RPGs don’t always require compelling stories or innovative trappings to be fun. Sometimes, all you want or want are a few engaging systems, some brought colors, and a delightful loop of grinding, exploration, and reward. Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection seems to deliver all that in spades based on what I’ve played so far, matching a fairly innocuous, almost infantile narrative with well-tuned mechanics to create something thoroughly enjoyable in the early going.
The three Star Force games included in this collection don’t even try to hide the influence Pokemon clearly had on their design. All three are split into multiple versions clearly inspired by ye olde Blue and Red. A total of seven variants exist across the trilogy, and they’re all represented well here, with some content unique to each.
The Star Force games share a lot of DNA with the earlier Battle Network titles while reflecting the mid-2000s hardware migration from Game Boy Advance to Nintendo DS. Capcom has solved most of the two-screen play issues fairly elegantly, miniaturizing the second screen to an upper corner and allowing the player to instantly bring it full-screen with a trigger hold. This works remarkably well. Environments have been colorfully and crisply translated from the low-resolution DS screen. The designers wisely maintained a close to 4:3 form factor, so graphics don’t display any appreciable stretching or distortion. The Wave World dungeons seamlessly overlap the human world. The vibe and feel of all three optimistic meladramas appears to be lovingly preserved.
Capcom has solved most of the two-screen play issues fairly elegantly, miniaturizing the second screen to an upper corner and allowing the player to instantly bring it full-screen with a trigger hold.
Combat, though, is the gravity that holds Star Force Collection on its winning trajectory. Fundamentally, all these games are combat-centric action-RPGs. Though cards, abilities, and other nuances vary, the 3×5 battle grid where you take on enemies is the most fleshed-out part of the the Star Force trilogy, a formula perfected all the way back on the GBA with the Battle Network games. You can rig clever card combos, juggle timing counters, sprint forward for melee attacks, nimbly dodge attacks, and snipe with your P-shooter. It’s a sprightly, light action-RPG combat system that rewards focus but is also fairly forgiving of miscalculation, and the battles are quick enough you likely won’t mind the random encounters.
Capcom did a good job updating these titles for the modern player, but for my tastes are less successful at contextualizing their place in the Mega Man pantheon. Some effort was put into visual or audio museums, but there’s nothing here comparable to, say Digital Eclipse’s Gold Master series, where the history and legacy of each game is celebrated by curated timelines or original documentaries. The historic features stack up poorly even next to the original Mega Man Legacy Collection, which allowed players to pop directly into certain gameplay moments directly from museum boss art. No such luck here.
As for the plot… well, that’s probably not really why you’re here. Plucky hero, quirky friends, buddy aliens made of electromagnetic energy, and maybe a dark conspiracy or two. You know, the usual stuff. It carries the collection and the combat forward, and for these games, that’s enough.
Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection doesn’t seem poised to shake up the world, but it doesn’t really have to, nor did it likely set out to. It’s appropriate for anyone who remembers whittling away hours on their GBA playing Battle Network or their DS playing Star Force. It’s also a perfect pastime for eleven-year-olds (or kids at heart) who love deck building, combo breaking, and diving into complementary, overlapping gameplay systems. Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection is, based on my time with it, shaping up to be a real winner.
Jared Petty does all kinds of things with video games. When he’s not marketing with Other Ocean or writing for IGN, he’s creating new episodes of The Top 100 Games Podcast. Find him on Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky as @pettycommajared.
Resident Evil: Requiem is the first in the horror franchise to be released solely for current-generation consoles, but what really makes it special is the engine that runs it. The RE Engine was built initially for Resident Evil 7, and Capcom has since used it to power everything from Monster Hunter: Wilds to Exoprimal – remember that one?
But while the engine has had issues in open-world games, it’s still incredible for the franchise it was created for. As a result, Resident Evil Requiem looks exquisite on the PS5, and runs smoothly no matter which version of the platform you’re using.
I was particularly interested to see how the first Resident Evil game designed first and foremost for the current generation of consoles would perform across all its platforms, but I only got pre-release code for PS5 and PC. So while I’ll be looking at the Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch 2 after launch, I went ahead and dove into the PS5 and PC versions to see how they compare.
The Display Modes
While it’s become the norm for console games to have multiple display modes that prioritize quality or frame rate, the base PS5 only has one mode. That will get you a 4K image upscaled from roughly 1080p, but running at an incredibly stable 60 fps. Capcom probably could have scaled the game down a bit more to add a high frame rate mode to the basic PS5, but it really does strike a nice balance between resolution and performance.
The PS5 Pro is a little more flexible. There are two display modes here, revolving entirely around ray tracing, or the lack thereof. Without ray tracing, the PS5 Pro looks very similar to the base PS5 version of the game, but it does appear to be upscaling from a higher resolution – 1300p from my count.
Instead of changing too much about the visual quality, the ‘RT off’ mode instead focuses on delivering a high frame rate, targeting up to 120 fps – though it didn’t quite reach that mark in my testing.
The ray tracing preset takes the place of a “prefer quality” type of preset in Resident Evil Requiem on the PS5 Pro. The underlying quality settings and resolution don’t seem to change too much here, but ray tracing is turned on, which enhances the lighting, reflections and shadows. And while early ray tracing modes on the PS5 dropped performance down to 30 fps, Resident Evil Requiem still targets 60 fps with the fancy lighting enabled.
What’s particularly impressive about this mode, though, is how close it looks to the PC version with ray tracing set to “high”. While a gaming PC with a high-end GPU will get better performance with these quality settings, it’s still awesome that a console can deliver this level of visual fidelity while still hitting a solid 60 fps.
Performance
More than anything, it looks like Resident Evil Requiem is continuing the trend of 60 fps gaming being the floor. Even on the base PS5, the game doesn’t drop below 60, and the PS5 Pro takes those quality settings and pushes for even higher performance.
With the non-ray tracing preset on PS5 Pro, Capcom is targeting high-refresh displays, with performance hovering between 99 and 110 fps during the opening scene here. There are some quality differences between this version and what’s running on the base PS5, but they’re extremely minor, and mostly come down to the slightly lower resolution.
The minor differences in presentation here make it even more impressive that Capcom was able to raise the frame rate by so much. In the worst case scenario, where the PS5 Pro drops under 100 fps, it’s still getting around a 40% boost to frame rate.
Even on the base PS5, the game doesn’t drop below 60 fps.
The ray tracing preset drops the frame rate back down to 60, but it looks much better, especially in darker scenes. You can debate all day long whether or not 60 fps is enough, but with how important lighting is in Requiem, having that extra fidelity is totally worth the tradeoff – especially if you don’t have a display that can actually output a higher frame rate.
On PC I tested the game with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080, with ray tracing set to high, along with graphics quality and lighting quality also set to the high preset. This isn’t fully maxed out, but with DLSS set to ‘Performance’ it looks remarkably similar to the PS5 Pro’s ray tracing preset.
With the RTX 5080, which is admittedly more expensive than the PS5 Pro by itself, Requiem runs at around 110-120 fps at 4K, without frame generation. However, there are some scenes with a lot of NPCs, like this street scene that we’re using for testing, where performance can drop down to around 95-100 fps, but that’s still more than enough.
Requiem also supports path tracing on PC, which looks incredible, but will absolutely gut your performance. In the same scene, the frame rate dropped down to 55 fps. That’s not great, but that tends to happen when you take ray tracing and turn it up to 11. I was also able to turn on frame generation, which saw the frame rate shoot all the way up to around 200 fps – more than my capture card can actually capture. Frame generation does add extra latency, but it wasn’t enough to actually be noticeable when playing the game.
Image Quality
No matter how you’re playing Resident Evil Requiem, it looks incredible, even when it’s showing you pretty gnarly scenes.
Right at the beginning of the game, after you get out of some cinematics, you’ll find yourself on a city street. What’s surprising is that, at least on PC, this was one of the most demanding sections of the game that I’ve played through so far, likely due to the NPCs walking along the street, on top of the rain creating a ton of reflective surfaces.
However, due to the somewhat random assortment of NPCs that appear here, it’s easiest to look at this cinematic that triggers once Grace gets to a crime scene. Just pausing at the beginning of the scene and zooming in on her jacket, you can tell the difference in resolution between the base PS5 and PS5 Pro – it’s subtle, but it’s there.
What’s less subtle, though, is the differences ray tracing makes to the same scene. Swapping to this mode on the PS5 Pro, and the button is a little reflective, which gives it much more depth. Then, zooming out a bit, you can see a lot more depth and shadow in Grace’s hair. Then, if you zoom in behind her, you can see that on the ray tracing mode, the cop car in the scene projects its emergency light on the subway’s support beam – where it just looks like flat metal on the base PS5.
This scene also illustrates how close the PS5 Pro is to the PC version when it comes to image quality. The shadows are a bit more pronounced on the PC version, which gives some more depth to Grace’s character model, but the differences are minor.
Fast forward a little bit, though, and you can see one of the biggest differences between ray tracing and path tracing. Once the cop lifts the tarp to let Grace into the crime scene, most versions of the game show the alley behind it as dark, losing a lot of detail. Turn on path tracing, though, and the light naturally illuminates what’s on the other side of the tarp. Again, a pretty minor detail in the grand scheme of things, but these things add up over time.
Ray tracing really shines in Requiem’s darker scenes with a lot of reflective surfaces. Luckily, you also spend much of the first hour of the game in a dark, rainy city. A little later on, you gain control of Leon, where there’s a zombie outbreak of sorts in the city.
In this scene there’s virtually no difference between the PS5 and the PS5 Pro beyond frame rate, so I’m just going to focus on the two performance modes on the PS5 Pro. Without ray tracing, the scene looks alright, but a lot of the reflections in the various puddles are a bit muddy, with vague shapes of light showing up. That’s a side-effect of using screen space reflections, which are a lot less precise than ray tracing.
With RT enabled, though, you can make out the shapes of the street lights in the puddles, and Leon’s leather jacket also reflects light, which makes it look like, well, a leather jacket.
The PC version, of course, takes it to another level. You can zoom in on the hotel sign here, and the details on the hotel wall are much more clear, thanks to improved global illumination. That’s something that you’d have to zoom in a bunch to actually see, but it’s a nice detail regardless.
Then, if you enable path tracing, the reflections are especially enhanced here. Just look at this van, with regular old ray tracing, you can make out some small reflections of lights. But with path tracing, you can see the full reflection of the street signal behind it, while also making the rear view window actually look like a transparent glass panel. It looks incredible.
The care center also shows huge gaps between the ray traced and the non-ray traced versions of the game. When you get to this spooky looking hallway, with its flickering lights, look at how the lighting behaves. With the non-RT mode, the light cuts off almost like it hits a hard boundary. However, with ray tracing, the ray traced global illumination takes the light from the lamp at the end of the corridor and makes it extend much more naturally down the hallway, tapering off the further away it gets from the source.
You can also see along the edges, where the pictures on the wall are in complete darkness just a few feet into the hallway, where the light bounces more naturally when ray tracing is enabled. It’s a small touch, but it really does do a lot to make the game a bit more atmospheric.
Though, to be fair, even without ray tracing, I was much more worried about what was lurking around the next corner than I was about slightly unrealistic lighting.
At the end of the day, the same age-old advice applies to Resident Evil Requiem. If you have a high refresh display and you like the extra visual smoothness that comes from a high frame rate, turn ray tracing off if you have a PS5 Pro. The game looks great regardless, and going up to 100-ish fps will make a huge difference when you’re panicking.
But if you don’t have a high-refresh display, or if you just like having your games look as good as possible, go ahead and turn ray tracing on. Yeah, you’ll take a hit to performance, but it still gets a solid 60 fps on PS5 Pro and it looks incredible.
Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive — known to most as CS:GO — is back on Steam in its own right… but only if you know where to look.
Counter-Strike 2 regularly tops Steam’s Most Played games list (for example, it hit a peak of 1.3 million players just in the last 24 hours alone). Its predecessor, however, was well-loved, too, yet it was effectively nuked when its home on Steam was replaced as Counter-Strike 2 dropped in 2023. That meant that if you’d wanted to play CS:GO before this update, you would’ve had to dig into the game’s legacy branch via Steam and access it from there.
A stinging caveat is that the servers have not been resurrected, nor is there any matchmaking, which means you can only play against the bots available to you via Counter-Strike 2’s beta branch. But the fact it’s been given its own store page could — maybe? — be a sign that those kinds of things may eventually come back to life. (I wouldn’t hold your breath, though. Just in case!)
That hasn’t stopped thousands of players from jumping into the free-to-play shooter, though. At the time of this article’s publication, it had 44,058 concurrent players on Steam — pretty impressive stuff for a 14-year-old game.
Interestingly, though, CS:GO won’t pop up in a search for you — as the store page cautions, “at the request of the publisher, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is unlisted on the Steam store and will not appear in search.” This means you’ll need the direct link to access and download it.
Meanwhile, the attorney general of New York, Letitia James, is suing Valve, alleging the platform illegally promotes gambling to children. The AG’s office announced last week that an investigation “found that Valve’s video games, including Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2, enable gambling by enticing users to pay for the chance to win a rare virtual item of significant monetary value.”
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
President Trump’s administration is currently debating whether to allow Chinese megacorp Tencent’s stakes in major U.S. companies such as Fortnite maker Epic Games and League of Legends developer Riot Games to continue.
The FT reports that “top officials” have met to assess the security risk of Tencent’s investments in numerous U.S. and Finnish gaming firms ahead of President Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next month.
Tencent has been acquiring western game companies for well over a decade now, but its most high-profile investments include a 28% stake in Epic Games, which is based in North Calorina, and the wholly owned Riot Games, which is based in Los Angeles. It also wholly owns Finnish company Supercell, which runs mobile mega hit Clash of Clans, and recently invested in a new Ubisoft business following the Assassin’s Creed maker’s financial troubles.
Sources said that Tencent was negotiating with the U.S. administration’s Committee on Foreign Investment (Cfius) last summer to help ease these security concerns, and, as far back as President Trump’s first term, was assessing whether Tencent’s investments could jeopardize the data of millions of American players. Cifus is similarly concerned about the company’s acquisition of Finnish firm Supercell, which has a huge player base in the U.S.
In January last year, the U.S. Department of Defense classified Tencent as a Chinese military company. At the time, Tencent insisted it was all a mistake. The upshot of this latest development is that the Trump administration may force Tencent to divest the gaming companies, or force it to create data protections it’s satisfied with. Neither the White House nor Tencent or Epic responded to requests for comment.
Photo by Ying Tang/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Great news: Resident Evil Requiem absolutely kicks ass. While it was initially advertised as a survival horror vehicle for new protagonist Grace Ashcroft, it turns out Requiem is equally a reunion with the series’ fan favorite hero, Leon S. Kennedy. Despite showing up in several remakes recently, Leon hasn’t had a genuinely new adventure since Resident Evil 6. That was 14 years ago! Requiem brings us a Leon who’s still that campy, quippy, tough-as-nails legend we’ve always loved, but now he’s older, wiser, and carrying a bit more baggage with him. This kind of return is pretty uncommon in video games, but take a look at the screenings at your local multiplex and you’ll see it’s happening all the time now in movies. Old heroes from old franchises coming back to prove that a few extra wrinkles can’t stop you from kicking ass. That’s exactly what Resident Evil Requiem has done. It feels like a Hollywood blockbuster legacy sequel for one of the coolest video game characters of all time.
You could easily make the argument that Resident Evil 4 is the greatest video game ever created, and diehard fans of Capcom’s game changer have wanted a reunion with Leon for decades. His short part in Resident Evil 6 simply wasn’t enough, and while 2023’s Resident Evil 4 remake was incredible, it was ultimately a retelling of a story we all knew extremely well. For years, we’ve been left wondering if we’d ever get anything like Leon’s gory Spanish vacation again. At least until now: Resident Evil Requiem is a worthy successor to Resident Evil 4. But more than that, it gives us a fresh take on Leon that’s more interesting than many sequels offer.
Despite being a medium that has been going strong for over fifty years now, video games rarely let their protagonists grow older. Mascot characters like Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog are basically the same age now as they were when they were first introduced in ‘80s and ‘90s. There are a few exceptions, of course. Uncharted’s Nathan Drake had aged slightly by the time we said goodbye to him in 2016, and Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft has jumped around to various stages of her 20s throughout her numerous sequels and reboots. But most video game characters live in an endless time loop, destined to stay encased in amber at the same age forever, like Bart Simpson and his fellow classmates being stuck in fourth grade for decades.
The Resident Evil franchise is different; it’s one of the few long-running video game series that actually allows its characters to experience the passage of time, albeit with all sorts of silly B-movie plot armor, continuity leaps, and other various nonsensical story beats to help carry them along the way. That’s why seeing a gruffer, more weathered Leon S. Kennedy’s return in Resident Evil Requiem feels so special – it’s something we don’t get to see very often in video game form. Games are largely power fantasies, after all, and seeing an older Super Mario clutch his knees after a triple jump, or a hunched over Sonic the Hedgehog gasp for breath in the middle of a half pipe run, would be way less cool and way more of a stark reminder of our weary, fragile lives than just seeing those guys at their peak age forever.
On the other hand, Hollywood loves to bring back older versions of classic movie characters for a big legacy sequel, partly because it’s fun to check in on old friends you haven’t seen in a while, but mostly because actual human actors – unlike video game characters – get older as time passes. For example, think about Harrison Ford in Star Wars: The Force Awakens portraying an older, greyer Han Solo. Or Harrison Ford in The Dial of Destiny portraying an older, greyer Indiana Jones. Or Harrison Ford in Blade Runner 2049 portraying an older, greyer Rick Deckard. (I swear I have more examples besides Harrison Ford.) Do all of these movies need to exist? Definitely not. But when a legacy sequel works, they feel like a great reunion with someone we haven’t seen in a while, and sometimes, even a perfect final sendoff to a character we’ve cherished our entire lives.
When you’re put in control of Leon, it really does feel like a return to the character’s best days.
We may have technically caught up with Leon recently, thanks to the glorious Resident Evil 2 and 4 remakes, but those games take place in 1998 and 2004, respectively. The Resident Evil timeline progresses in real time, though, so in Requiem, set in 2026, Leon is actually much older now, and he’s got the wrinkles and mannerisms to prove it. He’s slightly less likely to crack a corny one liner or silly pun after a big, violent encounter (but don’t worry, the man still has some jokes here and there.)
Requiem balances Leon’s dad jokes (or should that be “hot uncle” jokes?) with some grit and gravitas. He is reminded of his regrets and past failings as he revisits the horrors that unfolded in his early days as a cop in Raccoon City, with its current bombed-out streets, dilapidated police station, and gun shop all trudging up the grief and remorse from his first big missions. But while this offers a darker side to Leon’s story, we don’t really get a deep look into his personal life, which definitely works in both the character’s and our favor. Going decades without seeing Han Solo, just to find out he ended up being a deadbeat dad who’d resorted to once again dealing with low life gangsters and petty crimes in The Force Awakens was a pretty depressing get together in hindsight – like running in to the older kid from your town that you grew up idolizing and finding out he still lives with his mom and he mostly just sells cigarettes to teenagers behind a gas station. We didn’t need that downer with Han and I’m glad we don’t get that with Leon, a character who in Requiem is largely focused on a new assignment with nearly all of the passion, intensity, and wit we expect from him. He’s struggling with his memories of Raccoon City because he’s back in it, not missing his daughter’s dance recital because he’s pounding shots at the bar.
What’s important, though, and an experience unique to the video game medium, is that Requiem’s Leon still feels like he did in Resident Evil 4, despite being much older. Mechanically, he moves and controls just like he did in RE4’s 2023 remake, just with a few extra tricks up his sleeve thanks to the benefit of age and experience. There were so many little moments in Requiem where I thought to myself “I cannot believe I’m getting more Resident Evil 4 right now.” It wasn’t that I thought I’d never ever play anything like that again in this franchise, it’s just that after RE7 and Village, I truly had no idea where things would go next. And while Requiem certainly does build on the survival horror elements of those games, when you’re put in control of Leon, it really does feel like a return to the character’s best days.
So many of Leon’s sections in Requiem work as callbacks to things I loved about Resident Evil 4, but he approaches them with the added benefit of the wisdom and experience that comes with getting older. Remember the chainsaw wielding lunatics from the village? Well, there’s new ones now, and this time you can shoot those chainsaws out of their hands and use them to tear a room full of zombies apart. Remember the high speed jetski escape sequence? There’s a new one now that’s an infinitely cooler set piece and adds enemies to the mix.
Not everything here is an improvement over Leon’s most iconic mission, of course. Requiem doesn’t have a lovably weird merchant character, or shiny costume jewelry dangling from its corridor ceilings or inexplicably hiding in the bellies of its creepiest basement creatures. Resident Evil 4 is, after all, one of those once in a lifetime video games where a team of bold creative geniuses were given several years and a blank slate to create a sprawling, cinematic single player game that reinvented a beloved franchise. We’ll almost certainly never get anything like it on that scale again. But when Requiem comes close to hitting some of those same highs, it’s a fantastic feeling.
But the one thing a truly great legacy sequel recognizes – and one that Requiem very much understands – is that our heroes don’t live forever and, frankly, it’s selfish of us to expect them to. The people we look up to eventually get old and die, and leave us with just memories to remember them by. Yes, even the ones that can somersault over zombies or dive roll through a second-story glass window and land on both feet unphased. But the greatest heroes don’t just leave their legacy behind, they impart their wisdom and experience on the next generation in the hope that they will grow to become as great, or even greater, than they ever were. That’s how legacy sequels bring together their original and new cast members, and we see that in action with Leon and Grace, a skittish FBI agent who enters into Requiem’s instantly threatening story with fear and trepidation.
Grace begins her journey quite literally stumbling around in the darkness, holding a crude knife in a shaky hand and struggling to survive. But by teaming up with Leon while also confronting her own past traumas, she slowly becomes a strong, resilient, fully capable star of her own. She might never go full blown action hero like her mentor, and that’s okay, but it’s exciting to think her story may just be getting started. What we see between her and Leon is a torch passing ritual, a necessary chapter in any ongoing story where characters are allowed to age naturally, reach the end of their tale, and eventually even die.
That’s not to say I would turn down any more adventures with our old friend Leon in the future, of course. I love the guy, and I think there’s still a lot of gas left in his tank. I just don’t know if I want to play a video game where he’s 80 years old and I need to upgrade his hip replacement every time he attempts a spin kick. Then again, for all of the ways Requiem handles an aging legend gracefully, Resident Evil has long been a franchise where body mutating mega viruses and super serums allow once-human characters to return bigger and stronger than ever, even after getting axed apart or blown to smithereens with nukes. So hey, maybe next time Leon’s in town he’ll be looking a little less like a hot uncle.
But until they jump that zombie shark (and this series literally has one of those, named Neptune) I’ll gladly take more Grace and Leon games in the future. And seeing how well Capcom handled an older Leon opens up all kinds of possibilities for other classic Resident Evil characters to return with a few more grey hairs. After all, Resident Evil Requiem never makes any mention of Claire Redfield (outside of a reference on a charm) so here’s hoping she shows up in some DLC or even gets to star in the next mainline game. Either way, it’s great to see a series I’ve loved for so long find so many great ways to stay alive and thriving while so many other classic franchises shamble along long past their expiration dates, like the rotting, festering zombies that Leon – and now Grace – are so great at defeating.
Next week’s annual celebration of Super Mario will be marked by the return of three retro games via Nintendo Switch Online.
Nintendo will add two more Virtual Console titles and a popular Game Boy Advance classic to its subscription service on March 10, otherwise known as Mario Day (because its date is MAR10).
The recently-launched Nintendo Switch Online Virtual Console range will get Mario Tennis and Mario Clash, both released in 1995, while its Game Boy Advance catalog will add 2004’s Mario vs. Donkey Kong. You will, however, need the Switch Online’s pricier Expansion Pack tier to access the games.
Game Boy Advance for Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack members: – Mario vs. Donkey Kong™ pic.twitter.com/amdzOF5tEn
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) March 4, 2026
If you like peering into a peripheral and batting away balls, Mario Tennis is a fairly standard sport experience that happens to feature Nintendo’s mascot and other Mushroom Kingdom residents on the court. Mario Clash, meanwhile, is set within the a series of underground pipes and lets you go bowling with Koopa Troopa shells.
Of the three, Mario vs. Donkey Kong is the most interesting. A spiritual successor to the original Donkey Kong, this puzzle platformer was successful enough that it spawned a whole spinoff series, and a full Switch remake that launched in 2024. Here, you can see where that all started.
Nintendo has not yet announced any other celebrations to mark Mario Day, though fans are hoping we hear more from the company soon following a recent third-party Partner Direct and this week’s Indie World broadcast. The company has often held a full Nintendo Direct in March, ahead of the financial year’s end. Maybe we’ll hear more about that next week too.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Outside of the recent Target preorders (that came and went incredibly fast), this is the best price I’ve seen on the upcoming Mega Evolution expansion. With six boosters included, you’re looking at just under $7.20 per pack.
Funnily enough, all things considered, this is actually quite a good deal. For just over $40, you’re looking at a certified bargain by comparison to the other recent Mega Evolution expansions. Phantasmal Flames bundles are still selling for $55+, and Ascended Heroes bundles are still rocking a $70+ market value over a month after release.
While it’s not quite as good a value as picking up the Booster Box at TCGplayer right now, including 36 packs for $228.80 market price (working out at $6.35 per pack), it’s still a great deal for anyone who hasn’t got a spare $200 to throw around, but still wants to get involved with the new set.
Amazon’s preorder price guarantee also means you’ll pay the lowest price possible between now and release day, no matter if the price increases or drops even further. Locking in your preorder now while the price is so low (comparatively to preorders elsewhere, and on the resale market).
Just to be clear, while this is still a good deal, it is also still above the recognised MSRP ($18.99). But, in all honesty, you so rarely see that price anymore that the de facto listings for Booster Bundles sit anywhere between $40-$60 at online retailers like Amazon, which tend to list closer to market price than MSRP. If anything, preorders are MSRP are so rare, that’s a deal within itself, and so hard to come by, most probably don’t even realise the inflationary pricing on listings elsewhere.
Market price is currently sitting at $95.88, and has been on a steady decline, dropping -26.76% in just the past 30 days. Funnily enough, while ETBs are dropping in price right now, the aforementioned 36-pack booster box is actually on the rise, jumping from around $200 just last week to almost $230 now.
Perfect Order is going to be honing in on many of the Pokémon featured in the Legends: Z-A game. Among the cards announced from the 120-card set so far, we know we’re going to be seeing many of the game’s starring Mega Pokémon: Mega Zygarde ex, Mega Starmie ex, and Mega Clefable ex; but also some surprising extra additions like Meowth ex.
It’s just a few weeks away now, releasing on March 27, so I’d highly recommend locking in your preorder for at least 1 or 2 of these booster bundles ASAP.
Robert Anderson is IGN’s Senior Commerce Editor and resident deals expert on games, collectibles, trading card games, and more. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Bluesky.
Nintendo and LEGO fans rejoice, because one of our favorite sets just got a major discount. Amazon has lowered the price of the LEGO Super Mario Piranha Plant 71426 to just $41.99 with free shipping after a 30% off instant discount. The 18+ rating means this is relatively challenging build, but having built it myself, and I think it’s a great set for builders of all ages with a little bit of guidance. It also happens to be the most affordable Mario-themed 18+ LEGO set you can get.
40% Off LEGO Super Mario Piranha Plant 71426
The LEGO Piranha Plant measures 9″ high, 4.5″ wide, and 6.5″ deep – about the size of a potted plant – and consists of 540 bricks. The Piranha Plant makes for a fantastic display; it has numerous articulation points located at the head, mouth, stalk, and each of its leaves, and the jaw is also hinged, all of which allow for myriad customizable poses. There’s even a cool little easter egg: A piggy bank is built into the pipe with two golden coins included to get you started on your stash. Despite the small brick count, this set is intended for ages 18+, so novice builders may need guidance. Once completed however, this adorable looking set is sure to be a hit with people of all ages, even if they didn’t join in on the build.
Kevin Wong built this set for IGN and wrote, “As far as LEGO builds are concerned, the new Piranha Plant is just about perfect – vibrantly colored, well-proportioned and sized, and reasonably priced. Whether you’re new to bricks or you’re a dedicated hobbyist, this set captures that signature Mario franchise whimsy – cute but not too cute, menacing but not too menacing, and imbued with lots of personality.”
Check out the LEGO Game Boy set
Another excellent LEGO x Nintendo collab is the LEGO Super Mario Game Boy 72046. This is a near 1:1 replica of the original Game Boy released back in 1989. The set comes with two game cartridges: Super Mario Land and The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and even includes their respective lenticular screens. Seth Macy built this set and loved it.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn’t hunting for deals for other people at work, he’s hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
Wildlight has announced that it will be permanently shutting down Highguard on March 12. Before then, it will release one final update that adds a new Warden, a new weapon, account level progression, and skill trees for those who want to get their final matches in.
Wildlight shared the news on X/Twitter, saying, “Today we’re sharing difficult news. We have made the decision to permanently shut down Highguard on March 12.
“Since launch, more than 2 million players stepped into Highguard’s world. You shared feedback, created content, and many believed in what we were building. For that, we are deeply grateful.
“Despite the passion and hard work of our team, we have not been able to build a sustainable player base to support the game long term. Servers will remain online until March 12th. We hope you’ll jump in with us one more time to show your support and get those final great matches in while we still can.
“The team is excited to release one final game update to enjoy in the remaining life of the game. We’ll be adding a new Warden, a new weapon, account level progression, and skill trees! Full patch notes are coming, and we’re targeting tonight or tomorrow morning for patch release.
“From all of us at Wildlight, thank you for playing, for supporting us, and for being part of Highguard’s story.”
The arrival of a new Remedy game this year is a great excuse to jump back into some of the studio’s older releases. Alan Wake 2, in particular, is one we absolutely love (our favorite horror game of 2023, actually). If you haven’t added it to your library yet, this is an excellent time to do it as its PS5 Deluxe Edition has hit a new low price at Amazon of $34.96 (see it here). Head to the link below to scoop it up at this price while it’s still on sale.
Alan Wake 2 Deluxe Edition (PS5) for $35
There’s quite a lot to enjoy with this Deluxe Edition as well. Not only does it come with the main game, but you’ll also get the two expansions, Night Springs and the Lake House. It also comes with cosmetics and items for both protagonists, Alan and Saga, including the Nordic Shotgun Skin, Crimson Windbreaker, and Lantern Charm for Saga, and Celebrity Suit and Parliament Shotgun Skin for Alan. In addition, you’ll even get the digital edition of Alan Wake Remastered, so you can play through Alan’s complete story across both games. It’s a real treat for just $35 with this deal.
As mentioned before, it took home our top prize as the best horror game of 2023. As for why it earned this acknowledgement, IGN’s Matt Purslow said “On the surface, Alan Wake 2 looks like Resident Evil, but beyond that familiar over-the-shoulder perspective is a game with unmatched vision. Its confident direction, using all manner of visual and audio tricks, drags you into a creepy world that offers unexpected surprises in every chapter.”
Of course, our review had very high praise for it as well. IGN’s Tristan Ogilvie said it, “delivers one of the boldest and most brain-bending survival-horror storylines this side of Silent Hill 2, presents it with uniformly immaculate art direction and audio design, and reinvigorates the series’ signature light-based shooting as though it’s been locked and loaded with a fresh pack of Energizers.”
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
