NEWS

The 2020 Switch exclusive Animal Crossing: New Horizons takes social simulation to new heights, and Maxis’ team is using it as inspiration for the next Sims game, dubbed “Project Rene”. Vice president of franchise creative Lyndsay Pearson said the development team discussed Animal Crossing “all the time” when discussing The Sims 5’s multiplayer feature on a Radio Times podcast. IGN ...

Mojang revealed “Trial Chambers” and “The Breeze,” hostile mobs, after Minecraft Live last month. The Trial Chambers are procedurally created and present fresh challenges each time you enter. Helpful or harmful things are in every room. Trial Spawners increase difficulty according to team size, with different enemies in each chamber. Surviving these mobs will earn you a special reward. Players ...

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has dropped off of the US “top 20 best-selling games” category for the first time, just weeks after the final wave of DLC. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has hit Circana’s (previously The NPD Group) top sales every month since April 2017 (78 months), according to GamesIndustry.biz. Industry researcher Mat Piscatella says it’s “likely” an all-time record ...

Felix the Cat may return to video games, according to a new ESRB rating. Felix the Cat is a “collection of action platformers” for Switch and other platforms that follows Felix as he travels 2D worlds to save his girlfriend from an evil professor. The whole description is: “This is a collection of action platformers in which players help Felix ...

The Pokémon Company announced the stars of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s forthcoming 7-Star Tera Raid Battles, which begin later this week after last weekend’s Eevee event. Hisuian Samurott will appear in the next fight event, which will run from November 24th–26th and December 1st–3rd (yeah, December is that soon). The fully evolved Gen V starter will be a Water Tera ...

Fortnite fans can vote in-game for “The Best Creator-Made Fortnite Island of the Year” at this year’s Game Awards. This new ‘Nighttimes’ and ‘Studio 568’ update is a hub world that connects players to ten creator-made islands they can explore and vote for. Players can earn XP by collecting Game Awards statues in the main section. The Game Awards creator ...

Konami updated Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 to 1.3.0. The patch notes cover all platforms, so Switch players won’t see much, but Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 frame rate and cutscene fixes are notable. Unfortunately, Konami isn’t planning to increase the frame rate to 60fps for console parity, but this update should improve the experience. Konami also ...

Yesterday’s Indie World Showcase featured Core Keeper, a 2024 Switch mining sandbox game, and other adorable games. Despite being set in a mine, this pixel art farmer/builder has Stardew Valley-like vibes. Core Keeper by Pugstorm draws you into an ancient underground area via a mysterious relic. You can explore the caverns, defeat enemies, upgrade your skills, or gather resources to ...

Atlus, the developer of Persona and Shin Megami Tensei, is raising its average annual salary by 15%. In stark contrast to the seemingly endless layoffs hitting the industry, Atlus will raise new graduates’ starting salaries by 300,000 yen (about $1,977) and all employees’ annual salaries by 15%. Atlus “promotes global expansion” to attract and retain talent, according to a translated ...

Nintendo’s next big release of the year is so close, we can almost smell it. Super Mario RPG is returning to Switch on November 17th, which is this Friday. We were impressed with the remake when we played it earlier this month, so we’re excited to see the review scores. Ryokutya2089 (via Gematsu) has revealed Famitsu’s review score, giving us ...