Including updates to resolution and load times.
Nintendo officially launched Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Switch 2 this week, and since then, some video comparisons have now popped up online.
One of these has been shared by the YouTube channel ‘ElAnalistaDeBits’, which not only presents a side-by-side visual comparison of the Switch 2 Edition next to the existing Switch release, but also shows other improvements such as game’s loading times.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Discovering a new game to get lost in for hours can be a phenomenal experience. But sometimes, you need a quick hit — a game you can pick up and play just for a bit and still have a great time. The PlayStation Plus Catalog and Classics Catalog are filled with games that fit that description exactly, offering experiences that you can dip into for a few minutes and have a blast. PlayStation Portal owners, these are great picks for you to cozy up with.
Below, we’ve compiled a list of 9 excellent quick-hit games from the PS Plus Catalog — although they can definitely keep you engrossed for a lot longer. Next time you’ve got a couple of minutes to spare, fire up one of these.
The brilliant idea at the heart of Blue Prince is the combination of first-person puzzler gameplay with roguelike elements. Each time you venture into the mystery-filled Mt. Holly Manor, you’ll chart a new course through the house: Whenever you open a door, you choose the room that appears on the other side. While Blue Prince’s deeper enigmas will keep you obsessed for hours, even a quick run through Mt. Holly will give you a chance to solve a few puzzles and compile a few clues to take in next time.
Publisher: Raw Fury | Developer: Dogubomb | PS5
Cult of the Lamb is part roguelike action game, part base manager, and both sides can be satisfying in long or short bursts. Each foray into its shifting dungeons gives you a chance to earn things to enhance your abilities, improve the buildings, and recruit more followers. Whether you want to spend some time making your followers happy or just lean into dungeon-crawling combat, there’s always something quick and interesting to do to grow your cult.
Publisher: Devolver Digital | Developer: Massive Monster | PS5, PS4
Giant insect-like monsters and alien spacecraft are invading, and it’s up to you to stop them. You have a host of weapons to face down hordes of creepy-crawlies, as well as four character classes with different styles of play. Earth Defense Force 5 offers more than 100 missions, but while each will challenge your third-person combat abilities, they’re all fast enough that it only takes a few minutes to enjoy a few rounds fighting off invading extra-terrestrials.
Publisher: D3PublisherUBLISHER | Developer: Sandlot | PS5, PS4
Speedy movements and quick thinking are essential in puzzler I.Q.: Intelligent Qube. In each level, your goal is to clear a series of cubes as they roll toward you by marking spots on the grid beneath your feet. Clearing certain cubes allows you to release blasts that can knock out several cubes at once, but it takes careful planning of where and when to place and use those advantages to fully clear each level. I.Q. is a great way to exercise your mind with a few fast brain teasers.
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment | Developer: G-Artists | PS5, PS4
Navigating the colorful world of LocoRoco Remastered isn’t about controlling a character, but about tilting the landscape beneath your round, jelly-like LocoRoco to roll them where you need them to go. Making your way over obstacles or through passageways requires combining many LocoRoco together into one massive being, or breaking them back into several smaller ones. LocoRoco Remastered is a perfect way to unwind with a breezy, lighthearted experience and short, inventive levels that require some out-of-the-box thinking.
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment | Developer: Japan Studio | PS5, PS4
The Pedestrian is a puzzle-platformer that has you playing as a stick figure like those often seen on road and bathroom signs, navigating from sign to sign on your way through the world. The fascinating presentation offers a lot of clever puzzles, many of which require you to rearrange signs to connect ladders and doors to create paths from one to another. Though the levels are short and sweet, they’ll test your puzzling smarts.
Publisher: Skookum Arts LLC | Developer: Skookum Arts LLC | PS5, PS4
Tekken 3 lets you relive the glory days of 3D fighters on the original PlayStation. Though the storied series has gone on to five more mainline installments, Tekken 3 will still put you through your fighting game paces. Movement in three dimensions is key as you fight one-on-one duels against an iconic roster of punishing opponents, but with matches that can be brutal beatdowns lasting just a few minutes, it’s easy to squeeze in a few rounds of Tekken 3 whenever you have a free moment.
Publisher: Namco | Developer: Namco | PS5, PS4
Few gaming experiences are as zen-like as Tetris Effect: Connected. The latest version of the classic puzzler marries its block-dropping, line-clearing gameplay with immersive visuals and an excellent soundtrack to create something that can be mesmerizing, as well as intensely challenging. Each of Tetris Effect’s levels lasts just long enough for you to get lost in a flow state of combining blocks to rack up high scores.
Publisher: Enhance | Developer: Monstars, Resonair, Stage Games | PS5, PS4
You Suck At Parking puts your driving and puzzle-solving skills to the test with top-down levels in which you need to get your tiny car into an equally small parking spot — often by jumping gaps, whipping through hairpin turns, and avoiding crashes in each short, quirky level. But even if you should fly off a cliff or smash into a wall, you can quickly start again for another try.
Publisher: Curve Digital | Developer: Happy Volcano | PS5, PS4
The PlayStation Plus Games Catalog and Classic Catalog are chock full of excellent quick-hit games you can play alone or with friends, in genres ranging from sports to shooters, from racing to intense cooperative multiplayer madness. Don’t miss these favs:
If you’ve got a few quick-hit go-to games that we haven’t mentioned, be sure to share your favorites and recommendations in the comments below.entioned, be sure to share your favorites and recommendations in the comments below.
Form an orderly Kiryu.
My gaming life can now be cleanly split into two sections: the period before I had heard the phrase “Daddy Rank”, and the period after it.
It’s one of the key features of Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties that Sega was kind enough to show me at a fancy gyoza-joint-turned-preview space in London this week, and in the days since, I haven’t stopped muttering it to myself whenever I do a small piece of housework.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Set to launch on February 12, 2026, Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 bundles two titles into one: Yakuza Kiwami 3, a remake of the original Yakuza 3 released in 2009, and the all-new Dark Ties, which stars Yoshitaka Mine, Kiryu’s adversary.
I recently had the opportunity to go hands-on with the game at a press event, which covered various sections from both the remaster Yakuza Kiwami 3 and the all-new Dark Ties, a brand-new tale featuring Yoshitaka Mine from Yakuza 3. Read on for my initial thoughts and impressions.
At the same event, Sega announced a playable demo will be available for the title, more news of which will be shared in the future.
Yakuza Kiwami 3 follows Kazuma Kiryu as he settles in Okinawa to run the Morning Glory Orphanage, only to find himself entangled in a web of sinister conspiracy.
In the demo, I was embroiled in Kiryu’s clash with the Ryudo Family, an Okinawan yakuza syndicate scheming to seize the Morning Glory Orphanage’s land, where I faced off against the Ryudo patriarch Shigeru Nakahara and family captain Rikiya Shimabukuro.
A standout moment showed Rikiya — initially hostile towards Kiryu — shifting his perspective after watching him bravely risk everything alone to save the head of the local shopping district. This entirely new scene, missing from the original Yakuza 3, masterfully captures Rikiya’s growing respect for Kiryu through nuanced facial expressions.
City streets spark spontaneous fights where Kiryu can switch fluidly between his Dragon of Dojima: Kiwami Style and Ryukyu Style.
Ryukyu Style maps weapons to different buttons for easy, diverse attacks. Weapons switch automatically based on the button pressed, so even simple button mashing feels satisfying.
Players can expect a variety of Heat Actions, as well as the Dragon Boost, which activates by maxing out Kiryu’s gauge. The Dragon Finisher delivers a final devastating blow, complete with a backdrop of a roaring dragon.
Life at Morning Glory is a side-adventure where Kiryu nurtures bonds with children at the orphanage through cooking, sewing, helping with homework, and heartfelt chats. Kiryu’s “Daddy Rank” increases as trust grows, reflecting his growth as a father figure. Earning enough trust unlocks each child’s unique Family Time Event.
I became quite emotionally invested while I was playing, especially when thinking it was all for the children. The interactions perfectly echo Kiryu’s challenges as a novice parent striving to do his best, and transform minigames from mundane tasks into heartfelt moments of caring for the kids.
In the new team battle content, Bad Boy Dragon, Kiryu is unexpectedly appointed to head up a struggling Okinawan girls’ gang, Haisai Girls. Together, they stand up to protect Okinawa from the formidable Tokyo Night Terrors.
You can engage in either Total Annihilation, where up to 20 allies clash against over 100 enemies, or Turf Wars, where teams split up to capture and take down enemy bases.
Dark Ties centers on Yoshitaka Mine, the chilling antagonist who stands in Kiryu’s path, and he stole the spotlight in the preview. Unlike the fiery, heartfelt Kiryu and Ichiban, Mine is cold and detached, dismissing even Daigo’s “family” talk as empty rhetoric. It is rare for the series to convey a character’s thoughts through raw inner monologues.
Rooted in shoot boxing (a martial art originating in Japan), Mine delivers swift, stylish, agile attacks.
Filling the Shackled Heart gauge triggers Dark Awakening mode, swapping Mine’s refined shoot boxing style for raw brutality — head grabs, ground drags, and ferocious strikes — mirroring his duality of a cool exterior and inner darkness.
In Kanda Damage Control, Mine tackles various missions like street rescues on behalf of Kanda, the Nishikiyama Family patriarch, and Tojo Clan lieutenant. Completing them will boost Kanda’s public perception and gradually transform him into a charismatic figure.
Leveling up Kanda’s Charisma Rank unlocks Drink Links, where you’ll deepen your bond with Kanda and witness his hopelessly goofy flaws. His candid rants made me envy how much he enjoys life to the fullest, and I can’t wait to see his dynamic with Mine evolve.
Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties launches on PS5 and PS4 on February 12.
“I’ll buy it at a high price!”.
If you’re really, really excited for Resident Evil Requiem next month, then you might want to keep an eye out for two limited edition watches from manufacturer Hamilton.
Launching alongside the game on 27th February 2026, the two models are featured in the game itself and are (conveniently) worn by both protagonists: Grace Ashcroft and Leon Kennedy. They also cost enough to make RE4’s merchant break out in a cold sweat.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Today, Capcom is holding a Resident Evil Showcase event set to feature “brand new gameplay and news” for Resident Evil Requiem, among other things.
The showcase is taking place at 2pm PT, 5pm ET, and 10pm UK, with a post-show discussion stream to follow, though it’s unclear exactly what that will be about.
Resident Evil: Reqiuem is just a few weeks away, and we’ve already seen quite a bit of it, including the long-awaited reveal of Leon S. Kennedy, who is apparently going to be playable as well, and what seems to be a tease of an open world…or at least a pretty big shift in how the series has historically treated its settings.
Now that the showcase itself is over, it turns out it was actually…pretty thin as far as new information. It was entirely related to Resident Evil: Requiem, and almost fully focused on stuff you can buy in connection with the game. Here’s a quick rundown of the five big takeaways from the showcase today:
Resident Evil: Requiem will have at least three different difficulty settings, and one in particular seems pretty cool. There’s a Casual mode for those who just want to focus on the story, and it comes with an aim assist. And there’s a Standard mode, which is just what it sounds like.
But the really neat one is Standard (Classic) difficulty, which is the Standard difficulty but with an added challenge, where Grace will need to collect ink ribbons for typewriters in order to save her game.
A new game mechanic was revealed today related to the crafting system. In RE: Requiem, a number of items are only craftable using infected blood, which is obtained by killing zombies. Though Grace isn’t much of a fighter, she does have a gun on her (appropriately called Requiem) that she uses to get out of tight jams, and she’ll need to use it to take down zombies so she can get their blood and craft more useful survival tools.
A surprising amount of today’s showcase was dedicated to stuff you can buy in real-life that ties in with the game. There’s a watch collaboration with Hamilton for two different watches, one for Grace and one for Leon, that they’ll wear in-game, and only 2,000 of each watch are being made for sale. There’s the amiibo, which we already knew about, and a special Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller themed around Requiem. There are special Resident Evil orchestra concerts coming, and obviously, the Deluxe Edition of the game and all its bonus content. And Capcom is releasing figurines of both Grace and Leon. If you’re interested in buying any of that stuff, it’s all easy enough to find, but this section of the video really did feel a bit shopping channel given the circumstances.
There’s something different about the zombies in Resident Evil: Requiem. Rather than just violent and lurching, some of them seem to have other personality traits, and have carried over characteristics from their lives before. For instance, one custodian zombie continues to clean the building even after being turned. There’s another man frantically pushing elevator buttons. And at the end of the trailer, there’s one that straight up talks to Grace. Like, seems to be holding a normal, smooth, human conversation. What’s going on here? Is this a different virus than the usual one? Mysteries!
What? Pipis? No, you said Elpis? Okay, sure. At the end of the showcase, there was a mention of some sort of “secret” Leon is carrying, referencing something called “elpis.” We have…no idea what that is! We know now that it’s potentially related to the murder of Grace’s mother, Alyssa, and we can maybe guess that it’s connected in some way to that zombie bite mark fans keep seeing on Leon in trailers. But this is another mystery that will need further investigation. Or, as Leon S. Kennedy put it in the trailer, a second opinion.
Resident Evil: Requiem is coming to Xbox, PC, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch 2 on February 27, 2026.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Today, Capcom is holding a Resident Evil Showcase event set to feature “brand new gameplay and news” for Resident Evil Requiem, among other things.
The showcase is taking place at 2pm PT, 5pm ET, and 10pm UK, with a post-show discussion stream to follow, though it’s unclear exactly what that will be about.
Resident Evil: Reqiuem is just a few weeks away, and we’ve already seen quite a bit of it, including the long-awaited reveal of Leon S. Kennedy, who is apparently going to be playable as well, and what seems to be a tease of an open world…or at least a pretty big shift in how the series has historically treated its settings. What new surprises could possibly still be waiting at this point? Is Requiem the only game that will be shown, or is there more we should be expecting?
We’ll be keeping track of everything announced at the showcase today right here, so stick with us and watch along on Twitch or YouTube.
“Forever fast”.
Believe it or not, Sonic the Hedgehog is celebrating his 35th anniversary in 2026, and Sega is clearly planning something as it dropped a nostalgia blast of a trailer celebrating the blue blur’s life and times.
The trailer highlights the range of Sonic over the franchise’s storied history, from his pixel perfect start on the Mega Drive with Sonic the Hedgehog, to blockbuster movies in Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog trilogy.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
I am incredibly excited to announce that Ultimate General: Civil War is officially coming to Xbox consoles on March 4. For the first time, console players can experience the tactical depth of this acclaimed strategy game from the comfort of their living room.
You won’t have to wait long to take command and test your skills. We are preparing a playable demo targeting February 9, 2026, giving you a chance to experience the game’s mechanics firsthand.
Ultimate General: Civil War is a tactical real-time strategy game where you oversee a massive historical campaign from 1861 to 1865. The game is designed to be a simulator where every decision matters—from the positioning of your artillery to the morale of your infantry brigades.
On Xbox and XPA, you will fight through an extensive campaign featuring dozens of battles, ranging from smaller skirmishes to massive conflicts that span several days. You aren’t just watching from above; you are managing army composition, weapon supplies, and officer progression. Your units learn and grow stronger with every engagement, carrying their experience throughout the entire campaign.
Bringing a precise RTS to consoles was a significant challenge. Our goal was to ensure the game feels native to the gamepad, rather than just emulating a mouse.
In Ultimate General: Civil War, you control your units by drawing their movement paths directly onto the terrain. This mechanic feels incredibly natural on the Xbox Wireless Controller. You can draw flanking manoeuvres through forests or set up defensive perimeters on high ground with simple analog stick movements. We have adapted the experience to ensure that commanding a massive army feels intuitive and responsive on the console.
The upcoming demo will be the perfect opportunity to learn how to manage cover, utilize terrain advantages, and break the enemy line using these optimized controls.
We can’t wait for you to try the demo February 9 and see how you rewrite history when the full game arrives on March 4, and you can add it to your wishlist now!
Samustai LTD
«Ultimate General: Civil War» is a tactical real time strategy war game.
Fight in the American Civil War campaign (1861-1865) – from small engagements to massive battles that can last several days over hundreds of square miles of terrain. Based on your successes and reputation you might get access to more corps, divisions and brigades. Keep your soldiers alive and they will learn to fight better, turning from green rookies to crack veterans. The Officers rank up based on their units’ performance, but it’s war and they can be wounded or even get killed in action. There is a huge variety of Civil War weaponry from mass produced Enfield pattern rifles to rare Whitworths. Certain weapons can only be captured by raiding supplies or taken from the enemy on the battlefield. Detach skirmishers to send them to scout those hills ahead. Or merge several brigades into one bigger division if it’s needed. Dismount the cavalry to become less visible to the enemy or mount for fast flanking charges and supply raids.
Use every opportunity to overthrow your enemy and win the battle.
The post Ultimate General: Civil War is coming to Xbox on March 4 appeared first on Xbox Wire.
The Magic Puzzle Company is one of my favorite jigsaw puzzle brands on the market right now. Each puzzle is made up of 1,000 unique pieces and filled with fun little easter eggs throughout. Best of all, when you finally complete the puzzle you are treated to a secret ending that is different for each one. I personally love these puzzles because every image has some serious ‘Where’s Waldo’ vibes and utilizes different artwork from popular artists I would have otherwise never known about.
If you aren’t already familiar with the earlier Magic Puzzle Company Puzzles, I’d recommend checking out Series One to get started. However, if you’re a seasoned veteran you’ll be happy to know that Amazon has just released two new Series Five puzzles for 2026 and they look quite delightful.
Series Five is the latest series in the Magic Puzzle Company lineup, and these two new puzzles are likely the last entries we’ll see until Series Six. Each series has been comprised of three total puzzles, and the first puzzle in this series was actually released back in August 2025. The first option is called The Drippy Trip and features artwork from one of the original Adventure Time artists. I own this puzzle and can confirm that it is an absolute delight to put together—especially as a big Adventure Time fan
As for the two new puzzles, the Golden Goose has sort of an early civilization vibe. The artwork is by Anine Bösenberg, who cultivates a wonderful illustration style that does a great job of feeling cozy and alive without too much heavy detail. This puzzle is already available on Amazon, but in limited quantities. If stock runs out, however, you can purchase the Series Five bundle to get the full set later in February.
The second new puzzle is called The Coveted Comet and looks to feature a colony of aliens inhabiting some sort of moon. The overall design is reminiscent of those cross-section books that show you everything going on within a single building, but with a more organic feel. The artwork comes from Samuel Hayward, who appears to have a knack for creating adorable prints. This puzzle isn’t available until February 15, but you can currently preorder it on Amazon ahead of its release date.
If you’re looking for more puzzles from this brand, you can check out some of the more popular options from previous releases right here:
