Category: Video Games

During today’s Nintendo Switch 2-focused Nintendo Direct, Nintendo officially revealed its new Mario Kart game coming to the console, which we now know to be titled Mario Kart World. It’s Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive, and it’s a launch day release.

The trailer today was a fast-paced explosion of neat new elements. Rapidfire, we got a look at a number of returning characters, new tracks, and feature such as jet skis on water, rail grinding on the edges of courses, the ability to bounce off walls, customizable characters with hats and outfits, changing weather and time of day on courses, a photo mode, and the ability to play as the cow from Moo Moo Meadows. You heard me!

The biggest feature of World is the ability to drive off-road essentially anywhere you want on the course in what seems to be a large open world, with drivers having to drive from course to course in each four-course Grand Prix.

The last “mainline” Mario Kart game, Mario Kart 8, originally came out way, way back in 2014 for the Wii U, and was later re-released as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch. Since then, it’s become the definitive Mario Kart game, selling nearly 65 million copies and getting numerous updates over time with new racers, tracks, karts, and more. While other Mario Kart games have come out during that time, such as Mario Kart Tour on mobile and Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, this new Mario Kart release on Switch 2 is a major step forward for Nintendo as it says goodbye at last to one of the best-selling games of all time. Can Mario Kart World surpass it? We’ll have to wait and find out.

You can catch up on everything announced at the Nintendo Direct today right here. More information is coming on Mario Kart World in a future Nintendo Direct dedicated to the game.

Developing…

A video purportedly taken from the next iteration of The Sims has popped up online, and fans have expressed their concern about what it may mean for the much-loved series.

Project Rene – the codename sometimes used interchangeably with The Sims 5, although EA maintains Project Rene is, in fact, a spin-off project – has been bubbling around for a few years now, but early access footage from a game entitled “City Life Game With Friends” has many players thinking that this could well be the next Sims game.

The video itself is a full 20 minutes long and shows the player clicking through text prompts to select their outfit, hair, watch, activities, and so on. He then spawns into a sunlit Plaza de Poupon where he buys some food and mingles with the locals. He later goes to work in the outdoor café.

Characters are clearly called Sims throughout the playtest, talk in Simlish, and are adorned with The Sims’ tell-tale Plumbob.

“I am terribly disappointed with Project Rene. Yes, I know, according to EA, ‘this is not the final game.’ Is this a joke or what?” said one unhappy player on The Sims’ subreddit on a post entitled “I think Project Rene is a redflag (I hope not)” that has been upvoted hundreds of times.

“EA clearly wants to kill off normal Sims games and push people toward the mobile-style experience. So in their mind, a reboot literally means this — at least that’s what I THINK.”

“This is not going to be for me, I can tell already,” said another. “It just seems so basic and I don’t want to play The Sims on my phone.”

“The funny thing is, making a PC/mobile cross-compatible Sims game isn’t a bad idea,” posited a fan. “EA just believes that mobile games HAVE to be ugly for some reason. They’re chasing all of the design trends of the past decade, but it means that this thing already looks dated and it’s not even out yet.”

“The way The Sims was a literally [sic] satire about capitalist suburban consumption-as-happiness…. And this is where the Sims ended up. Endless consumption-as-happiness,” suggested another.

Project Rene — the codenamed game initially thought to be The Sims 5 until EA distanced itself from those rumors — was first teased in 2022 during a Behind the Sims Summit. It’s a free-to-play Sims game that features multiplayer inspired by Animal Crossing and Among Us. It hasn’t yet been formally revealed or received a release date, but EA has been holding small, invite-only playtests for the game since its announcement, with the game’s latest playtest presumably spawning these recent leaks.

The name Rene was chosen because it references words like “renewal, renaissance, and rebirth” that “represent the developer’s renewed commitment for the Sims’ bright future.”

Last October, however, images of Project Rene leaked from a closed online test, prompting complaints about the art style, limited features, and the use of microtransactions. It was the addition of a café that drew the most skepticism, primarily due to the smiliaries to 2018’s The Sims Mobile. It was then that EA said Project Rene was not The Sims 5 but would, in fact, be a different “cosy, social game” released under The Sims franchise.

Don’t forget that The Burglar, a familiar sight for those of us who’ve spent time with any of the older Sims games snuck back into our lives as part of the latest update for The Sims 4.

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 Tekken 8 community has reacted in anger after the Season 2 update changed the game in a number of controversial ways.

Patch notes revealed an across-the-board buff to character damage potential and offensive pressure, which has caused some within the community to complain that Tekken 8 has strayed too far from the classic Tekken experience.

Pro Tekken player JoKa said the Season 2 update means “this does not feel like Tekken AT ALL.”

“Characters getting buffed even in the slightest is not the way along with more stance-based transitions where 50/50 situations are enhanced. Some of the new moves added are insane with little to no counterplay. Characters getting their weaknesses patched and identities being removed by homogenisation is lazy balancing. Oki being gutted and heat just getting buffed makes no sense. Combo damage is too much across the whole roster. I definitely think the sidesteps are better but does that really matter when moves exist with crazy tracking/hitboxes? Chip damage is still excessive with most heat smashes remaining the same. Removing strategy in favour of more 50/50 situations isn’t interesting gameplay and is moving away from the foundation of Tekken.

“Where are the defensive options that were mentioned?”

As you’d expect, Tekken 8’s Steam page has become the avenue through which players are expressing their frustration. The game has seen a flood of negative reviews (over 1,100 in the last two days), resulting in an ‘mostly negative’ user review rating for recent reviews.

“Genuinely good game held back by schizophrenic insane developers sent from hell,” reads the current ‘most helpful’ review.

“New season dropped and they made every character into a braindead easy mix up machine without a single buff to defense,” reads another.

“After promising changes to open up defensive options, the balance team has doubled down on extremely powerful offense that takes away all agency from the defending player,” another negative review reads.

“Not every character needs to be able to force 50/50 canned mixups constantly, but it seems like the balance team doesn’t have any other ideas for how to build characters at this point. It’s just a shame to see another legacy fighting game become entirely defined by character offense and situations with little to no response from the defender.”

Some Tekken fans are so upset with what’s happening that they’re ditching the game in favor of Capcom’s Street Fighter 6. Others are calling Season 2 the “worst patch in Tekken history,” with some pro players threatening to walk away from Tekken 8 entirely.

I don’t know if I’ll continue playing Tekken if this patch stays.
I’m sorry for doomposting, but I thought it had a chance to be a better game.
I’m just really sad.
Like depressed.
I streamed 70 hours of Tekken this past week to prep for s2 just to have those hopes shattered.
Gn.

— END | Jesandy (@Jesandy1572) April 1, 2025

The community is now hoping for some communication from the development team responding to the complaints. Some want the patch rolled back in its entirety. Others want an emergency follow-up patch to make key changes.

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.

April 1 has been and gone, and so has the video game industry’s penchant for April Fool’s Day gags for another year. But the one the people behind Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 came up may perhaps live a little longer in the memory.

Yesterday, Space Marine 2 publisher Focus Entertainment declared that the new Chaplain class would be released as DLC on April 1.

“In story mode, swap out Titus for The Chaplain and experience the game as a true Codex-compliant Ultramarine,” Focus said, no doubt sniggering from behind their monitors.

This ‘DLC’ supposedly added the new playable character to the story mode, as well as an ‘Enhanced Dialogue System’ that would have the Chaplain, every five minutes, remind everyone around him that “the Codex Astartes does not support this action,” and “I’m telling the Inquisition.”

The Chaplain even has a special ability called Discipline. This would involve instantly reporting “any and all minor deviations from the Codex Astartes for a 5% discipline bonus (but -20% brotherhood bonus).

The joke here works because as anyone who played Space Marine 2’s campaign knows, Chaplain Quintus watches Titus’ every move with a hawk-like distrust for signs of heresy, despite the protagonist’s demonstrable loyalty to the Imperium, the Ultramarines, and the Emperor himself.

Throughout the campaign, as Titus battles against the Tyranids and the Thousand Sons traitor legion, it becomes clear there is something… special about him, and Chaplain Quintus does not like that one bit. He’s a bit like the annoying school prefect who patrols the corridors for a mere whiff of deviant behavior and then— bam! You’re reported to the headmaster. Everyone hates the Chaplain.

The Chaplain has become something of a meme within the Space Marine community, and it’s this status that the Space Marine 2 April Fool’s joke leans into. But some fans have said they would love for The Chaplain to actually come to the game, not, perhaps, with this exact skill set, but as a straight-up warrior-priest who insists upon the veneration of the Emperor at all times.

“This would actually go hard if this was real,” declared ResidentDrama9739 in a post on the Space Marine subreddit that’s full of enthusiastic chatter about the Chaplain and how he might work in the game. Some are even saying

The thing is, Space Marine 2 is getting a new class soon. Focus and developer Saber Interactive have yet to say what it is, but fans certainly have their theories. Most assume it will be the Apothecary, as close to a medic class as Space Marines have. But there is hope that it could be the Librarian, which would mean super cool warp-powered space magic. Does the Chaplain’s star turn in Space Marine 2’s April Fool’s Day joke rule him out?

There’s a lot happening in the world of Space Marine 2, despite the surprise announcement that development of Space Marine 3 development had begun. Space Marine 2’s year one roadmap remains, and Patch 7 is set to be released mid-April. But in the coming months Space Marine 2 will also get the aforementioned new class as well as new PvE operations and melee weapons.

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.