This Week's Top 6 Biggest Gaming News Stories

Thank goodness for Nintendo bringing fans a showcase actually worth watching as Nintendo’s recent Indie Direct gave players quite a lot to get excited about in the coming months and well into next year. Focusing primarily on indie developers and their upcoming titles, Nintendo showed off DLC for the indie darling Sea of Stars which will be free coming in early 2025 as well as announcing a new 2 player mode for the title, allowing for up to 3 players to experience this throwback to classic turn based RPGs.

Fans of Powerwash Simulator will also get the chance to clean up Shrek’s swamp in their new upcoming DLC pack. Whether he likes it or not. In addition to a new mini-campaign, players can also don a suit of armor as they descend into the Dragon’s Lair and give it a good scrubbing. The new DLC releases this fall alongside other more recent DLC packs such as Final Fantasy 7’s Midgard, SpongeBob’s Bikini Bottom, and even Doc Brown’s many inventions from Back to the Future. It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it.

Alongside a number of other interesting titles varying from dating sims to cozy sims and everything in between, the smash hit Pizza Tower will also make its console debut with a shadow drop release and is available now on Nintendo Switch. The Wario inspired platformer became an instant fan favorite with its wacky animations and frenetic pizza themed gameplay.

The puzzler that will outlive us all is getting an updated release with Tetris Forever that not only includes the original Tetris in celebration of the series’ 40th anniversary, but also its numerous spin off and collaborations over the years, including Bombliss, Tetris Battle Garden and many more. A new mode named Tetris Time Warp will see players battling head-to-head while the many versions and gameplay styles of the series over the years will randomly switch during gameplay.

The recently leaked new SpongeBob SquarePants game starring Patrick was officially revealed and it’s just as unhinged as you would expect from the sea star. Featuring a fully open world Bikini Bottom, players guide Patrick through various mini games while also causing all kinds of havoc and chaos with a surprising amount of destructible environments to unleash your inner Patrick. For better or worse. The Patrick Star game will be released on October 4th on every platform available.

Alongside finally revealing the September 12th release date for their upcoming and highly anticipated Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection, Capcom also announced another collection coming in 2025 with the Capcom Fighting Collection 2. Compiling 8 classic fighting games from Capcom’s extensive catalog including Powerstone 1 and 2, Capcom vs SNK2, Project Justice, Capcom Fighting Evolution and many more once forgotten to time and lost arcade cabinets.
Old school RPG fans will finally get to relive some classics from their childhood as Konami and Square announced release dates for their upcoming HD 2D remakes of Suikoden 1&2 and Dragon Quest 3 respectively. The recent wave of HD 2D remakes have brought many classics into the modern day and with these versions in some cases being the only way to replay them, we say keep them coming and we’ll keep playing. Suikoden 1&2 HD will be released on March 6th, 2025 and Dragon Quest 3 HD on November 14, 2024.

Suikoden isn’t the only classic franchise Konami is bringing back either. Somehow Konami managed to find the beloved Nintendo DS entries in the Castlevania series buried in a basement somewhere and are not only releasing them as the Castlevania Dominus Collection but also shadow dropping them on all platforms available now! The collection includes Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia and will allow players to customize their screen in the classic DS style or any number of combinations. The collection also includes a remake or the original for the purists out there of the arcade classic Haunted Castle which started the entire Castlevania series.

With the Tokyo Game Show only a month away, Hideo Kojima will be attending the show in a big way and bringing the highly anticipated sequel Death Stranding 2: On the Beach with him. The game was recently revealed to be coming in 2025 and it would seem that fans might not only get a brand new look at the title but could also finally get their hands on the delivery sim. Kojima will be hosting a showcase alongside numerous guests including filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn to discuss the game as well as the new gameplay elements hinted at in the game’s most recent trailers. Hopefully we’ll also get a solid release date as Kojima has been diligently working on fine tuning the game, but that remains to be seen. Death Stranding was Hideo Kojima’s first project since his nasty split with Konami and while many expected the creator to continue his work in the Tactical Espionage Action genre he helped pioneer, Kojima instead re-teamed with Silent Hills star Norman Reedus to reconnect America in the midst of an apocalyptic disaster. Kojima also recently announced a horror title for Xbox codenamed O.D. and his return to the action espionage genre proper with Physint, although these titles are both still very early in production.

While far from confirmation the game is truly in development, a recent job listing that has since either been filled or delisted suggests Naughty Dog might be hiring for a Senior Gameplay Animator with a strong understanding of realistic creature animations and mechanics. Although Naughty Dog reportedly has numerous projects in the works including a new IP, the description of realistic creatures has many fans suspecting this points to The Last of Us Part 3 officially beginning development. Series director and creator Neil Druckmann had recently hinted he’d figured out a story for the third game but wouldn’t officially confirm if the game was the studio’s next project. After the cancelation of The Last of Us online, a modern update to the original game’s Factions, Druckmann assured fans that the studio had multiple single player projects in the works, and given the success of The Last of Us franchise as well as the HBO series, there’s little doubt a third entry will be coming. Given that in the last four years since The Last of Us Part II released in 2020 we’ve only received remakes and remasters from the talented studio, we’re just hopeful for anything new at this point.

It must be a day of the week that ends in “Y” because Activision once again made a stupid decision that left money out of their grubby little pockets by completely ignoring what the fans truly want. Recently uncovered reports reveal that after releasing Crash 4: It’s About Time, Toys For Bob had big plans for their next entry which would have seen the Bandicoot cross over with another beloved mascot, Spyro the Dragon. Picking up directly after the events of It’s About Time, the game would have seen the return of even more classic villains and featured both Crash and Spyro as playable characters. However, despite selling over 5 million copies, Activision didn’t consider Crash 4 a financial success and instead put Toys For Bob to work on the short-lived and mediocre Crash Team Rumble as the company wanted to focus more on “live service” titles… because of course they did. This comes as Activision also canceled a new single player Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater despite the success of the remakes of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1&2. Toys For Bob have recently become an independent studio after splitting with Activision so it’s possible some of the scrapped ideas for Crash 5 could still resurface as a spiritual successor similar to Yooka Laylee from the former devs of Banjo-Kazooie. Fingers crossed because we could always use some inventive new platformers.

It’s become something of a running joke that Valve doesn’t know how to make games anymore or even count to 3, but it would seem that after revolutionizing VR with Half-Life Alyx only a handful of years ago, the studio might be jumping guns blazing in the hero shooter arena. Widely considered one of the worst kept secrets in the industry, after nearly 20,000 players had already gotten their hands on the title through Steam, Valve finally formally announced Deadlock and so far the response has been widely positive. Unlike other hero shooters such as Overwatch, Deadlocked combines the hero shooter formula with DOTA style game mechanics in which during your 6v6 match, you’ll also be leading a team of NPCs to destroy the enemy's defenses. However, instead of simply issuing commands from the captain’s chair, players need to be boots on the ground in the action in order to help their squads advance past the opposing team’s equally human controlled forces. The player abilities work in tandem with the NPCs so there’s no possibility of a Leroy Jenkins style strategy winning the day here. Mobility is a huge part of gameplay as well as players can easily zip around the environment using the levels’ built in ziplines as well as their own impressive parkour inspired moveset. Valve might not be the most prolific developer in the industry, but given their pedigree as well as the solid player feedback from those who got to experience the title, this could end up being the next big thing and the innovation the hero shooter genre desperately needs. It at least has to be better than Artifact right?

It isn’t hard to imagine what would have become of the potential Sonic franchise if fans hadn’t bullied the studio to redesign their ugly Sonic into the blue blur we all know and love. After the resounding success of the first and second movie as well as the Knuckles spin-off series, a third entry was inevitable and fans got their first true look at Shadow the Hedgehog voiced by Keanu Reeves. The trailer shows off Shadow’s abilities and when faced with the overwhelming strength of the edgy hedgehog, Sonic and his friends team up with Doctor Robotnik, now much closer to his video game counterpart after going into hiding after the events of the second movie. We also get a quick look at Shadow’s backstory and the reveal of Doctor Robotnik’s grandfather Gerald Robotnik, also played by Jim Carrey. Given how the other films have played out, it's likely that Robotnik has plans of his own and Shadow will eventually team up with Sonic and company and become the anti-hero fans know him as, but with only the briefest of looks at his backstory in the trailer, it remains to be seen how deep into Sonic lore the 3rd entry will go or if many of those stories are being saved for the inevitable 4th movie. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 hits theaters on December 20th, 2024.