Ready, set, build!
As part of the Super Mario Day celebrations, Nintendo has announced it will be releasing Mario Kart sets in 2025.
At the very end of LEGO’s Super Mario broadcast, it shared an incredibly brief teaser – showing off the outline of a kart. This new line will be part of the Super Mario line, but nothing else has been shared about it just yet.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Saturday is here, which means it’s time to round up the best deals available this weekend across games, technology, and more! This weekend, we’re kicking things off with exciting deals on SSDs, new games, and more. The best deals for Saturday, March 9, include the Samsung 990 EVO SSD, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, God of War Ragnarok, and more.
Amazon has solid discounts for both the 1TB and 2TB Samsung 990 EVO SSD models. This SSD is compatible with PlayStation 5, so it’s perfect if you’re looking for a new PS5 accessory to pick up. Additionally, it’s great for any gaming PC or other device that supports a full NVME M.2 SSD.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a release that went under many people’s radars earlier this year. At $29.99, this 2D platformer is absolutely worth your time and money. We gave the game an 8/10 in our review, stating, “Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown captures not only what made games such as The Sands of Time so good, but it irons out a lot of the little issues that plagued the 3D games.”
Amazon has a fantastic deal ongoing for the PlayStation 5 Slim Digital Edition. The console itself is $50 off, and you get Spider-Man 2 for free. In total, that’s $120 worth of savings. This is perfect if you’ve yet to pick up a PS5, as we most likely won’t see a better deal than this for a while.
God of War Ragnarok is still one of the best PS5 games you can pick up. This action game acts as the sequel to 2018’s God of War, following Kratos and Atreus as Fimbulwinter looms. If you’ve yet to play this game, this is a great time to pick up Ragnarok at a discount and see why so many players love this series.
Dead Space launched last January, and this is a great time to pick up the game if you haven’t already. This remake features an impressive use of technology and a completely modernized combat system. Special attention has been put on the audio, with 3D Audio technology utilized for an immersive experience. You can expect loads of thrills and horror as you look to escape the stranded ship. The USG Ishimura has never looked better or been scarier.
Amazon has both the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 copies of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk on sale right now. This spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio offers a ton of fun, with all kinds of activities to complete. You play as Red and join the Bomb Rush Crew, where you set off around the city to discover graffiti spots and get REP. All the flashy tricks you know and love are here, so this is a great title to sit back and unwind with.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a fantastic title that shows off many of the PlayStation 5 hardware features. From the lightning fast load times to the impressive use of the DualSense controller, Rift Apart takes full advantage of the hardware. Additionally, it’s a blast to play with an exciting story and satisyfing gameplay. Add this to your collection today with a nice $30 discount.
The Mansion always wins.
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they’ve been chewing over. Today, Jim’s after some more bitesize Mario weirdness, which he got his fix of on the DS…
Super Mario Bros. Wonder was great. It had elephants, it had sweet little blobs of slime, and it had funky music. And yet, as I played through it, I couldn’t help but feel like something was missing. “It’s weird,” I thought to myself, riffing on that Wonder Woman 1984 Pedro Pascal meme, “but it could be weirder”.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Deviation Games, the studio formed by Call of Duty’s Zombies mode creator Jason Blundell and Treyarch veteran Dave Anthony, has shut down before it could ship out the game it was developing in partnership with PlayStation.
The sad news was shared on LinkedIn by Deviation Games’ Chief HR & Operations Officer Kriste Stull, who also said the team would be holding a networking event to help those impacted by the studio’s closure.
“It is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of Deviation Games,” Stull wrote. “I want to express my deepest gratitude to our entire team. Thank you for all your hard work, dedication, and contributions to Deviation; I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have worked with each and every one of you.
“To the entire video game industry, we will be hosting a networking event, and we would love for any/all companies/studios hiring to participate. Please reach out to me directly if you are interested in attending.
“To all the Deviators out there, we will always cherish the memories we made together. Thank you for being a part of our journey. Go get ’em!”
Deviation Games was revealed in June 2021 and Blundell and Anthony stated they were working on a new IP that was very early in development. We still have yet to learn what that IP was, but Blundell did share a few words about their dreams of the project back in 2021.
“We’re drawing on what we’ve learned over our collective decades making games, but we’re also out to make something fresh and brimming with innovation like you’ve never experienced before,” Blundell wrote. “We’re not afraid to say that our ambitions are super high: we’re setting out to make a huge, content-rich game with a focus on a lot of action and a lot of energy, but let’s leave it at that for now and hopefully it won’t be long before we can share more.”
In 2023, several of Deviation’s devs took to LinkedIn to share they had been let go after the studio was hit by layoffs.
This is yet another example of layoffs and studio closures in 2023 and 2024 and follows EA’s decision to shut down Marcus Lehto’s Ridgeline Games and the closure of Rooster Teeth.
For more, you can check out our chat back in 2021 with Blundell and Anthony about the special experience of forming their studio.
Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.
Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on TikTok.
Where does Mario Wonder rank?
Happy MAR10! Well, almost. Mario Day takes place on March 10th, so we’re republishing our list of the very best mainline games starring the plumber.
What’s the best Mario game ever? Where do you even begin to rank all the Mario games?
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
The Rose and Cranny.
The LEGO Animal Crossing range brings a variety of Animal Crossing: New Horizons characters to blocky life across five sets (initially, at least) that enable you to connect them and create your own Animal Crossing island in Lego form.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
“The Dragon Ball community united as one”.
The world this week is mourning the loss of the legendary manga artist and character designer Akira Toriyama, and as part of this, the online community of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is paying tribute.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
“Discover all the secrets”.
As part of this week’s Super Mario celebrations, Nintendo has now released an English version of its Super Mario Bros. Movie digital guidebook.
In case you missed our original post, this guide allows Mario Movie fans to “enhance” their viewing experience with all sorts of “Easter eggs and fun facts”. Although the guide is free, you will still need a Nintendo Account to view it.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
A group of roughly 600 quality assurance (QA) workers at Activision under Microsoft have successfully voted to unionize with the Communication Workers of America (CWA), becoming Activision Quality Assurance United.
Activision Quality Assurance United is the first to unionize at Activision since the company was acquired by Microsoft, and the largest video game worker union in the United States. It incorporates central QA workers at Activision offices in Texas, Minnesota, and California, and is distinct from other recent QA unions under Microsoft such as the Zenimax QA union and groups at Raven Software and Blizzard Albany.
The group has organized with the support of a CWA-Microsoft neutrality agreement signed in 2022, wherein Microsoft committed to taking a “neutral approach” toward unionizing and refrain from hindering union discussions at the company, as well as offering a streamlined process for choosing to join a union. This is notable especially in light of the hurdles faced by Raven Software and Blizzard Albany in forming their unions prior to the acquisition, as both groups accused Activision Blizzard of union busting efforts.
“There was no one specific catalyst, but more so just recognizing as QA workers we often have the lowest protections and lowest pay of any workers in the industry even though our work requires expertise, skill, and is absolutely essential to the success of the companies where we work,” said Tom Shelley, technical requirements specialist at Activision and member of the newly formed AQAU.
“The CWA Labor Neutrality Agreement is a historic agreement and unprecedented at a tech company of Microsoft’s size. By recognizing our union, Microsoft is making good on its promise to respect our ability to decide for ourselves about union representation. We encountered no union-busting at a time when most US companies – especially tech companies — regularly spend millions on anti-union consultants to prevent workers from speaking up for themselves. We hope this will inspire other workers to form unions and raise industry-wide expectations for pay, benefits, and respect for workers’ rights.”
The group expects to bargain with Microsoft over a new contract, particularly over asks such as better pay and benefits, more promotional opportunities, and a clear career development track. Currently, Zenimax QA workers are bargaining over their first contract with the company, which thus far includes agreements on subjects such as subcontracting and artificial intelligence.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Korean developer Shift Up just published – and then unpublished – a demo for its upcoming sleek action game, Stellar Blade, ahead of its launch on PlayStation 5 next month.
Fans excited to try out the futuristic combat-focused title were surprised to see the offer show up on the PlayStation Store earlier today. They were even more surprised, however, to see the demo removed from the store minutes later.
After it was unlisted, the Stellar Blade demo page simply featured a message that said it was “not available for purchase.” Now, as pointed out by Wario64 on X/Twitter, links simply lead to an error page.
This short look at Stellar Blade was live on the digital store for around 20 minutes, giving some fans more than enough time to download and dive in before its removal. Streamer yaboyroshi was lucky enough to grab the demo and even started streaming gameplay on Twitch. The Stellar Blade Twitch page is slowly filling up with other streams of the demo, with seven users showcasing gameplay at the time of this story’s publication.
With players actively diving in to showcase what seems to be some early moments from the game, it seems Shift Up’s demo might have made its way to the PlayStation Store a bit too early. There is currently no official word on when or if it will return. It’s a head-scratcher, but it seems the page was accidentally updated by mistake. It would explain why the demo appeared without prior announcement from Sony or Shift Up, though neither have released an explanation.
Stellar Blade comes to PS5 on April 26. Those interested in pre ordering it can see the rundown of purchase options here.
IGN has reached out to Sony for comment.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer at IGN
