Category: Video Games

Palworld Developer Pocketpair Moves Into Publishing to Release Tales of Kenzera Dev’s Next Game

Palworld developer Pocketpair is moving into the publishing business to release Tales of Kenzera: Zau developer Surgent Studio’s next game.

The newly formed Pocketpair Publishing said on X/Twitter it will support “a brand new horror game” from Surgent Studios, which released Tales of Kenzera: Zau as its debut title in April last year. The horror game published by Pocketpair won’t be a continuation of that universe, however.

“We noticed a pattern in the entertainment industry, and Pocketpair has given us the opportunity to make a horror game about it,” said Surgent Studios CEO Abubakar Salim. “Both Surgent and Pocketpair are well versed in taking risks. This game will be short and weird, and we think players will be interested in what we have to say.

“We’re still in earnest conversation about further projects set in the Tales of Kenzera universe, but this will be a standalone piece: a mile marker between where we’ve come from and where we’re going.”

We’re still in earnest conversation about further projects set in the Tales of Kenzera universe, but this will be a standalone piece.

No release window or even a title was announced, so the project is presumably still a while away from releasing. This is also separate from the Project Uso concept previously shared by Surgent Studios.

Pocketpair Publishing, meanwhile, is now accepting pitches from other developers. “We don’t want to tell you what to do.​ We don’t want to take control from you. We don’t want to change your dream or push you to make a certain type of game,” it said on its website.

Head of Pocketpair Publishing John Buckley added: “At Pocketpair, there is nothing we love more than games, and Pocketpair Publishing is our latest venture to help the world enjoy gaming even more. Game development comes with many challenges, but we want to ease that process as much as possible and provide an environment where creators can pursue their dreams.

“We are pleased to be able to support Surgent Studios’ new title as our first step. We deeply sympathize with their original ideas and passion and are honoured to help them realize their vision. We will respect the autonomy and vision of developers and work together to make great games for people all over the world.”

Salim, who is also an actor having played Assassin’s Creed Origins protagonist Bayek, Alyn of Hull in House of the Dragon, and the titular character in Tales of Kenzera: Zau, said “it’s an incredible honor to be Pocketpair Publishing’s first partner” in a follow up post on X/Twitter.

“This is the energy I want to see driving games in 2025,” he said, “developers lifting each other up, creating together, and pushing the industry forward.”

Tales of Kenzera: Zau is a single player Metroidvania game which explores themes of grief and love. It earned a 7/10 in IGN’s review. “Tales of Kenzera: Zau’s action isn’t groundbreaking within the genre, but its elevated by a truly moving tale about how to go on in this world when your loved ones have passed on to the next,” we said.

The positive reception wasn’t enough to drive unbridled success, however, as Surgent Studios announced layoffs in July. Things grew worse as employees were put on notice for redundancy in October amid further funding struggles, meaning the support from Pocketpair Publishing will likely go a long way.

As for Pocketpair, it’s still battling The Pokémon Company and Nintendo’s patent infringement lawsuit, filed following Palworld’s record-breaking sales success.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Nvidia are pretty sure the RTX 50 series GPUs won’t melt like the RTX 4090 did

Some eager beavers who bought the GeForce RTX 4090 at launch were, quite infamously, rewarded for their investment with a defective power adapter, one that that could melt the plastic in their £1679 graphics card like it was Ronald Lacey’s face. Nvidia reckon that won’t be an issue with for the imminent RTX 5090 and RTX 5080, though, even with the former’s drastically increased 575W power limit.

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Review: Star Wars: Episode I: Jedi Power Battles (Switch) – Uncivilised But Not Unenjoyable

“Now I am the (re)master”.

Always two, there are. No more. No less. Master Yoda’s wise words may have rung true for the Sith, but it couldn’t be further from the rate at which Star Wars games were being pumped out in the early 2000s.

Some showed promise (Episode I: Racer, Battle for Naboo) while others were as dull as The Phantom Menace‘s trade agreements (Obi-Wan’s Adventures). The vast majority fell into a vague middle ground, a place neither Dark nor Light, where games passed the time well enough but wouldn’t occupy enough space in the mind to distract from the next cinematic entry.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Mashina is a chill stop-motion adventure with friendly robots from the Judero Team

You’d think Talha and Jack Co would have earned themselves a nice custard cream and a sit down after having just released Judero last September, but they’re back already with a crowdfunder for Mashina – a robo-stuffed adventure where you’ll “Dig, build, discover and mend in a chill, stop-motion world.” Now I think about, you could probably eat quite a lot of custard creams in five months, although less so if you were using your hands to build model robots. Have a trailer. It’s got robots in it.

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Here’s a free 80s-style ninja heist game where you race in splitscreen to loot a daimyo’s castle

Back in December, a bunch of cool games had the extreme impoliteness to sneak onto digital shelves while we were losing our hair, souls and marbles covering various gaming award shows. One of those games was Escape From Castle Matsumoto – which can be excused, admittedly, because it’s a game about ninjas, and we expect ninjas to be sneaky.

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Super Technos World: River City & Technos Arcade Classics Announced For Switch

Update: Worldwide release confirmed.

To kick off the new year, Arc System Works has announced Technos The World: Kunio-kun & Arcade Collection for the Nintendo Switch and multiple other platforms. This information was shared in the latest issue of Weekly Famitsu.

This new collection will launch in Japan on 24th April 2025 and first-print editions will include a bonus soundtrack. There’s no word about a local release, but we’ll let you know if we hear anything. It’s also mentioned how this collection will include “convenient features” like saving and loading to enhance experience, as well as some additional bug fixes.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

What kind of diseased mind makes a city builder with actual building physics

The creators of All Will Fall are pariahs, as far as I’m concerned. You should warn you children to avoid them. If you encounter them in the street, you should jerk away with a muttered oath, making a sign to avert evil spirits – for these are the scumbags who’ve decided to develop a city-building game in which all the buildings and building materials are subject to realworld physics. A city-building game that takes place on small, post-apocalyptic islands, where the only way to expand is upward.

“Playing Jenga with human lives” is how they summarise it, the wastrels. Here’s a trailer.

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Celeste devs cancel lush platformer Earthblade to focus on smaller-scale projects

Celeste and Towerfall creators Extremely OK Games have announced the cancellation of their pixelart exploration platformer Earthblade, in what studio director Maddy Thorson calls a “huge, heartbreaking, and yet relieving failure”. The decision to call it quits follows a bust-up within the development team, though this isn’t, apparently, why they pulled the plug. Thorson and programmer Noel Berry have found making something “bigger and better” than Celeste exhausting, and have decided to work on smaller projects in future.

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Celeste Dev Makes “Difficult Decision” To Cancel New Game Earthblade

Following “a disagreement about the IP rights of Celeste”.

The Celeste developer Extremely OK Games has made the “difficult decision” to cancel the 2D “expor-action” game Earthblade.

This new project was originally revealed in 2021 and now in a blog update it’s been revealed the project was cancelled “late last month”. Long story short, there’s been conflict within the team “centered around a disagreement about the IP rights of Celeste”.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Save on the Monster Hunter New Year Hunting Collection at Humble!

Monster Hunter is one of the biggest game franchises out there right now, with the highly anticipated release of Monster Hunter Wilds set for next month. If you’ve ever wanted to square up with towering beasts and monsters, this is the perfect series for you.

Right now, Humble is offering the Monster Hunter New Year Hunting Collection, which packs in ten total items for only $25. This is a great starting place for beginners, as it gives you the biggest Monster Hunter games available on PC with their expansions. Check out the details below, and don’t miss out on this incredible bundle!

Monster Hunter New Year Hunting Collection at Humble

This bundle is the ultimate deal if you’ve yet to purchase any Monster Hunter games on Steam. Depending on how much you’d like to pay, you can score up to 10 items! For $10, you can score Monster Hunter Rise, the Deluxe Kit upgrade, and two coupons for the Monster Hunter Stories games. $15 will give you Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak as well, which is a major DLC expansion featuring new monsters and areas to discover.

Next, $20 will grant you Monster Hunter World and its deluxe kit, while the final tier at $25 unlocks Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. At this max tier, you will score the following:

In total, this bundle has a value of $204, offering an unbeatable price for these games and expansions. Like all Humble offerings, part of your payment will go to charity. The Monster Hunter New Year Hunting Collection supports Breakthrough T1D, an organization focused on global type 1 diabetes research and advocacy. Your purchase will help support Breakthrough T1D as it continues to work toward more solutions and improve access to health care. Only three days remain for this deal, so head over to Humble Bundle now to take advantage of this offer before it’s gone!