Nintendo revealed in August that longtime Mario voice actor Charles Martinet would no longer be voicing Mario. Amongst speculation of a different voice actor for Mario in Super Mario Bros. Wonder trailers, Nintendo also announced Martinet was not jumpman's voice in the game, leaving fans to wonder who the new voice is. After months of internet sleuthing, guesswork, and more, Nintendo has confirmed that Genshin Impact voice actor Kevin Afghani is the new voice of Mario. 

"The voice actor's name is Kevin Afghani," Nintendo tells Game Informer in a statement.

Afghani celebrated the news with a tweet today about how excited he is to voice both Mario and Luigi in Super Mario Bros. Wonder. 

Incredibly proud to have voiced Mario and Luigi in Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Thanks to Nintendo for inviting me into the Flower Kingdom!

— Kevin Afghani (@KevinAfghani) October 13, 2023

Afghani's credits include Arnold in the aforementioned Genshin Impact, Raditz in Dragon Ball R&R, and Short Detective, General, and Grunt in the Secret History of Cuphead short.

You are a banshee of speed, a spark crawling its way up a fuse, a disaster waiting to happen. Until –

A scarecrow makes the mistake of turning into a man right before you, a shotgun-toting farmer with the barrel pointed at your face. You greet him with your own shotgun, double-barreled, finger on the trigger.

You eclipse him in a bear hug of bullets and sound. Above you, the sky – already the hue of a bloodhound’s fever dream – is somehow even redder. One moment later, and you’re already gone.

This is Dusk, one of a handful of recent games harkening back to the Doom and Quake era and the invention of the FPS genre itself. Over the past few years, “boomer shooters” like Dusk, Amid Evil, and Ultrakill have awakened a hunger long thought dormant, and publisher New Blood Interactive is on a mission to ensure we remain well-fed.

Knee-Deep In The Dead

In 1993, a shotgun blast thundered throughout millions of American bedrooms. It echoed across college dormitories and office cubicles, casting firework bursts of light onto the faces of whoever witnessed it.

The blast was so powerful it survived a journey across the globe and back, withstanding entire generations without fading away. It afflicted any who heard it with a strange sickness: The fanatical desire to bully digital devils into piles of bloody gibs (i.e., pulpy chunks of gore).

In short, they discovered Doom.

There's something to be said for keeping things simple when it comes to numbers. While games like Disgaea or any given MMO have taken their "number go up" mechanic and pumped it into the stratosphere, Sigil of the Magi keeps its math far simpler and more readable without sacrificing any of the strategic possibility that tactical RPG's allow for.

Developed by solo Singaporean developer Yongjustyong, the Sigil of the Magi is a turn-based tactics RPG with an overarching roguelite element. You start with a team of three characters you can use to fight with, but can eventually unlock a pool of up to nine. Each character has a small deck of attacks and buffs as well as a passive effect, which are simple bonuses that inform the character's role. For example, your starting team's passives place a premium on positioning, especially standing next to allies, and you'll have to choose whether to prioritise placing your heroes next to your Knight so he gains additional armour, or near the Wizard to increase your team's power. Later teams also give bonuses for things like the first card played each turn or on storing cards on the 'card rack' to play later, but the emphasis on positioning remains throughout.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Sonic Superstars have a lot in common. Both feature 2D gameplay that veers close to the original vision for the franchise. Both offer co-op and competitive multiplayer options. Both deliver modernized visuals. And both give players new gameplay concepts and abilities that expand the original franchise vision in unprecedented ways. However, perhaps the most shocking thing these two games have in common is when they release.

In the 1990s, Sonic the Hedgehog was the sole series able to briefly challenge Mario's claim to the platforming throne, and next week may prove the series' fates are forever intertwined. Sonic Superstars arrives on all consoles (including Switch) on October 17, just days before Super Mario Bros. Wonder lands exclusively on Switch on October 20.

"I think it's an interesting coincidence," Super Mario Bros. Wonder producer Takashi Tezuka says. "We've been creating 2D action games for a long time and we, of course, want as many players as possible to enjoy those games. We're looking forward to as many people as possible having the opportunity to play these 2D side-scrolling games, Mario and otherwise."

In relocating its setting to the Hawaiian island of O'ahu, developer Ubisoft Ivory Tower finds the perfect virtual playground for its latest open-world racer, The Crew Motorfest. Between the paradise coastline, its mountain ranges, the bustle of downtown Honolulu and even its temples, there's no shortage of variety, and the new backdrop is a welcome gear change from the continental US setting of The Crew 1 and 2.

Reviewing Motorfest's performance on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, it's clear the game still has some technical issues despite a month's worth of patches. How do the three consoles compare, do PS5 and Series X hit a rock-solid 60fps in their performance modes, and lastly what's the state of the lone 30fps mode on Series S?

On paper, the idea behind The Crew Motorfest is a proven winner. It takes the free-form gameplay loop pioneered by Forza Horizon to a brand-new location - and to PlayStation consoles. It's you, the open road, and a sprawling map filled with different events. Just as with The Crew 2, the map view in itself is impressively handled. Hit the options button and you get a complete 3D rendering of the entire island, with a view from the clouds that also scales right down to your car on the ground in a seamless transition.

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On October 13, Microsoft completed its nearly two-year-long process of consuming Activision Blizzard King. And while it will take months and years for Xbox and all the parties involved to sort everything out and start bringing past Activision Blizzard games to Game Pass, for now, we can tally up everything Microsoft…

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A Starfield player on Reddit noticed recently that the temperate, agreeable planet Schrodinger III is “made of XP,” something the sci-fi role playing game’s players are increasingly stumbling upon on their own. The planet—and the entire Schrodinger system it belongs to—is heavy with resources, making it a great place…

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For the first time in 15 years, a live Lucky Star concert will be held on February 4, 2024, at the Kuki Cultural Hall in Kuki City, Saitama, Japan. The show will be an orchestral performance to commemorate the 20th anniversary, held in the setting of the series. Memorable tracks from the anime’s soundtrack will be performed. (Thanks, Famitsu!)

Hiromi Konno, who plays Akira Kogami, and Minoru Shiraishi, who plays himself in the anime, will host the event. You might remember that these two characters were the original hosts of “Lucky☆Channel,” the show that played at the end of each episode of Lucky Star.

As an added bonus, a limited illustration drawn by the creator of Lucky Star, Kagami Yoshimizu, will be given to those with tickets. The piece is currently a work in progress and features the series' four main characters: Konata Izumi, Kagami Hiiragi, Tsukasa Hiiragi, and Miyuki Takara. In the artwork, each protagonist is playing their own instrument.

In addition, t-shirts and other event goods will be sold at the concert's venue. The design and merchandise will be previewed online at a later date.

It has been decided that an orchestral Lucky Star concert will be held in Kuki City, Japan, on February 4, 2024.

Grotty fantasy Soulslike Lords of the Fallen - which I have been cautiously looking forward to, despite Ed's efforts to temper my expectations - is getting its chainmail-wearing arse kicked by Steam players. It seems to be selling well, squatting at third on the platform's global top seller charts by revenue, but the user review consensus tells a different story. There are 1,320 reviews at the time of writing, and they are Mostly Negative, which is quite the showing for a game's first day on sale.

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The RPS Treehouse have been roaming the EGX 2023 showfloor over the last couple of days, rummaging through the Rezzed Zone to sniff out more great indie games we think should be on your radar. With over 50 games in this year's Rezzed Zone, we certainly haven't been spoiled for choice this year, and below we've rounded up a selection of what's caught our respective eyes so far, from interstellar trucking sims and neon-drenched cats on skateboards to racing battle royales and dreamy visual novels - some of which you can even play at home right now thanks to some conveniently-timed Steam Next Fest demos.

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If you haven’t heard the news already, Xbox finally closed its Activision Blizzard acquisition deal to the tune of $69 billion. With this move, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is getting ousted at the beginning of the year, all while getting a golden parachute of $400 million. Well, at least the silver lining in all this…

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Good lord. That run was 90 minutes? It felt like twenty, and also like six days. Highway Rampage is a small game, but after the way it's gripped me right from its beautifully cool intro, I can't not bring it to your attention.

This is an arcade blasting game through and through, where conscious strategy and placed shots soon shrink into rearview atoms as the pull of the machine gunner takes you and you realise you've been screaming for the last eight seconds. You drive a selection of vehicles across an increasingly ludicrous desert while everything in the universe tries to stop you. But you have guns. Or flamethrowers. That are bristling with ramming spikes. Or possibly all of the above.

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With Mortal Kombat 1 out in the wild we're revisiting the entry that set the series on its current trajectory: 2011's Mortal Kombat (aka MK 9). Join us as we take a bloody journey through the game's genre-defining story campaign.  

Unlike other Companion Missions in Honkai: Star Rail, the Jingliu Companion Mission, “Clouds Leave No Trace,” feels like a full continuation of the game's central story. It not only answers many questions that players might have had in the main Trailblaze Mission, but it also gives major hints at what key characters might be up to in the future. Compared to the Trailblaze Mission from Version 1.3, this feels like a very satisfying conclusion to the Xianzhou Luofu saga.

The next game in RGG Studio’s Yakuza/Like A Dragon series, Infinite Wealth, is a melting pot of old and new. As the bare buttocks of returning Yakuza: Like A Dragon hero Ichiban Kasuga indicated in the reveal trailer for Infinite Wealth, we’re not in Yokohama anymore, but Honolulu, Hawaii. He’s not alone on his journey either. As well as his mates from the first LAD, plus lots more newcomers, mainline Yakuza stablemate Kazuma Kiryu, now extra frosty with his silver hairdo, is also coming along for the ride as well.

Alas, the circumstances in which the two join forces wasn’t covered in my 30-minute demo at this year’s EGX. Rather, we pick up Ichiban, Kiryu and fresh faces Chitose and Tomizawa as they land in Honolulu, in search of a dodgy cop named Roman who's managed to wrong almost everyone in the group at some point in the past. 30 minutes isn’t long in a game like Yakuza, but hey, I still got to screech at restaurant goers in one of its sidequest stories, as well as terrorise the general public on Ichiban’s always-deployable segway, which I’d still call a pretty strong introduction to this latest LAD.

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Sonic Superstars has developer Sega journeying all the way back to the beginning of the Sonic franchise, remembering when it was born in 1991 in the 2D tropics. Like nostalgic platformer Sonic Mania did in 2017, Superstars devoutly walks the same path as Sonic the Hedgehog and its early ‘90s sequels. But unlike Mania,…

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With Microsoft's $69bn Activision Blizzard acquisition now officially a done deal as of today, Ubisoft has been discussing its new ownership of all Activision Blizzard streaming rights, which also kick in today - and as part of the conversation, it's talked a little about physical media, saying that while interesting might decline as streaming rises, it doesn't think it's "going away".

Ubisoft secured the streaming rights to all Activision Blizzard games (for the next 15 years, and outside the EU, at least) as part of revisions made by Microsoft to get its proposed acquisition across the finish line after UK regulators blocked the deal highlighting concerns around its potential impact on the emerging cloud gaming market.

With the deal now approved and Microsoft officially the owner of Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft's role as streaming rights licensor of Activision's games has come into effect too. The Assassin's Creed publisher has shared a Q&A to mark the occasion, discussing its view on the future of game streaming and clarifying some aspects of its agreement with Microsoft - including reconfirmation Activision Blizzard games are coming to its own Ubisoft+ subscription service.

Forge, Halo’s in-game map creator, has appeared in every mainline Halo game since Halo 3, allowing fans to bring back beloved older maps, fashion creations of their own, or just create unique, quirky experiences within Halo’s timeless and tweakable sandbox. Once season five of Halo Infinite launches, however, players…

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In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, Atlus has added a line of protagonist acrylic stands to its SMT collection of merchandise. The Shin Megami Tensei 30th Anniversary acrylic stands are priced at $19.99 a piece and are all available now on the Atlus online store.

Each acrylic figure is seven inches tall and comes with four parts: a base featuring the SMT logo, a separate red part with “Shin Megami Tensei” written in red Japanese text, an SMT 30th anniversary back plate, and the protagonist of one of six SMT titles.

Here’s a full list of the new SMT acrylic stands:

• SMT I: The Hero Acrylic Stand
• SMT II: Aleph Acrylic Stand
• SMT III: Demi-Fiend Acrylic Stand
• SMT IV: Flynn Acrylic Stand
• SMT IVA: Nanashi Acrylic Stand
• SMT V: Nahobino Acrylic Stand

Get a closer look at the SMT 30th anniversary items in the gallery below:

[gallery link="file" columns="2" size="full" ids="991215,991216,991217,991218,991219,991220"]

Peter Molyneux has revealed his next game will take place "in the land of Albion" - an intriguing announcement given Albion is also the setting of now-defunct developer Lionhead's beloved Fable series, which Molyneux was heavily involved with before leaving the company.

This is the first concrete detail we've heard about Molyneux's new game at 22Cans since he teased the project during last year's Gamelab conference, saying it has a mechanic which has "never been seen in a game" before.

Molyneux revealed the game is currently codenamed MOAT, an acronym, last month.

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Insomniac Games has revealed on social media two new wearable suits for Peter Parker and Miles Morales in its upcoming game Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. The outfits are called the Brooklyn 2099 and Kumo. Although they were initially shown at New York Comic Con 2023, the developer gave players a full preview of the suits in a post on their Twitter page.

You can see the new Marvel's Spider-Man 2 suits reveal post below:

https://twitter.com/insomniacgames/status/1712573536332652898?s=61

The Brooklyn 2099 suit for Miles Morales is more metallic in appearance compared to his Spider-Man 2099 suit in the 2020 game Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Peter Parker's Kumo suit appears to take inspiration from Japanese culture and aesthetics. Also, “kumo” in Japanese translates to “spider.”

Check out the NYCC reveal and hear what the artists who designed the new suits have to say about the outfits below:

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNcqlhwDCi0[/embed]

These new suits shown are just two of 65 outfits to choose from in the game. It was previously announced that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will also introduce a new “Suit Styles” feature that allows players to customize the playable heroes in over 200 different ways.

After nearly two years since the initial announcement, Microsoft has finally and officially acquired Activision Blizzard for a colossal $69 billion. This means that Activision Blizzard, which is the company behind franchises like Call of Duty and Diablo, is now part of Xbox's first-party umbrella. As a result, Xbox's stable of IPs and game franchises has become much larger, welcoming the likes of Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and more. 

While many know Activision Blizzard as the company behind industry juggernauts like Call of Duty and Overwatch, the company is home to plenty more games. In light of today's news, we've decided to create an easy place to see every Activision Blizzard game franchise that Xbox now owns. 

Anyone surprised by what manages to become popular on YouTube clearly hasn’t been paying attention. From magnet fishing for trash, to trampolining off high platforms, there’s a channel with over a million subscribers for everything. So it shouldn’t shock anyone that when it comes to watching other people open Pokémon…

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Longtime Activision Blizzard CEO, Bobby Kotick, is almost gone, but not quite yet. Nearly two years after over 1,000 of his employees called on the controversial executive to resign, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer confirmed that Kotick will remain the head of the Call of Duty publisher until the end of 2023, to…

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This Week in Business is our weekly recap column, a collection of stats and quotes from recent stories presented with a dash of opinion (sometimes more than a dash) and intended to shed light on various trends. Check every Friday for a new entry.

John Riccitiello stepped down from Unity this week, vacating the CEO and chairman roles less than a month after an ill-advised and poorly thought out attempt to impose a per-install fee on games made with the Unity engine.

The announcement of Riccitiello's departure makes no mention of the still-blazing Runtime Fee trash fire in the background that led to this. Instead, it frames it as a retirement "effective immediately," which is not the way this sort of transition normally happens.

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The Communications Workers of America (CWA), one of America's largest unions, believes Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard will "transform" the video game and technology labour market.

In a statement shared with Eurogamer, the CWA said today's merger represents a "milestone" in the industry.

"Under the terms of a ground-breaking, legally-binding labour neutrality agreement, Microsoft will remain neutral when Activision Blizzard employees express interest in joining a union, providing a clear path to collective bargaining for almost 10,000 workers," the CWA said, with its president Claude Cummings Jr calling this a "new day" for Activision Blizzard employees following mass employee protests in 2021.

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Microsoft have finally, finally, finally bought Activision Blizzard after many months of haggling with regulators in several countries. The total figure for the company behind Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Overwatch and Hearthstone, to say nothing of whopping mobile game publisher King and Candy Crush Saga? $68.7 billion, making this the biggest buyout in videogames industry history.

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Update, 11:13 a.m. ET, 10/13/23:

Earlier today, Microsoft officially acquired Activision Blizzard for nearly $69 billion. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick revealed he will remain as CEO through the end of the year after Xbox head Phil Spencer asked him to stay to help with the company transition. While staying through the end of the year presumes Kotick will depart from the company in 2024, that remained technically unknown.

However, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier says that Kotick will depart from Activision Blizzard, a company he took over 33 years ago, on January 1, 2024. 

As the Microsoft-Activision deal closes, Bobby Kotick says he'll stay on as CEO through the end of the year. On January 1, 2024, Kotick will depart the company he took over 33 years ago — a massive change for the video game industry

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) October 13, 2023

Game Informer has reached out to Activision Blizzard to ask if Kotick will leave on January 1, 2024, and will update this story if we learn more. 

Activision Blizzard's controversial boss Bobby Kotick has said he will stay on as the company's CEO for the remainder of 2023, following Microsoft's long-awaited acquisition of the company today.

A statement from Xbox boss Phil Spencer says similar, with Kotick's tenure at the company set to continue through "the end of 2023" to "ensure a smooth and seamless integration".

Neither notice makes it explicit what will happen next year, though the wording of both statements suggests Kotick's departure is possible as early as January 2024.

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