Gearbox’s upcoming first-person shooter Borderlands 4 will release 11 days earlier than planned, as confirmed by development chief Randy Pitchford in a video that appears to have gone live early.
Borderlands 4 was due out September 23, but will now release on September 12 across PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and Nintendo Switch 2.
In the video, Pitchford said: “Everything is going great, actually. In fact, everything is going kind of the best-case scenario. The game is awesome, the team is cooking, and so the launch date for Borderlands 4 is changing. We’re moving it forward. The launch date is now September 12.”
“What?! This never happens you guys! This never happens! We’re moving the launch date forward! You’re gonna get Borderlands 4 earlier!”
Pitchford added that the promised PlayStation State of Play focused on Borderlands 4 is due out imminently (Sony just announced it for tomorrow, April 30 at 2pm PT / 5pm ET / 11pm CEST).
Of course, there will be questions asked about whether the unexpected decision to bring Borderlands 4 forward has anything to do with the looming behemoth that is Grand Theft Auto 6. GTA 6 is currently still set for release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S at some point in the fall of 2025. That’s a vague release window that could end up consuming the likes of Borderlands 4, among other games. Has Borderlands 4 moved to give it more breathing room?
It’s worth noting that Borderlands 4 is published by 2K Games, which is owned by Take-Two. Take-Two is also the parent company of GTA developer Rockstar. At a high enough level, right up to CEO Strauss Zelnick, there will be a knowledge of all the company’s games, where they’re at in development, and a desire to give them all the best chance of success. Perhaps GTA 6’s release date recently came into focus, and it was felt that for the good of Borderlands 4, it should come out nearly two weeks earlier than planned.
If Borderlands 4 comes out September 12, we can perhaps rule out a GTA 6 release date during the same month and August. Could it come out in October? November? December 2025? All seem up for grabs now for GTA 6. The risk of course is that Take-Two ends up cannibalizing its big 2025 games by releasing them too close together. And let’s not forget Mafia: The Old Country, another 2K game, launches at some point summer 2025.
As you’d expect, Zelnick said Take-Two is planning its releases to avoid a risk of cannibalization, insisting the timing is driven by a desire to “respect the consumer’s need to spend a lot of time playing these hit games before they go on to the next.”
“No, I think we will plan the releases so as not to have that be a problem,” Zelnick said. “And what we found is when you’re giving consumers hits, they tend to be interested in pursuing other hits. In other words, I’ve said this many times, even when the hits aren’t ours, they’re a good thing for the industry. In this case, we hope that the hits will largely be ours. So we feel really good about it and I think that we will time our releases so as to respect the consumer’s need to spend a lot of time playing these hit games before they go on to the next.”
Amid all this speculation is of course the prospect that GTA 6 will be delayed either into early winter, or at some point in the first quarter of 2026.
“Look, there’s always a risk of slippage and I think as soon as you say words like absolutely, you jinx things,” Zelnick responded when IGN asked how confident he was that Rockstar would hit fall 2025 for GTA 6. “So we feel really good about it.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
My first ritual was ended by a large man with two morningstars swinging around him in a circle. Think the hands of a clock — one short, one long — but spikier and much, much more deadly, and equally inevitable as time, at least to the novice. I was playing a Barbarian that run; I didn’t understand what I was doing yet, or how to avoid them. My dodges weren’t dodging. I’d done pretty well up until that point, but he chewed through my lives like a dog with a bone, and then I was dead, my ritual incomplete. But I’d gotten somewhere, earned some upgrades, had a better idea of what I was doing. Time to try again.
Conquest Dark is a strange beast. It clearly owes a lot to Vampire Survivors, but its inspirations don’t quit there. It’s also pulling from stuff like Conan the Barbarian — your characters look like they can bench press a car but start with little more than a loincloth — and some cosmic horror, as a treat. There isn’t much story in Conquest Dark, but the actual setup is cool. After the arrival of something called The Black Planet 237 years ago, humanity stands on the brink of annihilation. Undead armies have laid waste to the great human kingdoms. The Cosmic Gods have fallen. The Primordial Ones have awoken from their long slumber. Only Kharathia, The City of Legends, still stands, one last hope for humanity. In a last, desperate effort, people of all stripes — heroes, criminals, devotees of old gods, those seeking glory — complete Dark Rituals to summon the undead hordes and fallen heroes to gain power, hoping to use it to uncover the secrets of the Black Planet and reclaim what they can.
It’s a cool conceit, but Conquest Dark isn’t one for exposition. Most of this is delivered as text, and it’s up to you to stitch things together. You see it in the little details. The named bosses, like Lord Commander Urien, who appears outside Kharathia. Who was he before? A protector of the city, now turned against it in undeath? What about Witch Smeller Mzawi in the Shifting Sands? How do you smell witches, and what do you do if you catch a whiff of one? What happened at The Chasm of Fallen Heroes? Who was S’hes, why did she hunt Titans, and what specifically did she do to have an order of hunters named after her? What is the Black Planet? Where did it come from? I don’t know how interested in answering these questions Conquest Dark is, but every time I went to a new place, saw what was there, or learned a little bit more from a description, I was intrigued.
Dark Rituals, Big Choices
In practice, Conquest Dark is pretty simple: you go to an area on the map to start a Dark Ritual. Once you’ve selected where you want to be, it’s time to figure out who. You’ve got a trio of characters to select from, and you can reroll those options as many times as you like. You only have one race (Human) and two classes (Hunter and Barbarian) from the jump, though you’ll quickly get more. I won’t spoil the additional races, but the new classes like the agile Thief, paladin-esque Oathkeeper, and the spellcaster-flavored Acolyte of Kuu, all do exactly what they sound like.
But let’s start from, well, the start. The Hunter is faster and more nimble and naturally inclined towards bows and ranged attacks, while the Barbarian has more health and bleed resistance, and thrives up close and personal with melee weapons, but what might be more interesting are the randomly generated proficiencies they get right from the jump. An extra 5% critical hit damage, 2.5% bonus health, or 5% reduced bleed rate may not seem like a big deal, but it can define who you want your character to be, and how you upgrade later. I particularly like that you can reroll your three starting choices as much as you want, for free, or leave an area entirely at no cost if you decide this isn’t where you wanna be.
No matter who you pick, your character starts with nothing more than a loincloth and their fists. That doesn’t last long, though.
Once you’ve got your guy (or gal), the fun begins. First, you select an origin. Veteran of the War gives you Heavy Armor, Shields, and 25% Bonus Health, while Hunter’s Apprentice adds Short Bow proficiency, Survival, and 0.5 Projectile Pierce. It’s important to note that you can double-up here. If you’re playing as a Hunter, you probably shouldn’t take Hunter’s Apprentice, for instance, because you already have two of those proficiencies, but it would be great for a Barbarian that wants to play the ranged game. If you play things, right, you can essentially multi-class: Oathkeepers are already hard to kill, but it’s even more difficult when you take the Stargazer origin, which gives you the Acolyte of Kuu’s barrier. Once you’ve got an origin, the games begin. No matter who you pick, your character starts with nothing more than a loincloth and their fists. That doesn’t last long, though.
After you smack your first undead back to the afterlife, you get your first major choice: your weapon. Some of your options might not seem all that important. Take a Hunter’s opening choices. Shortbow versus longbow’s not really that crucial, right? Wrong. Shortbows shoot faster, but do less damage per shot and have less range, while longbows take a little more time to fire, but hit harder and farther. Once you’re got your killing instrument of choice, things escalate. The first few waves are small, just so you have enough time to get used to things. Like Vampire Survivors, you don’t actually control much in Conquest Dark; just where you move and when you dodge. Attacking happens automatically. Instead, your focus is almost entirely on positioning. Where to be, when to dodge, keeping track of when abilities will activate, and being in a position to capitalize on that big shot or big swing.
I Ain’t Got Time to Bleed
As you level up, you’ll make more choices. What to equip, what abilities to upgrade, when to re-roll a selection you don’t like or skip it entirely for more currency for re-rolls later. There’s a ton of build variety here. I gravitated to builds with huge critical hit damage and high crit chance with the Hunter, but the Barbarian works well with AoE damage and by increasing the chance for enemies to drop health. Picking early and specializing seems to be key.
Your real goal, aside from putting together a build that works, is staying alive as long as you can. See, you get 10 lives on each run. If you lose one, you start bleeding. The more lives you lose, the more you bleed. The first time you die, you start losing 1% of your health every second. The second time, that jumps to 2%. The third time makes it 3% and so on. There’s no way to stop bleeding once you start, but you can reduce it by speccing into health regeneration, reduced bleed rate, and how likely enemies are to drop health. Surviving long enough to complete a Ritual means staying alive after enemies cover every inch of the screen, and you start dying. The longer you can stave it off, the better, but the difference between a failed run and a successful one is how long you can hang on once things go sideways and the bosses start showing up. Like you, they have a lot of lives, and they can get pretty nasty, swinging morningstars or not. They’re tough, but if it bleeds, you can kill it. I’ve had the most success as a Hunter, Oathkeeper, and the Acolyte of Kuu (I like standing far away from things and shooting them), but I admire how different each class feels and how they forced me to approach fights in unique ways that played to their strengths.
Your real goal, aside from putting together a build that works, is staying alive as long as you can. See, you get 10 lives on each run. If you lose one, you start bleeding. The more lives you lose, the more you bleed.
Whether you succeed or fail (and by the way, you die regardless; even if you succeed, an army of unkillable ghosts sweeps in to ruin your day. Oops), you’re going to unlock rewards, and then it’s back to the map to spend them to help future runs. Maybe that means heading to the Stygian Archive in Kharathia, where you can not only see everything you’ve unlocked, but also upgrade individual skills, weapon sets, abilities, and so on with the Soul Coins you get on each run. Or maybe you’re off to the Altar of Power to spend crystals for increased damage, or the Altar of Toughness to take a chunk out of that pesky bleed damage, or the Altar of Souls to make sure you can collect souls (experience) from farther away. And then there’s the Factions, like the aforementioned Order of S’hes, which rewards you with buffs for all classes for slaying things as a Hunter. And then there’s the Obelisk of the Moon, where you can ramp up the difficulty of performing Rituals for increased rewards by offering up Shards of the Black Planet. Then it’s back to a Ritual. Live, die, upgrade, repeat.
Live, Die, Upgrade, Retry
Conquest Dark doesn’t stop and explain how all of this works off the bat, though there is a detailed game guide there if you want to do some light reading before you set off. Mostly, you learn by doing, and I like that. Put me in, coach, I’m ready to play, win or lose. And once you start unlocking more stuff, the wheels start turning. ‘What can I do with this class? How do I build around this thing? What if I tried taking this origin with this class? What can I do?” And once they start, they don’t really stop.
This preview’s written, Lord Commander Urien (the dude with the morningstars) has been sent on his way, and I’ve seen several hours of Conquest Dark at this point. But I also can’t stop thinking about it, either. What I might try next, how I might upgrade certain things, what classes I want to explore. The moment-to-moment gameplay here is remarkably simple. You just move and dodge (or use dodge-based abilities that can double as attacks), but there’s an elegance to it that I appreciate, and it kept me coming back with new ideas. Upgrades may be what put you over the top, but the magic happens when you step into the arena, in the moments between life and death. You’re going to die; that’s a given. The question is how far you can get (and how many horrors you can vanquish) before you do.
Today feels like a choose-your-own-adventure for deals. Lexar’s Amazon sale is throwing up to 54 percent discounts across SSDs, RAM, and memory cards, which is a polite way of saying it is a good time to stop hoarding files on a 2016 laptop. Humble Bundle is handing out a pile of id Software classics for less than the cost of lunch, and Pokémon TCG fans have a few new bundles to eye, assuming you are ok with the fact that card prices are quietly crashing behind the scenes.
TL;DR: Deals For Today
In my opinion, if you have been looking for an excuse to upgrade your storage, stack your gaming backlog even higher, or justify another Pokémon impulse buy, today’s list is a decent place to start. It is not Black Friday, but I will take a solid sale when it shows up.
id & Friends Humble Game Bundle
I think calling this a bundle is almost underselling it. You are getting DOOM, Wolfenstein, DOOM Eternal, and a coupon toward DOOM: The Dark Ages, just to name a few. It is a lot of chaos and a lot of catharsis for not a lot of money. Steam ratings are strong across the board if you care about that kind of thing, but honestly, DOOM 1993 still sells itself.
Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet – Surging Sparks Booster Bundle
Six booster packs in one bundle sounds good on paper, but in my opinion, the smarter move right now is to look at singles. Prices for this set are dropping fast, and if you are chasing specific cards, buying them outright is probably cheaper and less soul crushing than another box full of commons.
Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet—Twilight Masquerade Elite Trainer Box
Greninja ex SIR, that is all. In all seriousness, this is a brilliant set that’s often overlooked. Whilst the price is a little over MSRP, it’s worth getting just for the booster packs included. Plus the promo, sleeves and dice look great in this particular ETB. Following the trend, Twilight Masquerade single cards are also crashing in price, so make sure to check if you can just buy the cards you’re after for less.
Twilight Masquerade Single Cards
Surging Sparks Single Cards
Pokémon TCG: Shining Fates Collection Pikachu V Box
kachu gets a lot of oversized cardboard love in this box with a promo card, a giant version, and four Shining Fates booster packs. It is a decent pickup if you like opening packs, but single card prices are slipping hard right now. I think it makes more sense to hunt down the exact cards you want unless you are feeling reckless.
Shining Fates Single Cards
The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Remastered Dark Brotherhood Medallion
In my opinion, this is one of those collectibles that you either want immediately or not at all. It is an officially licensed Dark Brotherhood medallion, limited to 5000 pieces, finished in black and gold, and somehow still cheaper than most novelty keychains. Ships later this year, assuming you survive the wait
Pokémon TCG Paldean Fates Booster Bundle
Paldean Fates brings back shiny Pokémon in a big way, and this bundle gives you six booster packs to chase them. I want to be excited about it, but again, single card prices for Paldean Fates are not holding up well. If you just want a shiny Charizard ex SIR without the suspense, the singles market is sitting there quietly judging your pack opening addiction.
Paldean Fates Single Cards
Pokemon TCG: Azure Legends Tin – 5 Packs
I like a good tin, especially one with five booster packs packed inside, but getting a random Kyogre, Xerneas, or Dialga promo card feels a little like gambling with slightly better odds. It is a solid pickup for the price if you do not mind leaving your promo fate to the RNG gods. If you are only after one specific chase card though outside of the included two Surging Sparks boosters, it might save your blood pressure to just buy it separately.
Surging Sparks Single Cards
Lexar Sale
Lexar is finally giving some breathing room on pricing with this Amazon sale, and the Armor 700 is a standout. You are getting 4TB of rugged storage with serious transfer speeds for about 100 dollars off the typical price. It is water resistant, dust resistant, and a lot more durable than whatever junk is sitting at the bottom of your backpack right now.
Pokémon Game Sale
Woot is offering a solid spread of Pokémon games today, and I want at least three of them. Brilliant Diamond, Legends: Arceus, Let’s Go, Eevee!, and a few others are sitting between $39.99 and $44.99, which feels right for anyone catching up before Switch 2 changes the landscape again. In my opinion, it is a smart time to grab them while prices are behaving themselves. Everything here is fully playable now and will likely get performance bumps once Nintendo’s next system arrives.
MSI Desktops & Components Sale
MSI’s factory-reconditioned gaming desktops are quietly one of the best parts of today’s sale. Machines like the AEGIS R 13NUE-448US are going for $1,129.99, and RTX 4060 GPUs are under $300. I want to be responsible, but this pricing makes it harder than it should be. If you have been thinking about rebuilding your setup, this is exactly the kind of deal you hope not to miss.
The Legend of Zelda Master Sword Proplica
The Master Sword Proplica from Tamashii Nations is $200 at the IGN Store, and it feels like one of those collectibles you either get immediately or spend months regretting. It plays eight songs from across Zelda games, has sound effects, vibrates when you swing it, and looks good enough to make it feel slightly less ridiculous to own. Slightly.
Samsung Pro Plus 512GB MicroSDXC + Reader
Amazon has the Samsung PRO Plus 512GB microSD card with a USB reader for $29.99. I think it is a good fit if you are adding games to your Switch, Steam Deck, ROG Ally, or anything else still using microSD storage. It is fast enough for quick transfers, big enough for most libraries, and cheap enough that you do not have to think too hard about it. Just know it is not built for Switch 2, in case you’re planning ahead.
Play for Miracles Bundle
Humble’s Play for Miracles Bundle is giving away 31 games for $20, which is more titles than I will realistically finish this year. That said, games like Terraforming Mars and Survival: Fountain of Youth are strong enough that even grabbing two or three makes the bundle worth it. Plus, the money goes to Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, which makes ignoring the other 28 games feel slightly less irresponsible.
The 8BitDo Retro 87 Mechanical Keyboard is down to $99.99 at Amazon. I think it is one of the best-looking keyboards out right now if you want something that works and does not scream “boring office equipment.” It has Kailh Jellyfish X switches, a top-mount design, fast response, and Xbox-inspired styling that actually looks good on a gaming desk. I probably do not need another keyboard. I am thinking about it anyway.
8BitDo Retro R8 Mouse (Xbox Edition)
Amazon also has the 8BitDo Retro R8 Wireless Mouse on sale for $58.68. It feels like the natural companion to the Retro 87 Keyboard, but it also stands fine on its own. It packs a PAW 3395 sensor, programmable buttons, a 4K polling rate, and a charging dock that doubles as a signal booster. I want one for a low-key gaming setup that does not look like it is held together with RGB lighting and prayer.
Even a casual glance at the magnificent form of one of Elden Ring‘s best-known players, Let Me Solo Her, is enough to humble the strongest Tarnished, but even he struggled with one of FromSoftware’s most formidable foes, Bloodborne‘s Orphan of Kos.
In a new video, Let Me Solo Her explained that after finally giving in and picking up a PS5 in order to access the Elden Ring Nightreign playtest, he was finally able to play fan-favorite Bloodborne… and even he, a FromSoft veteran, had issues with some of Bloodborne’s most infamous boss encounters.
After coming to terms with the drop in framerate — Elden Ring is 60 frames per second (fps); Bloodborne is 30 fps — the heavy atmosphere, and dying to the werewolf in the clinic (we’ve all done it), Let Me Solo Her took us through his entire Bloodborne journey, including its DLC.
“Finally, I met the Orphan of Kos. Every Soulsborne game that has a DLC always has that final boss where they feel so overwhelmingly powerful,” he said. “We had Promised Consort Radahn for Elden Ring, Slave Knight Gael for Dark Souls 3, and Manus, Father of the Abyss for Dark Souls 1. And Orphan of Kos was that boss for Bloodborne.
“This boss took me more tries than any previous boss fights, and even had me exploring Chalice Dungeons to farm Blood Vials and bullets off stream, just to replenish them,” Let Me Solo Her added (thanks, GamesRadar+). “He’s definitely the hardest boss in Bloodborne for me.”
Also bumping up against Bloodborne’s toughest bosses and struggling to find a strat that works? Check out IGN’s Bloodborne walkthrough, which covers all main areas of the game, as well as optional areas, boss battles, shortcuts, secret items, and more… including tips on how to put the Orphan of Kos down for good.
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
As the wait goes on for more Grand Theft Auto 6 news following 2023’s Trailer 1, one former Rockstar developer has said he wouldn’t release any more trailers before the game’s release date.
Rockstar released GTA 6 Trailer 1 to record-breaking viewership in December 2023, but it hasn’t released a single asset since. The year-and-a-half wait for more information has fueled increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories about when Rockstar will release GTA 6 Trailer 2.
But former Rockstar Games technical director Obbe Vermeij, who worked on the series up to 2008’s Grand Theft Auto 4 before leaving the company nine months after launch, said if it were up to him he wouldn’t release any more trailers for GTA 6.
“If it was my call I wouldn’t release any additional trailers,” he tweeted. “There is more than enough hype around VI and the element of surprise is going to make the release only bigger as an event.”
Then, in response to one user who wondered whether Rockstar might announce the GTA 6 release date and nothing else, Vermeij replied: “It would be a boss move.”
Would Rockstar actually do something like that, though? By naming the first GTA 6 trailer as GTA 6 Trailer 1, the suggestion is that more numbered trailers will follow. Plans change, of course. Perhaps this one will come right down to the wire, and Rockstar would rather focus on getting GTA 6 out the door this year than on a trailer it knows will be analyzed to within an inch of its life.
Vermeij revealed that Rockstar decided to delay GTA 4 in July 2007, just three months before its original October 16, 2007 release date, and suggested “decision day” for GTA 6 will be similar.
“Only at that time did it become clear we were going to miss the deadline,” Vermeij explained. “I’m guessing decision-day for VI will be similar. Fingers crossed for Take2’s August earnings report.”
In an interview with Bloomberg in March, Zelnick was asked straight up: why is GTA 6’s release date such a carefully held secret?
“The anticipation for that title may be the greatest anticipation I’ve ever seen for an entertainment property,” Zelnick replied. “And I’ve been around the block a few times and I’ve been in every entertainment business there is.
“We want to maintain the anticipation and the excitement. And we do have competitors who will describe their release schedule for years in advance. And we found that the better thing to do is to provide marketing materials relatively close to the release window in order to create that excitement on the one hand and balance the excitement with unmet anticipation. We don’t always get it exactly right, but that’s what we are trying to do.”
Mike York, who worked as an animator at Rockstar New England for six years helping to build Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 before leaving the company in 2017, said on his YouTube channel that Rockstar is playing up to the conspiracy theories, deliberately avoiding saying anything about the game or when Trailer 2 will be released in order to fuel even more speculation within the community.
“They’re reaching and pulling and trying to come up with these really cool theories to decipher when the next trailer will be,” he said of fans.
“Specifically Rockstar, they’re very secretive about what they do, and this is a really cool tactic because it creates allure and it creates mystery and it creates people talking about it without them having to do anything. The more they’re silent the better it is, because the more people will be antsy and want to talk about it and have this feeling of not knowing what’s going to happen.”
York went on to say that Rockstar is likely resisting pressure from its army of fans to announce the GTA 6 Trailer 2 release date for this exact reason.
“They could easily release the trailer date and be like, ‘Hey this is when the trailer’s coming out,’ but they don’t do it. And they don’t do it on purpose because it’s a really, really good marketing tactic. If you think about it, it creates these really cool theories.
“This brings the fans together. This is a really cool way to get fans to talk about your game when you’re not releasing anything yet, in-between the times.
“All these theories are great. They only create hype, they create talk, they create mystery behind the games.”
Zelnick’s quote also suggests that GTA 6 Trailer 2, assuming it exists, won’t be released until we’re closer to the game’s actual release date in fall 2025, assuming it’s not delayed. If that’s true, it may be some time before we get another look at the game.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
We still don’t have confirmation that the game based on Akira Toriyama’s fan-favorite anime and manga series is coming to Switch 2, but a now-deleted tweet from the Saudi General Authority of Media Regulation, spotted by the Gaming Leaks and Rumours subreddit, proves otherwise.
“Experience the fighting action in the latest game Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero. Available on Nintendo Switch 2, featuring 3D battles and storylines that change based on your choices,” the tweet said before it was taken down, confirming it had secured a 12+ rating.
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero takes the legendary gameplay of the Budokai Tenkaichi series and raises it to whole new levels, boasting “an incredible number “of playable characters, each with signature abilities, transformations, and techniques.
We gave it 7/10 in the IGN Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero review, saying: “Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is a final flash from the past, sometimes to a fault, but the feeling of traveling back to a simpler time when games didn’t have to be balanced or competitive to be fun is still a good one.”
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky
The Legend of Zelda may be one of Nintendo’s most storied and popular video game franchises, but did you also know there’s a vast library of books you can check out? From a wide variety of manga to lore encyclopedias, these books make the perfect gift for the Zelda fanatic in your life. Or if you just wanted to spruce up your own bookshelf, we got you covered.
Amazon’s April book sale might be over, but many of these are still available at a discount for the foreseeable future and make for great gifts.
The Legend of Zelda Manga
Penned by Akira Himekawa, the Legend of Zelda manga span almost the entire history of the games, with major manga series based on many of the mainline titles like Ocarina of Time and the Minish Cap. These are great for people new to manga wanting to dip their toes in, or die-hard fans of the games looking for deeper world building. All of these stories are available individually, but if you’re a collector, you can get some of them in various collected box sets.
The 11 volume Twilight Princess Manga has its own boxed set, which includes the complete story and a poster. Additionally, the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past manga by Shotaro Ishinomori is a great quick read that’s also available.
The Legend of Zelda Encyclopedias
If you’re in the mood for something a little more educational, the Legend of Zelda encyclopedias are the perfect place to get a deep dive into Hyrule’s lore, culture, and different races. The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia originally released in 2013 and gave fans the first officially established timeline. If you’re unfamiliar, for years fans have meticulously speculated about a branching timeline that began in Ocarina of Time — one branch where adult Link defeats Ganondorf and one where he doesn’t. It’s a pretty interesting bit of lore that explains some of the settings in later and past games.
The Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia and Art & Artifacts offer even deeper looks at the universe, and include detailed breakdowns of the different items, characters, and enemies, as well as exclusive interviews with developers.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Creating a Champion is an over 400 page companion to the 2017 game. It contains countless design artwork and concept art, a look at the history of Hyrule, and interviewers with key developers.
The Legend of Zelda Guides
Thanks in part to the internet, they just don’t quite make video game strategy guides like they used to. These days, older guides from publishers like Prima Games and Brady Games have become steeply priced collector’s items. There is, however, one massive hardcover official guide for 2023’s Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom that is currently available on the Nintendo Switch. This almost 500 page guide covers everything you need to know in the game, from every Korok location and cooking recipes, to dungeon solutions and boss fight strategies.
Of course, you can also find all of that information in IGN’s guide to the game, but this physical copy is a great addition to your shelf.
When it comes to licensed movie franchises entering the world of video games, very few have as storied a history as Star Wars. From hopping into an X-Wing cockpit in Rogue Squadron to making decisions that affect the fate of the galaxy in Knights of the Old Republic, George Lucas’ expansive sci-fi universe has become a creative playground for a range of talented developers over the years, and with it paved the way for some truly iconic Star Wars games.
For those looking to dive into some of these games on their Nintendo Switch, we’ve got you covered. Below, we’ve compiled every single Star Wars game available on Nintendo’s flagship console, ranging from immersive RPGs to classic first-person shooters.
How Many Star Wars Games Are on Nintendo Switch?
In total, there are 10 Star Wars games available on Nintendo Switch. The list below won’t include game bundles like the Heritage Collection or the Knights of the Old Republic bundle, although it’s worth noting that you can find most of the games below packaged together.
Every Star Wars Game on Nintendo Switch
These blurbs contain mild spoilers for each game, including characters, settings, and story beats.
Star Wars: Dark Forces (Original Release: 1995 / Remaster Release: 2024)
The latest Star Wars game to be remastered for Switch, Dark Forces is the first official entry in what would eventually become known as the Jedi Knight series. Assuming the role of a reformed Imperial Officer named Kyle Katarn, players embark on a covert mission for the Rebel Alliance. They’ll get the chance to explore the galaxy across several missions, taking part in frantic first-person shootouts and uncovering a story set between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.
An arcade racer based around The Phantom Menace’s podracing sequence, Star Wars Episode 1 Racer straps players into their very own podracer and enters them into various tournaments across the galaxy. There, they’ll battle against the likes of Anakin Skywalker and Sebulba, souping up their craft with additional upgrades in an attempt to stomp out the competition and become a legend on the streets of Tatooine.
A continuation of the Star Wars Jedi Knight series, Jedi Outcast follows series’ protagonist Kyle Katarn as he re-embraces the Force and heads out on a quest for revenge. Alongside the first-person shootouts that acted as the centerpiece of earlier entries in the series, Jedi Outcast hones in on technical lightsaber dueling, with players facing off against Sith lords and their friends online in physics-based lightsaber battles.
Another classic Star Wars game repackaged and re-released for the Nintendo Switch, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is a prequel to Attack of the Clones that follows notorious bounty hunter, Jango Fett. The game tracks Fett’s attempts to take down a dark Jedi known as Komari Vosa, forcing him to traverse the galaxy’s criminal underworld and battle his way through gangsters, Republic forces and other bounty hunters in an attempt to find and capture his target.
To defend against these threats, players will need to take full advantage of Fett’s powerful arsenal of weapons, using his jet pack and guns to rain down fire on enemies and capture targets. Alongside getting to control one of the prequel trilogy’s most enigmatic villains, Bounty Hunter also tells a full story that directly leads into the events of Attack of the Clones, featuring iconic characters like Jabba the Hutt, Count Dooku and Darth Sidious.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Original Release: 2003 / Remaster Release: 2021)
Often heralded as one of the most iconic RPGs ever made, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic tells a new Star Wars story set 4,000 years before the events of The Phantom Menace. Players take on the role of a Galactic Republic soldier who crash lands on the planet of Taris after their ship is attacked.
Left stranded, they undertake a daring adventure and learn the ways of the Force, rallying against the armies of the Sith and their fearsome leader, Darth Malak. Knights of the Old Republic envisions the Star Wars universe during the height of the Jedi Civil War, allowing players to choose whether to follow the path of the light or be tempted by the corrupt allure of the dark side.
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (Original Release: 2003 / Remaster Release: 2020)
Switching out long-running Star Wars Jedi Knight protagonist Kyle Katarn for a new, fully customisable lead, Jedi Academy casts you as Jayden Korr: a Padawan studying under Katarn at the Jedi Temple. Taught in the ways of the force and provided with your very own lightsaber, you explore the galaxy, undertaking new missions and battling back against Sith forces. Jedi Academy introduced several features to the Jedi Knight series, including new fighting styles and the ability to customize lightsabers.
A remaster of both the original Star Wars: Battlefront and Star Wars: Battlefront 2, the Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection allows you to suit up as clones, stormtroopers, droids and more while taking the fight to your enemies on large scale battlefields. With maps spread across both the classic and prequel trilogies, Battlefront gives you the opportunity to relive some of the saga’s most iconic moments, including defending Hoth from Vader and the Imperial Army, taking down Separatist droids on the surface of Geonosis and the climactic battle between the Rebels and the Stormtroopers in the forests of Endor.
The re-release also includes fully functioning online multiplayer, which supports up to 64 players, and an expanded take on Hero Assault: the fan-favourite mode which allows all players to spawn in as hero characters.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 – The Sith Lords (Original Release 2005 / Remaster Release: 2022)
An official follow-up to Bioware’s landmark RPG, Obsidian took the reins for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 – The Sith Lords. Set five years after the events of the original game, the player takes on the role of an exiled Jedi tasked with finding the remnants of the order and uniting them against the growing Sith army.
The ensuing journey takes players across a series of iconic Star Wars planets, where they recruit a party of allies and make choices that shape their relationship with the Jedi Order, the Sith and the Force.
Moving away from lightsaber duels and tales of Jedi venturing across the galaxy, Star Wars: Republic Commando enlists players as a clone trooper, sending them to join Delta Squad as its leader: Boss. Set during the Clone Wars, players guide their unit through three first-person shooter campaigns, gunning down battle droids and other Separatist forces across iconic prequel era Star Wars locales, including Geonosis and Kashyyyk.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Original Release: 2008 / Remaster Release: 2022)
Set between the events of Revenge of the Sith and a New Hope, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed tells the tale of Starkiller: an apprentice under the tutelage of Darth Vader. Initially sent to hunt and kill the Jedi that survived Order 66, Star Killer’s story quickly spins out into a galaxy-wide adventure, as players build their Force abilities, engage in action-packed lightsaber combat and experience the power fantasy of being a Jedi Knight at the height of their powers.
Star Wars Pinball (2019)
A pinball game themed around the Star Wars saga, Star Wars Pinball is exactly what it says on the tin. It offers nineteen pinball tables with designs inspired by a spectrum of Star Wars media, ranging from The Empire Strikes Back and The Force Awakens to Rogue One and Rebels.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (2022)
Traveller’s Tales latest LEGO game for Switch, The Skywalker Saga transports all nine of the mainline Star Wars movies to the world of LEGO. From Obi-Wan and Anakin’s tragic battle above the fires of Mustafar to Luke and Vader’s legendary showdown in Bespin, The Skywalker Saga aims to be an all-encompassing recreation of the series, just with a lot more plastic bricks and minifigures.
Alongside being the biggest LEGO game to date, it also builds significantly on its predecessors, with several open-world areas to explore, more involved boss battles and new third-person shooting mechanics. It also features a stacked roster of playable Star Wars characters, with the cast including everyone from Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader to Babu Frik and Jabba the Hutt.
Making its debut on the Switch in 2024, Star Wars: Hunters is a free-to-play multiplayer arena shooter where players can pick from a range of heroes, form a team and take down opponents online.
The range of heroes on offer allow you to take charge of a host of different Star Wars units, including everything from battle droids and storm troopers to Jedis and even Jawas, each coming with their own set of unique abilities you can utilise to support your team and bring down your enemies.
Like a Mythic Dawn cultist popping out of a secret room to stab the Emperor in the back, a remaster of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has shown up out of nowhere, and it’s a dagger I’ve gladly thrown myself onto for over 80 hours (and counting) in less than a week. This Unreal-tinted glasses nostalgia trip modestly modernizes one of my all-time favorite open-world RPGs and had me teaming up with Sean Bean to close shut the jaws of Oblivion, helping the God of Madness with his, um, complicated mental health issues, rising to the top of every faction like I was angling to become Cyrodiil’s Valedictorian, and violating every single person’s personal space by getting way too close to them while talking.
I’d recently revisited the original Oblivion when rumors of its return were swirling, so with its shortcomings very clear in my mind, I found that the improved UI, revised leveling system, and especially the graphical overhaul have made this nearly 20-year-old classic massively more playable. That said, I’ve also seen a disappointingly recognizable amount of jank and poor performance, and the mostly unchanged enemy scaling apparatus hasn’t gotten less irritating with time. And yet, as someone who considers myself pretty immune to the charms of nostalgia alone when a game hasn’t aged well, I had a fantastic time returning to this adorably weird open-world adventure and will likely lose even more time to it in the coming weeks and months as I tie up loose ends in the Shivering Isles.
If you never played the original Oblivion, it’s your typical massive open-world fantasy RPG from the folks who would go on to bring us Skyrim (and more recently Starfield and Fallout 4), and it’s from an era where the designers at Bethesda provided fewer guardrails and wrote stronger stories. You’ll level up your character in everything from casting destructive magic to repairing your armor as you seek stronger loot, complete quests, and steal everything in sight in typical RPG fashion. Most of the stuff you’ll do, like rise up the ranks of the Mages Guild and uncover an ancient sorcerer’s plot to throw Tamriel into chaos, is incredibly enjoyable and has withstood the test of time, while other aspects, like the procedurally generated Oblivion levels you’re subjected to frequently, have fared less well and serve as glowing reminders of problems Bethesda never quite figured out how to resolve.
Oblivion’s systems allow for significantly more freedom to do wacky stuff.
The main way it sets itself apart from more recent Bethesda RPGs is that its sometimes unintuitive systems, while undoubtedly less approachable than Skyrim’s streamlined builds, allow for significantly more freedom to do wacky stuff. A great example of this is its spellcrafting system: In Skyrim you can learn to throw fireballs or turn invisible, but your options are limited to the specific magical tools you’re provided out of the box (unless you install mods, of course), while in Oblivion you’re given the option to create your own unique spells using a cocktail of effects controlled by various sliders and toggles, then just see what happens when you try and cast them.
Let’s say you combine the Demoralize spell effect, which makes characters run away from you during combat, with the Fortify Speed spell effect, which increases how quickly a character can move. Now you’ve just created a spell that you can cast on people that will make them cartoonishly run away from you at lightning speeds, to hilarious effect. Practical in any real sense? Probably not. But it’s the kind of goofy, dumb thing Oblivion’s old-school design sensibilities allow for, and which I find far more compelling than a pre-curated bag of one-note tricks. This tradeoff of greater freedom at the cost of intuitiveness and often janky execution can be found all over Oblivion’s dorky DNA, and it’s one of the reasons I really connect with this unashamedly wonky adventure.
For my money this story is some of Bethesda’s best work.
This series of massive, open-world gallivants aren’t known for having the most focused, noteworthy stories, but Oblivion actually surprises in this regard. For my money it’s some of Bethesda’s best work, especially when it comes to the all-important faction quest lines. The Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild stories in particular have lived rent-free in my head for the better part of two decades, and I was pleasantly surprised to see they’ve aged like fine wine. The Shivering Isles expansion area and quests, which throw you into an Alice in Wonderland-like world of madness, remains one of the best DLCs ever made, with a surprisingly compelling story given to such a seemingly silly character in the mad god Sheogorath. Even the main quest, which has you finding the bastard son of a slain emperor to stop an otherworldly invasion, is actually much better than I remembered it being, with Sean Bean’s Martin having a genuinely touching character arc that I found myself quite invested in. Don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing as meaningful and well-written as you’d find in a more story-focused RPG, like Red Dead Redemption 2, and there are plenty of forgettable characters with stilted dialogue to go around, but I’d still put it well above the average for this type of game.
It probably goes without saying that the graphical upgrade is Oblivion Remastered’s biggest improvement, and the efforts of the team at Virtuous that remastered Bethesda’s original are a sight to behold. While things definitely don’t look anywhere near the normal standards of a big-budget game built from the ground up today, putting this version side-by-side with its 2006 doppelganger is eyebrow-raisingly impressive. The entire map is crisp, with a draw distance my teenage-self could have only dreamed of. Lighting, shadows, and character lip syncing in particular have been overhauled so much that it’s actually kind of shocking. That said, other things bizarrely didn’t get the memo. The NPCs’ faces, for instance, are almost universally hideous and cartoonish and have about a 40% chance of being cross-eyed. (Although, honestly, being horrified by character faces might actually be part of the authentic Oblivion experience.) On balance, though, it’s still a total glow up. It’s one of those situations where everything looks like I fondly remember it instead of how it actually did back in 2006, which speaks to how the spirit and style of the original has been maintained.
Putting this version side-by-side with its 2006 doppelganger is eyebrow-raisingly impressive.
Beyond the glossy new look, though, perhaps the thing that has had the biggest impact on gameplay in Oblivion Remastered is the simple inclusion of a sprint button. If you haven’t played Oblivion in over a decade you might be shocked to hear that, no, there was no sprinting. Wild, I know. And if you never played the original, just understand that you’ll never truly know this gift you’ve been granted from Akatosh himself. I don’t even really mind that I’m now losing stamina by sprinting (something that annoys me in RPGs where you’re literally always running around). It’s worth it, even if it does have the odd side effect of making the entire map feel smaller, especially cities and dungeons that can now be fully explored in about half the time. This change has also made me care a whole lot more about investing in skills and magical buffs that increase my stamina, since now I’m using that meter for nearly everything I do. But despite the extra fiddling that causes, moving quickly through areas I already know like the back of my hand makes for a remarkably less tedious time.
There are also a bunch of major changes to the UI, leveling system, and other minor changes to get rid of some irksome choices that existed in the original. The UI has been modernized with today’s design sensibilities, so there are lots of appreciated additions you might not even notice. The compass has moved to the top of your screen and provides way more information; the health, magicka, and stamina meters are now spaced out across the screen instead of being shoved into one corner together; and the menus are much more intuitively placed, so you can toggle between your spells and character stats a lot faster.
There are still plenty of wonky choices.
Some elements still feel pretty old-timey – like the quest log popping up right in the middle of the screen anytime you’ve reached a new milestone in one, awkwardly interrupting whatever you were doing – but most of these annoyances didn’t bother me much. The developers clearly picked their battles with what to change and what to keep mostly the same, and these little changes can be felt all over. For example, in the original version of Oblivion any time you try to harvest a resource from the world, you roll a chance to do so, meaning you end up wasting a whole bunch of time trying to grab materials to make potions and whatnot. In Oblivion Remastered, this has been revised so now anytime you reach for an ingredient, you just get it, y’know, like they weren’t intentionally trying to annoy you. There are still plenty of wonky choices, like the return of the infamous persuasion minigame that is just as boring and unintuitive as you remember it, but they’ve mostly done a good job with polishing up the worst of these rough edges.
Unfortunately, one of the areas where Oblivion needed the most improvement was its leveling system and how enemies scale with you as you progress, and while some tweaking has been done to make it feel less unfair, it remains deeply flawed. Previously, you could only level up your character by improving your primary class skills, like Destruction for a mage or Heavy Armor for a warrior – but if you focused on doing that, enemies would scale with you and beat you to a pulp with their high-level gear (since you were as unlikely to be as well-rounded or intentionally stat-ed out as they are). This made the midgame a real pain, until you eventually got over that hump and retook your place as a geared-out badass. In Oblivion Remastered, they’ve melded that leveling system with Skyrim’s version in which everything you do increases your level, and that makes for a significantly less frustrating climb against opponents that arbitrarily become more dangerous across the entire game world.
The level-scaling system is a long-standing criticism of Oblivion.
Now I didn’t feel punished for focusing on my primary skills first, boosting my level before I was properly powered for the more lethal enemies that progression brought with it. But that core problem of enemies scaling out in the world is still a bummer of a mechanic that has aged like spoiled sweet rolls. It doesn’t exactly feel great to spend 50 hours building up your character to then discover that regular-ass bandits out in the world are now rocking full sets of shiny glass armor, mostly invalidating your hard-earned progress. This is a long-standing criticism of Oblivion, and although I know it would’ve been a massive undertaking to rebalance the entire world to continue to provide challenges for high-level characters in the late game without this shortcut, I can’t help but wish the developers had devoted the resources to addressing it.
And that really is the biggest critique of this remaster, which deftly succeeds at maintaining all the things I loved and despised about Oblivion in a clear effort to keep it as close to the original vision as possible. So a lot of how much you’re likely to enjoy a playthrough is going to come down to your personal history and experience with Bethesda’s RPGs: If you’ve been gaming for a few decades already and your nostalgia is great enough to help you forgive some pretty clearly outdated game design decisions, then you’re in for an awesome trip. But if you’re new to Oblivion or simply don’t possess a natural fondness for retro-style roleplaying, then you’ll probably find yourself less enthused when, for example, you run through the 30th or 40th nearly identical Oblivion Gate.
I really love this game, even as I’m well-aware and quite incapable of overlooking its many flaws.
As for me, I find myself somewhere in the middle: I really love this game, even as I’m well-aware and quite incapable of overlooking its many flaws. Would we have been better served if Bethesda and Virtuous had thrown out the old rulebook and done a proper, ground-up remake? Maybe; maybe not. But the decision to stick as close as possible to recreating Oblivion as it existed in 2006 but prettier and slightly less irritating has certainly put a ceiling on how much this Elder Scrolls redux can really blow me away.
There’s another caveat to mention, too. Although Virtuous headed up development of this remaster and did some great work, they’re not miracle workers: this is still a Bethesda game through and through, and with that comes a lot of bugs. I saw everything from broken quest objectives to Oblivion gates disappearing before my eyes, and dozens of other issues. On more than one occasion I’ve even found myself stuck underneath a rock in an area where enemies were nearby so I wasn’t able to fast travel away, meaning I had to choose between praying to Akatosh that the baddies would creep near enough for me to kill them through the environment and escape my fate, or just give up and reload to a previous checkpoint.
Beyond that, Oblivion Remastered performs increasingly worse the longer you play it, presumably because I monkeyed with the world enough to cause it trouble trying to keep track of where I left a specific piece of cheese. My Xbox Series X dropped frames and hitched with regularity, textures loaded right in front of me, and after about 40 hours I started encountering hard crashes and game freezes every few hours like clockwork. Most of this stuff didn’t deter me from sinking an ungodly amount of time into blasting daedra with fireballs, but it’s definitely a bummer to see that two decades wasn’t long enough to fix this janky fantasy world, and in some cases it appears to perform even worse than I remember the Xbox 360 doing, which is almost impressive.
If you’re looking to slay demons in Doom: The Dark Ages, add the best of the Doom and Wolfenstein franchises to your library, and make a difference in the world by donating to Direct Relief, the brand-new id & Friends Humble Bundle is the one collection you’ve been waiting for.
This id & Friends Humble Bundle, which boasts a $194 value and will stick around until April 13, allows you to pay what you want and get rewarded for doing so. We’ll detail the three different options below, but we’ll start by highlighting the 11-item bundle that gets you a 10% coupon off Doom: The Dark Ages and its Premium Edition.
For those unfamiliar, Doom: The Dark Ages is set to be released on May 15, 2025, and serves as a prequel to 2016’s Doom and Doom Eternal that sends the Doom Slayer into the dark and sinister medieval war against Hell. We’ve already had the chance to get our hands on Doom: The Dark Ages, and we said “every aspect of it looked and felt incredible.”
So, by paying at least $28 to the id & Friends Humble Bundle, you’ll unlock that 10% discount for Doom: The Dark Ages and its Premium Edition alongside the following;
Doom Eternal
Doom Eternal Year One Pass
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
Doom (2016)
Doom + Doom II
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
Doom 3
Doom 64
If you don’t need the coupon or aren’t ready to jump into the Doom Slayer’s latest adventure, there are other options as well! By donating at least $12, you’ll unlock the following;
Doom (2016)
Doom + Doom II
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
Doom 3
Doom 64
Lastly, those who just want to donate a $5 to make a difference can do so and add Doom 3 and Doom 64 to their library.
The id & Friends Humble Bundle is all about choice and rewarding you for helping out Direct Relief, and yes, you’ll be able to redeem these codes on Steam and play the games on Windows PCs. And as we mentioned, the bundle will be available until April 13, so be sure to jump on it if you’re ready to rip and tear your way into some fantasic games.
