The Pokémon Company has confirmed the Pokémon Fossil Museum is coming to North America in May 2026.
If you’re wondering what on earth the Pokémon Fossil Museum is, it’s… well, it’s exactly what it says on the tin. After its debut in Japan, this special exhibition, which compares fabricated Pokémon “fossils” with “ancient lifeforms found in real-world fossils,” is coming to Chicago’s Field Museum on May 22, 2026. It’ll be the first time the exhibition travels beyond Japan.
“During your visit, you’ll see vibrant Pokémon models side by side with extinct lifeforms from the Field Museum’s collection — including scientific casts of Field Museum dinosaurs like SUE the T. rex and the Chicago Archaeopteryx next to Fossil Pokémon like Tyrantrum and Archeops,” explained the museum. “How many differences (and similarities) will you spot, Trainers?”
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.
Grotesque new platform game Gennady takes place in a squelchy, eminently punchable world of procedurally generated, wriggling alien cubes. Burst a cube and you’ll be rewarded with juicy, golden maggots and a shower of delightful green ooze. Sometimes the ooze spawns a grotty little janitor monster, who slinks up behind you with mop in tentacle. Yes, this is a game in which the filth tries to clean up after itself. Good luck with that, filth. Here’s a trailer.
A man in the UK has been arrested after police discovered he was harboring a cache of stolen Pokémon cards worth £250,000 (approx. $332,500).
The hoard was discovered after Greater Manchester Police raided a home in Hyde, Tameside, on the outskirts of Greater Manchester. It contained cards still in their original plastic labelling and price tags, with some individual cards worth up to £560 (approx. $744).
As spotted by the BBC, a police spokesman joked in a post on Facebook: “Gotta catch ’em all.” The force is now trying to reunite the cards with their rightful owners.
“An interesting warrant in #Hyde yesterday morning, supported by your Neighbourhood policing teams,” the statement from Tameside Police read. “Seizure of thousands of stolen, high-value Pokémon cards with an estimated worth of over £250,000. Attempts will now be made to return the cards to the original owners. One male arrested.
Perhaps that’s why finding Pokémon cards in 2025 isn’t as easy as it should be. Between Destined Rivals preorders vanishing in seconds, new split expansion sets in Black Bolt and White Flare, and Journey Together chase cards dominating every feed, Pokémon TCG has never felt more intense. But if you’re trying to keep up with Pokémon TCG without getting ripped off or left behind, check out our guide on the best places to start, including the latest update on what can be bought where from trusted retailers in the U.S.
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.
If you were a fan of Hello Kitty Island Adventure and all its New Horizons-inspired cosiness when it arrived on Switch earlier this year, then boy, do we have a surprise for you. The life-sim’s first major content update has sidestepped its planned release date and landed on the Nintendo hybrid a week early — what a treat.
The ‘Friends, Furniture, and Frozen Peaks’ update arrived on Steam last month, with dev Sunblink adding a 22nd May release date for the Switch version. It seemed to be full steam ahead on the later launch until yesterday evening, when the studio appeared on Twitter to make the surprise announcement that the update is, in fact, available right now. What’s more, it’s free!
Stab-o-sneak merchants Ubisoft are pushing back the release of several unspecified big name projects in the wake of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which CEO Yves Guillemot says “has reaffirmed the power of the Assassin’s Creed brand”. The tactical snoop ‘n’ shoot peddlers are also looking to cut costs by at least €100 million across their organisation, following a difficult year in which they’ve partnered with Tencent to launch a new corporate subsidiary dedicated to their most popular games.
Warner Bros. Games has announced and released Mortal Kombat 1: Definitive Edition, which it described as “the most extensive version” of the gory fighting game. But for fans, the release of the Definitive Edition has sparked significant concern that NetherRealm has now moved on from the game, and that it won’t see any new DLC characters or significant content updates.
The Mortal Kombat 1: Definitive Edition offers the main game packaged together with previously released downloadable content, including the Khaos Reigns story expansion, Kombat Pack 1, and Kombat Pack 2.
The Definitive Edition also adds new character skins for Johnny Cage, Kitana, Scorpion, and Shao Khan “inspired” by the upcoming Mortal Kombat 2 film, the Mortal Kombat (2021) movie character skin for Sub-Zero; and the tournament themed character skin (outfit) for Liu Kang.
For fans, The Definitive Edition feels like a line has been drawn under Mortal Kombat 1. While Warner Bros. is known for its definitive and ultimate editions, and indeed NetherRealm games tend to get them, this time there is a sense of finality to the release. And with no announcements forthcoming about a Kombat Pack 3 or anything else meaningful for Mortal Kombat 1, fans believe that’s that.
If true, it’s a big disappointment for hardcore Mortal Kombat 1 fans, who had hoped for significantly longer term support for the game. Indeed, many are now pointing to a September 2024 tweet from NetherRealm development chief Ed Boon, who moved to reassure fans already concerned that the studio had moved onto its next game by saying: “NetherRealm is still fully committed to supporting Mortal Kombat 1 for a long time to come.”
“The game is done, it’s their way of saying ‘Goodbye! Come back the next year or two for another overly priced game bloated with guest characters!’ ” said a clearly disgruntled redditor.
“MK1 officially has a shorter content lifespan than the f***ing Texas Chainsaw Massacre game lmao,” said another.
For context, in July 2021, NetherRealm announced it had started work on its next project (Mortal Kombat 1) and, as a result, there would be no further DLC for Mortal Kombat 11. That announcement came two years and three months after the release of the game. NetherRealm is yet to make a similar announcement for Mortal Kombat 1.
T-1000 Terminator was the final DLC character added to Mortal Kombat 1 as part of the Khaos Reigns expansion, and follows playable fighters Cyrax, Sektor, Noob Saibot, Ghostface, and Conan the Barbarian. Fans have wondered for some time now whether developer NetherRealm plans a third set of DLC characters, or a Kombat Pack 3, amid questions about Mortal Kombat 1’s sales success.
Most fans of the studio’s work expect it to release a third game in its DC fighting game franchise, Injustice, although neither NetherRealm nor Warner Bros. has yet to confirm that. The first game in the series, Injustice: Gods Among Us, launched in 2013, with its sequel, Injustice 2, coming out in 2017. NetherRealm released Mortal Kombat 11 in 2019 and for a time it seemed like the studio would alternate between Mortal Kombat and Injustice games, but it went on to release another Mortal Kombat, the soft reboot that is Mortal Kombat 1, in 2023 instead.
In an interview with IGN in June 2023, Boon spoke in vague terms about this decision. “There were a number of factors, some of which I can talk about, some of which I probably shouldn’t,” Boon said.
Two reasons Boon was willing to discuss were the unfortunate onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the team’s choice to switch to a newer version of the Unreal game engine (Mortal Kombat 11 runs on Unreal Engine 3, whereas Mortal Kombat 1 runs on Unreal Engine 4).
“But we did go to a new graphics engine, Unreal,” Boon said. “We really wanted to be careful with COVID and all that stuff and everybody staying safe. So there were a bunch of variables involved that eventually we realized, ‘Okay, let’s do another Mortal Kombat game and hopefully we’ll get back to the Injustice games.’ “
Just to be sure, we wanted to confirm with him directly that the door was not closed on the Injustice franchise.
“Not at all,” Boon answered.
Mortal Kombat 1 has sold 5 million copies, with the franchise now up to 100 million. Mortal Kombat 11 became the best-selling game in the franchise by passing Mortal Kombat X’s nearly 11 million units sold worldwide. By 2022, Mortal Kombat 11 had sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. Clearly, Mortal Kombat 1 has underperformed compared to previous games in the series.
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.
Friends, it is my sad duty to inform you that One Million Checkboxes creator Neal Agarwal is up to more of his crowdgaming mischief. He’s published another online squabbling sim called Internet Roadtrip. It’s a roaming Google Streetview cam in which viewers vote on the direction of travel every 10 seconds. The thinking behind Saltybet applied to the experience of driving your kids to Disney Land, in short. It is possibly a commentary on self-piloting vehicles, but mostly, it is a celebration of the raucous magic of chatboxes. You can also vote to honk the horn.
It’s another exciting week for fighting game fans with the anticipated arrival of the Capcom Fighting Collection 2.
This latest collection packs eight titles into one package – with games like Power Stone and Project Justice finally making a return. We’ve already shared our review here on Nintendo Life and the good news it’s another fun dose of top-class arcade action.
Following a similar decision with Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
It’s been some time since Ubisoft provided an update about the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time ‘Remake’ project, but we’ve officially got one in the company’s latest earnings call.
Although the plan is to now provide unannounced major IPs additional development time to improve the overall quality of each experience after a similar delay helped Assassin’s Creed Shadows – it seems the long-awaited Sands of Time remake could be on the horizon.
Following rumours late last year Mortal Kombat 1 could be winding down its support sooner rather than later, NetherRealm and WB Games have this week announced the arrival of the Mortal Kombat 1: Definitive Edition.
This version of the game, which is available for $59.99 USD (or your regional equivalent), is said to offer the “most extensive Mortal Kombat 1 experience” including not only the base game and more recent Khaos Reigns story expansion but also both Kombat Packs (including all of the DLC fighters so far).
