so successful, it's highly likely that Capcom already has a big expansion up their sleeve, possibly after the PC edition launches in early 2022. The Switch is only growing in popularity, and Monster Hunter is constantly cracking the top 10 all-time Capcom best-seller list these days, so they want to keep the good times rolling as long as possible.

Rise should be healthy for the rest of the year, but expect it to blow up again with the PC edition.

Monster Hunter Rise [Twitter]

CD Projekt RED has announced that it sold 13.7 million copies of Cyberpunk 2077 in the final few weeks of 2020, quickly making the future-noir RPG the Polish developer's best-selling release to date. Of this number, 56% of sales were on PC, 28% came from PS4, with the remaining 17% on Xbox One. Overall CDPR's profit grew 558% year-on-year.

After an expensive development process and several delays, CDPR's sci-fi adventure arrived in December 2020 in a famously disastrous state — at least in regard to its console editions, neither of which had been offered to news outlets for review. Plagued with technical issues, Cyberpunk 2077 would find itself removed from the official stores of platform holders such as PlayStation, and would even be served class action lawsuits from grumpy shareholders.

Apologies were made as the publisher scrambled to repair the hammer blow to its then pristine reputation for polished, high-quality releases. Through its rapidly-launched "Help Me Refund" program, CDPR received requests for only 30,000 refunds out of 13-million-plus sales (though this figure does not account for refunds made directly through other platforms, such as PlayStation Store, for example).

Sony has stated that it is making efforts to increase production on its tough-to-find next-gen hardware, PlayStation 5. Speaking in an interview with Nikkei Business (as translated by VGC) CEO Jim Ryan talked of the issues Sony faced has in both the manufacture and worldwide distribution of the new console, already six months into its lifespan.

"There are several reasons why PS5 was hard to come by," said Ryan. "Supply under the new coronavirus was very complicated, and we had to limit distribution to online. The supply and demand for semiconductors is also tight worldwide. We are asking our suppliers to allow us to increase production, which will flow into the market this year."

It's a surprisingly paradoxical situation, as while the PS5 has been a difficult console to purchase in almost all global territories, Sony's fancy new box has still bagged the title of fastest-selling console in U.S. history, with an estimated 4.5 million units sold in 2020 and well over six million units sold in total. In regards to software, PS5 is still struggling to get out of the starting blocks, with Housemarque's upcoming Returnal being the brand's first major exclusive in months.

Ryan also touched upon this subject of exclusive games, stating his belief that the PS5 platform would eventually see more "more dedicated software than ever before", while not ruling out the possibility of further studio acquisitions. It has been a staggered start for gaming's new dawn, more so than even previous gens. But with each new generation, console lifespans only increase — and as such it remains very early days for PlayStation 5.

Imagine this: a fast-shooting action-platformer with wrap-around 360-degree levels like Resogun.

Actually, wait, you don't need to! That game exists, and it's called Orbital Bullet. After recently catching it in the Popular Upcoming list on Steam, I jumped in and realized two hours had flown by. The Steam Early Access version launched today, and while there's room to freshen up the UI, the core roguelite shooter premise already feels fantastic — and I love the funky almost-but-not-quite-PS1 aesthetic.

I know roguelite burnout is a very real concern, but this one's pretty special.

The back catalog has been growing on Xbox, and several Electronic Arts games are getting a little boost to their performance on newer consoles.

Earlier this year, Microsoft detailed FPS Boost, a new tool for making older games run even better on Xbox Series X and S. A few games, like Bethesda titles Fallout 76 and Dishonored already got their FPS Boost. Today, several EA games are joining the lineup.

Battlefield 1, 4, and V; Mirror's Edge Catalyst; Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare, Garden Warfare 2, and Battle for Neighborville; Star Wars Battlefront and Battlefront II; Titanfall and Titanfall 2; and Unravel 2 are all getting support for 120hz on Xbox Series X. Battlefield 4, Unravel 2, the first Battlefront, both Titanfall games and all three Plants vs. Zombies games are also getting 120hz support on Xbox Series S, and Sea of Solitude gets a 60hz boost on both consoles.

You can find the full list of games supporting FPS Boost, as well as which games have it turned off by default, on this blog post. Considering that all these games are also in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate thanks to it adding EA Play, that's a bunch of newly FPS-boosted games to play.

The Epic Games Store is giving out two freebies this week — one title you've no doubt already played (if you were ever going to try it), and one you might've missed that's worth a fair look. Today through April 29, 2021, you can claim Alien: Isolation and Hand of Fate 2 for free for your bustling PC library.

This isn't the first time Alien: Isolation has been free on the Epic Store, but it's worth highlighting just in case. Plenty of people adore this first-person horror experience — it has one of the tensest "stalker" enemies you'll ever encounter — and I adore the lived-in craftsmanship of the world, doubly so given that it's such a beloved movie property done right. That said, I've always found Isolation to be too stressful and long-winded to warrant a replay. Several years later, I still feel like once was plenty.

I do love revisiting player photos from time to time, though. What a looker.

[Update: Today (April 22) is the last day to get nine free PS4 games from Play at Home 2021. So long as you show up and claim them from the PlayStation Store by 8:00 p.m. Pacific, they're yours to keep — no subscription needed. PlayStation VR owners, in particular, shouldn't sleep on this deal.]

We had heard that more free-to-keep PS4 games were coming soon from Sony after the Ratchet & Clank giveaway, but I can't say I was expecting 10 more titles to show up for the Play at Home promo. It's not just about quantity, either – these are all quality releases.

You'll be able to grab nine games from March 25 at 8:00 p.m. Pacific until April 22 at 8:00 p.m.

If you haven't played Guitar Hero since the days of "Through the Fire and the Flames," well, things have come a long way. Modding communities have sprung up and developed new, incredible, seemingly insurmountable challenges. And the only thing better than an impossible challenge is seeing someone thrash it.

Clone Hero competitive player and streamer "CarnyJared" has been working on nailing a 100% Full Combo, or FC, of a custom track called "Soulless 6." It's part of the "Soulless" series of charts, and well, once you see him start playing it, you'll get why it appeared impossible.

It has been tech FC'd before—basically, playing Full Combo'ing it in segments—by another player, though that took not just breaking it up into individual pieces, but swapping guitars and stances. Jared's run is one straight go of it, start to finish.

Though the era of plastic instruments might have faded, it's clear there are still players out there ready to push these guitars and charts to their absolute limits. You can find CarnyJared's Twitch channel, where he livestreamed the FC run and more, here.

[Update: Dead Cells' Whack-a-Mole update released today on PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.]

New weapons? More mutations? Hard-hitting balance tweaks? Where do your eyes dart when scanning the patch notes for a major Dead Cells update? It probably depends on your goals for the game and where you're at with them. For folks stuck in Boss Cell hell, the revamped difficulty curve is a big deal.

In today's Whack-a-Mole update, the difficulty in Dead Cells was rebalanced again:

• BC0: Health fountains in every transition.
• BC1: Health fountain every other transition, with one minor flask when the fountain is missing.
• BC2: No more health fountain, one minor flask in every transition.
• BC3: One minor flask after the first boss and before the second.
• BC4: No more health in any transition, enemies teleport to your position.
• BC5: No more health, enemies teleport, malaise added.

For those who haven't kept up lately, these changes are meant to make things "easier."

Elsewhere in the Whack-a-Mole update, we're getting three amusingly beefy weapons: a doom-inflicting Tombstone, a last-hit-chaining Oven Axe, and a hold-to-charge club called the Toothpick.

There's also three tempting mutations to mull over, two of which speak to me as a tactics player:

It looks like a new way of duking it out is coming to Apex Legends. Today, Respawn Entertainment premiered the launch trailer for its upcoming Legacy update, narrated by a familiar voice for Titanfall fans.

Following the reveal of Valkyrie earlier in the week, today's trailer is narrated by none other than Ash—a former antagonist of Titanfall 2—who seems to be getting in on the battles. Alongside her is a tease of the Arenas, which seems like it could be a new game mode coming to Apex Legends.

Ash has been taking part in the broader Apex Legends lore for some time now—there's even an easter egg with her that recently got added—but it looks like she'll have a pretty direct role in what's to come. "Welcome to the Legacy of the Apex Predators," she says in the trailer as she's standing over a bank of controls. "Welcome to the Arenas."

The full gameplay reveal of Arenas is coming on April 26, and it's tagged with the line "go beyond battle royale," which raises some interesting questions about what type of game mode Respawn might be going for.

We're still almost two months away from the launch of Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection, which sees three classic titles from the Ninja Gaiden franchise remastered and collated for those who like their action-adventures a little on the sadistic side.

The remaster-remake-relaunch of the first Nier game is due out tomorrow, and creative director Yoko Taro has some words to share about it.

Ahead of the launch, Square Enix has shared some messages from both Yoko Taro and producer Yosuke Saito, originally sent to reviewers who were covering the game. And, much like you'd hope from Yoko Taro, the message is not your bog-standard marketing release.

Yoko Taro calls Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139... a "version upgrade," rather than a remake or remaster. Drawing comparisons to Square Enix's own work on Final Fantasy VII Remake, the creator says it would be "terribly inconvenient" to be compared to such a massive game, and so he went with "version upgrade." (Consequently, Yoko Taro says the big string of numbers is something he just "stuck on randomly," so don't worry too much about it.)

You can read the letter in full below:

Hello there everyone, YOKO TARO, Creative Director of NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139... here.

This game is a “version upgrade” of a title released 10 years ago under the name of “NIER”. That’s right, it’s not a remake or a remaster, it’s a “version upgrade”.

In the beginning I only intended for it to be a remaster you know. With some improved resolutions and that… But once I started saying that I would like to tweak the models a bit, or that I wanted to fix up the backgrounds etc., we were soon looking at a lot of fixes and improvements.

I mean, Square Enix recently did that remake of FINAL FANTASY VII right? I saw that and I thought it would be terribly inconvenient to be compared to such a massive blockbuster, so that was when I decided to call Replicant ver.1.22… a “version upgrade”.

Two of SNK's weapon-heavy fighters are getting set to lock horns next week, as Hibiki Takane prepares to cut a swathe of destruction through the roster of Samurai Shodown. The Last Blade's junior samurai will join the SamSho roster as a paid DLC  character April 28.