While Minecraft sells over 4 million on Switch.
Famitsu has provided the latest look at the boxed charts in Japan, and it’s another resounding success for Mario Kart World, with the Switch 2 launch title selling another 38,026 copies.
Borderlands 4 made its debut, with the PS5 version coming in at number 2 after selling 13,029 copies. A decent start, to be sure, but Mario Kart World’s commanding lead is going to take some beating.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
There’s a unique kind of excitement you get from a really good early access game – it’s not just “this is fun”, it’s also, “imagine how much more fun this could get.” Jump Space meets the criteria.
Drawing from a melting pot of influences as wide as Sea of Thieves, Left 4 Dead, Helldivers 2, FTL, and even a touch of Resident Evil inventory management, Jump Space emerges as a game all its own – a rolling series of action-packed missions that ask you and your friends to cope with constantly shifting objectives and needs.
For each round, you’ll assemble a crew at a hub (using the party leader’s personal spaceship), gear up, and choose a mission together – but the key here is that your core objective is an endgoal, not the be-all-and-end-all. Each mission will generate what amounts to a roguelike map of stops along the way. That title, Jump Space, is the clue: you’re taking your ship on a series of faster-than-light trips across the galaxy to reach your mission.
Each stop might feature enemies to fight, resources to collect, or secrets to uncover – your goal is to get as strong (and take as little damage) as possible before you reach your final destination.
But it’s in the thick of the action that Jump Space shows how far it could go. Even the most basic starter ship comes with multiple stations to deal with – your crew will need a pilot, a gunner, someone to run engineering (every system and upgrade on the ship is a physical object, and needs to be plugged into your power grids to function) and, often, someone to simply fight off intruders. Flitting between these roles is entirely seamless – sit in the pilot seat, and you’ll switch to a view of the ship – get out of it, and you’re back on the bridge.
Even more impressive is that you’re by no means stuck within your ship – you can head to an airlock (or, even more fun, an ejection tube) and enter deep space at any time. Perhaps you’ve had an alert that mines have been attached to your hull? Get out of the ship, magnetize your boots to the outside, and get clearing. Up against a vessel you simply can’t deal with in ship-to-ship combat? Park behind an asteroid and blast out, using your jetpacks to board and cripple it from within.
Inspired by Left 4 Dead, developer Keepsake Games have created an “AI Director” that will shift the parameters as you hit each mini-mission – if you’re doing poorly, it might ease up a little, and if you’re breezing past areas, it might send in an armada to put you to the test.
It means that even simple-sounding tasks can become wild action sequences – you stop in an asteroid field, using your ship scanner to locate resources (your in-game currency is used not just to buy things, but to craft items and perform repairs, meaning you constantly need to accrue it), but find that automated turrets are scattered throughout the area. Suddenly, you’re all simultaneously flying to find a safe space, trying to put out fires in your ventilation system, blasting out to collect the goods, and violently removing turrets from your path.
And this is before you reach the mission you came here to do. In my demo of the game, we’d been sent to provide support for an allied ship under attack. But it wasn’t just a case of fighting off other ships – instead, we needed to fend off a wave, head out of the ship to a series of factory installations, take down robots in tense FPS combat, deactivate their systems, then head back to our ship to tackle newly-arrived threats elsewhere. There’s simply no downtime, making each run an adrenaline-fuelled series of reactions to whatever new problem needs solving.
And when you do finally get a breather, completing your mission and blasting back home, your rewards can be used to unlock new upgrades, new weapons, new gadgets, and whole new ships – each one tempting you back into space to try them out.
Even in its earliest form, it’s a loop that begs you to have one more go – not to mention one that opens so many doors for Keepsake to add more ideas to the mix. I have a feeling I’ll be returning again and again to see what’s new.
Keepsake Games
Jump Space is a mission based co-op PvE for 1-4 players, where you are the crew of a spaceship. Transition seamlessly from crewing the ship to on-foot exploration and space walks. Explore, upgrade, and survive intense encounters in deep space together.
Full details on the latest status of the game, how you can give feedback and report issues can be found at https://jumpspacegame.com
The post Jump Space Blasts Onto Xbox Game Preview Tomorrow, Mixing FPS and Space Combat to Wild Effect appeared first on Xbox Wire.
I’m Baiyon, the director of Dreams of Another and a multimedia artist. The release date for the game, October 10, is fast approaching.
In this post, I’d like to share the inspiration behind the themes of the game, the ideas behind the object dialogues, which is one of the aspects that makes the game special, and my personal dedication to the soundtrack I created.
Dreams of Another is built around the philosophical theme of “no creation without destruction.” Rather than destroying objects by shooting, as in traditional shooting games, here, your shots materialize and create the world around you.
I have a memory about “destruction and creation” that has stayed with me. It happened during my middle school cultural festival. According to the school rules, everyone had to prepare some kind of exhibit, and my friend and I collected cardboard to make and display a cardboard sculpture.
When the chime signaling the end of the one-day festival rang and cleanup began, I lightly started punching and breaking the sculpture. Since it was going to be thrown away anyway, perhaps it was a lighthearted thought born of youth: “If it’s going to be cleaned up anyway, let’s have some fun.”
At first, my friend laughed as he watched, but after a while, I felt a pain in my back. When I turned around, I saw my friend, with an angry face, kicking my back. From there, it escalated into a full-on fight, and a teacher, noticing, came into the classroom and shouted at me, “Are you making something to destroy it?!”
Those words stayed with me in a way different from the teacher’s original intent. I think I understood that the teacher meant I should take care of what I create, but I kept thinking, “It’s going to be thrown away anyway…” Yet I found this human contradiction somehow interesting.
That feeling has always run deep in my approach to creating things, and this game allowed it to take shape.
In this game, you can not only interact with people in the dream world but also talk with objects such as trees and doors. One of the game’s major charms is being able to hear their sentiments and experience their emotions.
For example, when I am thinking about ideas for this door’s dialogue, I first realized that even when we say “door,” there are many kinds and positions. Doors in public places, such as buildings, schools, or shopping malls, doors in one’s home, doors of the living room or bedrooms of children and teens, the door of the family home lived in for decades, or the door of a grandmother’s house after losing her husband… Each door is connected to human life, and I imagined that, like us, they might feel pride or even envy other doors.
If I were a door, I would want to be a door that is there for an individual’s personal space, rather than merely a being that separates spaces. At the same time, some doors might actually feel comfortable being roughly used by a large family in a living room, while others might feel suited to existing for strangers in a public facility.
Imagine doors having a variety of preferences and ways of thinking. In the dialogues, nothing is imposed as “right” or a conclusion. I wanted players to reflect on their own environment, access past memories, and have a moment of reflection.
In this way, the dialogues are not just flat and one-dimensional—they can be experienced in a multi-layered way, from various perspectives, and connected to one’s own memories.
Of course, it’s perfectly fine to enjoy it simply as a door saying something a little strange. That playfulness and unexpectedness of the dialogues are part of the unique charm of this dream world.
I have worked on various game soundtracks alongside my own projects over the years, but this time, I felt especially the sense of “I made the music for a game.”
I wanted to create music that resonated with the scenarios and dialogues I wrote myself, as well as the situations and atmosphere of each scene, which made me approach the music in a way different from before. For each scene, I composed music with the intention of evoking certain feelings in the player and expressing particular emotions myself.
Additionally, a key theme was to convey the instability and ambiguity of the dream world with music. One thing I consciously tried to avoid was being “too polished.” As a musician, this approach is somewhat challenging, but instead of creating compositions that are overly tight or densely structured, I aimed for music that flows.
Also, for example, For a particular river scene inspired by my own memories and experiences, I actually spent a long time traveling to the location for field recordings to compose the music for the scene, capturing sounds such as flowing water and stones being rubbed together—the latter of which I then incorporated as rhythmic elements. These particular touches may go unnoticed by anyone, but for me, the focus was on keeping things genuine. By incorporating elements drawn from the source of inspiration as much as possible, I believe it could enrich the experience.
I think there are many sounds that aren’t often heard during gameplay. While playing, I hope you take a moment to listen closely to these subtle details—they might lead to small discoveries or interesting experiences.
Dreams of Another will launch on October 10 for PS5 and PS VR2. A special bundle is also available for pre-order, which includes the previous game I directed, PixelJunk Eden 2.
If you’re interested, please check out the store page. I truly look forward to you enjoying this special experience.
Live and Learn is more than just one of the best songs in Sonic history; it also feels like a philosophy SEGA has taken to heart with Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. I’ve spent over 35 hours drifting, boosting, and gathering rings across an excellent set of tracks that span Sonic’s 34-year history. Minutes effortlessly turned into hours, perfecting my drifting technique, customizing my vehicles, finding the optimal race lines in time trials, and frantically competing with friends to be the Grand Prix champion. Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds could have been just another pit stop among a Grand Prix of 2025 kart racers, but instead it put the pedal to the metal and refused to let me take my hands off the wheel.
I’ve played my fair share of kart racers over the past few decades starring Sonic, Mario, Crash, and plenty of other popular characters. While most are amusing enough, only a few reach that upper pantheon of party games that dominate every get together. With 39 tracks, 24 characters, a nice suite of multiplayer options, tons of challenges to complete, and such a long list of unlockable cosmetics that I still can’t see its finish line, CrossWorlds doesn’t just want to be part of the rotation: it has set its sights on taking the top spot for me and my friends.
CrossWorlds’ racing is quick to pick up thanks to its intuitive and straightforward controls, essentially boiling down to four main actions: accelerate, drift, brake, and use an item. Racing feels great whether you’re zipping into shortcuts, landing massive trick combos for a big boost, or nailing a complicated drift that asks you to rapidly change direction on a curvy path. I love how the vehicles feel, as every action fluidly transitions from one into the next, allowing me to chain drifts into jumps into tricks into boosts before launching into another drift to repeat the process again… provided my opponents didn’t send any items my way.
Getting hit with items, messing up a turn, or colliding with a wall definitely cost me a few races, but more often than not they felt more like small speed bumps thanks to the generous placement of boost panels and item capsules on most courses. Those hits do reduce your ring count, which in turn lowers your top speed, but it rarely took me more than a few seconds to get back on track – and you can reduce that lag time even further depending on how you tune your vehicle. The type of ride you pick will help you eke out extra advantages: Power vehicles are great at shoving other racers around, Handling vehicles make it easier to nail even the trickiest of sharp turns, and the long-awaited return of Sonic Riders’ hover boards enabled me to boost like no other when hitting dash panels or using the boosting Wisp items.
The headlining feature is the fantastic CrossWorlds mechanic that not only keeps every race interesting but also adds a good amount of depth. Outside of Grand Prix Mode, the second lap of each race almost seamlessly transports everyone to a different course, similar to the dimension jumping done in 2021’s Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. Warping from the naval scenery of Metal Harbor to the prehistoric Dinosaur Jungle or the incredibly curvy Dragon’s Road kept me on my toes every race. This was already my favorite part of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds’ public test demos before my review, but I began to see the true brilliance of it as I put more time into the full game.
Different vehicle types excel on different tracks, so making the second lap random adds depth when customizing your ride since you need to consider variables beyond just the course you’ve chosen. My speed-focused vehicle would sing on tracks with many straightaways or boost panels, but would often give up a few positions to racers who tuned for acceleration or handling on tracks filled with constant curves and sharp turns. Since some tracks have portions where you transform into a boat or plane, I found myself making one loadout that could adapt to whatever course ended up as the second lap while still maximizing my potential for the first and final lap on the main track.
Transforming into Flight and Water Forms is as simple as passing through a gate with the matching plane or boat icons. Some transformations are required, such as the Water Form swap at the start of Kraken Bay, while others are optional, like the short Flight Form path on Coral Town if you take a specific branching path, but I was never unhappy to seize the opportunity to change things up – in fact, I would have loved a few more CrossWorlds that gave me extended periods of time in the sky. Flight Form in always handled like a dream, letting you drift vertically to reach items, rings, and boost gates at different elevations. However, a few of the Water Form sections can feel clunky until you figure out the correct rhythm and timing to accelerate, drift, and trick on each course. Vehicles with better handling seem to perform the best during these transformations, so whenever I was having a hard time with a specific section , I would practice in one of those vehicles before returning to my preferred Speed type options.
No lap during CrossWorlds feels like another, and though the last lap returns to your original track, there are significant changes during it. Paths that were inaccessible open up, improved item boxes appear with better drop rates for stronger options, and more hazards show up on the course. There are even significant structural changes, like a rocket in Metal Harbor finally launching, which removes two paths and forces everyone into a newly formed spine (or two quarter pipes placed back to back, for those who don’t skate).
Even without the CrossWorlds mechanic, the courses available at launch are all excellent. There are 15 tracks that can only arrive during that second lap, and then 24 main courses for them to show up in, with Coral Town possibly being my favorite. Its looping paths create so many routes that I’m still wrapping my head around which one is the most ideal in time trials – I always found myself changing the route I took depending on my position, character, vehicle, and lap number. Other standouts are classic stages like Market Street, which originated as Rooftop Run in Sonic Unleashed, and Radical Highway from Sonic Adventure 2, the latter of which had me riding the main cables to the top using boost pads to leave my competitors behind.
Every course feels perfectly tuned with risks and rewards; different routes have different advantages, with some having more rings to help you reach your maximum top speed, while others have more boost panels to provide some speed in the short run in the hopes you will either get far enough ahead not to need the extra rings or at least have enough breathing room to pick them up later. One course that proved to be my Achilles heel: Pumpkin Mansion. The final third of the track is full of giant pumpkins that vanish as you approach, but until the first person reaches them, they hide a section full of sharper turns. They always affected the timing of my drifts until I took the time to memorize their positions through time trials and figured out which paths I should take.
Finally, a kart racer would just be a basic racing game without items to inject a little chaos into them. CrossWorlds has 24 different items that can be pulled from boxes placed all over each course, most of which had me shouting with equal amounts of either excitement or bitterness depending on if I was on the giving or receiving end of each. The iconic Wisps from Sonic Colors are here and offer items in the form of a boost, laser, and drill, which are all helpful to either catch up or extend your lead. These were always welcome as they enabled me to cut across off-road sections and dodge certain attacks, like the punishing Slime and Weight items, if used with proper timing. There are plenty of other cool options as well, like a bomb that grows in size the longer you hold it, eventually becoming a giant wrecking ball that flattens enemies it collides with until its detonation.
The Tornado quickly became my favorite item because of its ability to negate most incoming attacks while also dealing damage to as many opponents that I could bump into. There is also the Monster Truck, which is sure to be a standout for many, as it transforms your vehicle into a massive machine that flattens opponents, renders you immune to all other items, and allows you to drive off-road without any penalties. By default, you can hold two items at a time, but you can also add the option for a third item or swap between your two items by installing specific upgrades in your customizable Gadget Panel if you really want to lean into the chaos, though I typically leaned toward Gadgets that made me faster, not fiercer.
Gadgets offer a wide range of extremely impactful bonuses, with more than 30 different options to place on your Gadget Panel before a race. Now, they won’t suddenly craft you a win out of thin air, as your racing skills still remain the most important factor – but when utilized to their maximum potential, Gadgets can be the difference between getting first and fourth place. There are Gadgets to alter your vehicle’s stats, improve drift performance, increase the rings you can carry, and grant unique starting items that can’t normally be found in races, like a Warp Ring that teleports you on top of the racer just ahead of you, causing you to squish them. The tricky part is figuring out what combination to use; each Gadget Panel has six slots in a two-by-three pattern, and each Gadget requires between one and three slots. Building my Panel became a tiny puzzle with no wrong answers, and it scratched the min-maxing itch I love in games.
You can prebuild five Gadget Panels and then swap between them before each race, which helps you adjust to specific situations, modifying the base stats of your character and vehicle selection as needed. The roster has nearly all the major characters you’d hope to see from each generation of Sonic: in addition to the usual Team Light and Dark, you’ve got characters from the Sonic Heroes, Riders, Advance, Rush, Colors, and even recent newcomers like Sage from Frontiers. It didn’t take long for me to find my favorite in Shadow using a modified Speed-type vehicle, so much so that I used him to clear all eight cups on the Sonic Speed and Super Sonic Speed difficulty (the equivalents of 150cc and 200cc in Mario Kart), only needing minor tweaks outside of regularly adjusting my Gadget Panel. While it was rare for most CPU opponents to give me trouble, a few of the Grands Prix still had the ideal amount of challenge thanks to CrossWorlds’ modular rival system.
Before starting each Grand Prix, a random character appears as your rival, and they then act as a supercharged CPU to race against with a challenge level from one to 10, similar to raising the heat level in the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate campaign. Your rival isn’t just a CPU racer with better stats, they interject with snarky comments of frustration and glee throughout the races, adding a bit of character to what could have just been a slightly more competent CPU racer. While I haven’t tested every combination of racer and rival, the 20 or so I’ve seen so far all had unique voice lines, which really helped breathe even more life into them. Rivals also behave more intelligently, holding onto defensive items until they need them, taking better racing lines as they drift around corners, and even moving to ensure they take items they expect those behind them to go for. I had to use a not-insignificant amount of retries when racing rivals that were level eight or higher, which is just the right amount of pushback.
Thankfully, CrossWorlds does something I wish every other racing game would do with its in-game currency, Donpa tickets. I would usually net anywhere between 10 and 40 tickets per race, depending on my performance and if I achieved certain feats. That includes things like using the most items, choosing which course is selected for lap two by being in first when reaching the travel ring at the end of lap one, or picking up the series’ iconic red rings. Tickets have a variety of uses, including unlocking various car parts or customization options, increasing your friendship with a character for rewards unique to them, and – my favorite use – retrying a race for better placement.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: retrying a race is hardly new, but CrossWorlds differs in that you can spend a measly 20 tickets to retry in the middle of a Grand Prix without entirely starting over. So if you get hit with three items on the final turn of the final lap of the final race only to watch your rival and six other racers pass you in the homestretch, you can rewind and try again as many times as you can afford, which cuts down on pointless repetition a lot. Grands Prix also get an exciting and welcome shakeup: instead of racing on a fourth course to end things, the final race is a combination of one lap from the previous three, which tests how well you can adapt to each. That said, I do miss the mission-based Story Mode from Team Sonic Racing, which gave you interesting bonus challenges to accomplish during each stage.
I also have to dig into the friendship system more, as it will take thousands of races to complete if your goal is to maximize your ranking with each character. Instead of funneling tickets into car parts, you can give them to your favorite characters to receive cosmetics like titles, decals, and alternate costumes in return. These specific unlockables get really expensive really fast: it took me 3000 tickets to earn the first four rewards for Shadow, including one alternate costume, and there is still more for me to unlock. It’s clear that SEGA is hoping this will be a system that keeps you drawn in, as with 24 characters, that’s a ludicrous number of tickets to unlock everything. I have mixed feelings on this because it gives the most dedicated fans something to chase, but the rate for earning tickets currently feels a bit too stingy when compared to the cost of unlocking some cosmetics.
That sticker shock gets even worse when you consider the fact that new characters are already on the horizon, including Hatsune Miku, Joker from Persona 5, and Ichiban from the Like a Dragon franchise, all of which have been announced as upcoming free additions. There will also be characters and tracks for SpongeBob, TMNT, and Avatar: The Last Airbender coming as part of the paid season pass. While I don’t necessarily need them since I already have more favorites on the Sonic roster than I do fingers, it is exciting to think of what other characters and tracks could be joining even later down the road. In fact, during my interview with Takashi Iizuka of SEGA at Gamescom, they said they plan to support CrossWorlds with new content like this each month for at least the first year after launch, which is an impressive pace given there’s already plenty of unlockables and alternate modes to keep those who blaze through the cups busy at launch.
One of those distractions is the Race Park, which consists of six different rule sets, but also allows you to create custom matches to fit whatever you and up to three others want to play locally. These are all available online as well by joining the Friend Match option, though they are limited to one player per console, but it at least allows you to race with groups of up to 12 friends. Currently, every mode boils down to a race for points, but the modified rules change how they play out. In addition to the regular 12-player free-for-all race style, there are also special team modes with rules that grant bonuses for grabbing the most rings, colliding with teammates, using the most dash panels, or landing the most item hits on opponents. These modes were a blast with friends, as they didn’t fully rely on who knew the courses the best. It’s also something worth playing for a bit, as there are eight different rival CPU teams to take down that unlock special vehicles you can then customize with other parts. The custom rule set is a standout feature here for local multiplayer, too, giving you control over how many races you do back to back, which courses can appear as the Crossworld second lap, what items appear in item boxes, and the speed and difficulty level while racing.
The Race Park’s one drawback is that, while not necessary, the Gadget Panels can be overly influential to the outcome of races, so it was a let-down that there were no pre-built ones for newcomers. They did have access to everything I had unlocked, but that meant spending time for them to decipher what each one did and figuring out which ones they wanted to set into their Panels. I hope Sega alleviates this with a patch that adds some default Gadget Panels optimized for different vehicle types and playstyles.
In addition to the Race Park, there is also a Time Trial mode that challenges you to race for the best time on both the Sonic and Super Sonic Speed settings. I initially went into Time Trial mode expecting to run through a few tracks just to see what it offered, but it ended up being where I spent more time than anywhere else. After clearing some courses with an A rank (the minimum rank necessary to earn progress towards rewards), I was suddenly hungry for more. Each race, I found myself tinkering with the various car parts and Gadgets, and rewatching my own ghost to see what I could change or where I could improve. What if I save my boost for this turn vs that turn, or what if I sacrifice a bit of my speed to improve my handling stat to nail that hairpin? Before CrossWorlds, I was never a huge Time Trial person, but these hooked me by putting the most enticing thing they could behind them as a reward: my favorite Sonic music to listen to while racing.
A Sonic game would be incomplete without a banger of a soundtrack, and CrossWorlds rarely fails to impress with its nearly 100 unique tracks. The primary songs are excellent, with popular tracks like Radical Highway, Market Street, Ocean View, and plenty of others all getting the CrossWorlds treatment. And for you Sonic Adventure 2 fans, don’t worry, because Escape From the City is here, but you will need to clear all 79 time trials with at least an A ranking to unlock it. All the great artists that have created music for Sonic games here are: Tee Lopes, Tomoya Ohtani, Takahiro Kai, and plenty more. Similar to Sonic x Shadow Generations from last year, unlocking this music does more than just let you listen to them in a jukebox; you can also gather your favorites and slot that playlist (or any of the other six premade albums) as the music for each of the three laps of every race. Possibly the most impressive part of that is how seamlessly they all transition into each other, with each song starting at a different point depending on what lap it plays on. I only wish I could create multiple favorites playlists to have even more control.
The last and potentially one of the most critical elements that could decide whether CrossWorlds takes the podium is how online play functions. Ahead of launch, we had a few days to test it and see what it offered. To my enjoyment, it worked as well as I’d hoped, with the caveat that my not-quite-full lobbies were regularly supplemented with CPUs to fill out all 12 spots. Online does have a drawback compared to this year’s Mario Kart World since it’s limited to just one player per console, but the inclusion of crossplay is a decent trade off, and I saw virtually no lag with my wired connection.
Online functionality is simple but effective – you can see other players on your specific console’s friend list, your CrossWorlds in-game friend list, a history of others you’ve raced against, and your fair play points, which is a 100-point gauge that decreases anytime you abandon an online race. This appears to be CrossWorlds’ method for ensuring players who are behind don’t just up and leave the race entirely, which is an appreciated inclusion even if I can’t yet say how effective it will be. Another incentive is that I unlocked even more Gadget options to alter my driving style as I rose through the ranks from E- to an eventual C- during the short prelaunch review window. And while it’s too soon to tell how the difference in ranks will affect queue times, I usually found a match in less than a minute during the review period, which has a much smaller pool of players than will be there on launch.
Also, it’s great that my custom soundtracks and everything I had earned in offline mode carried over, making me all the more prepared for facing real opponents. The good news is that even fans that want to join online races on day one will still be able to earn all the Gadgets I got offline simply by racing, meaning that each online race will not only move you closer to the Gadgets from higher ranks but also the ones that unlock based on total number of races. However, those players will be at a disadvantage compared to others like myself who spent time earning them before going online, which could also be mitigated with preset Gadget Plates.
10 years ago, Metroid Prime series producer Kensuke Tanabe sat down with me at E3 2015 and said he’d like to make a new game in the franchise with a time travel mechanic.
This was, obviously, a long time ago — so long ago that the Nintendo Switch was still only known by its codename NX — but the chat remains one of Tanabe’s most forthcoming interviews on the Metroid Prime series’ future, discussing the stories of Dark Samus and Phazon, bounty hunter Sylux, and an idea for a new Metroid Prime game that focused on a single planet across multiple points in its timeline.
“Instead of broadening it to more planets I would have one and would focus on the timeline, and being able to change that,” Tanabe said to me, at Eurogamer at the time. “That’s one interesting idea I have in mind… but I understand many people thought that [Echoes] was too difficult.”
By evoking Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Tanabe is referring to its dual-world gameplay that saw players shift between light and dark versions of the same space — a concept that prompted a mix of reactions from players. Still, the idea of time travel appears to have stuck with Tanabe, who has once again returned as the producer of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond — a game which contains other similarities to the concept he discussed back then.
Take the bounty hunter Sylux, for example, a character that even fans of the Metroid Prime trilogy might struggle to remember. A rival of Samus, Sylux was introduced in the Nintendo DS spin-off game Metroid Prime Hunters (for which Tanabe was also a producer). As part of the same interview a decade ago, Tanabe confirmed the spaceship seen during the cliffhanger tease at the end of Metroid Prime 3 belonged to Sylux, potentially setting up a rivalry in a future game.
“It was Sylux, another hunter from Metroid Prime Hunters at the end of Metroid Prime 3,” Tanabe said to me at the time. “Personally I’d like to create a story centring around Sylux and Samus.”
Well, roll forward a decade and Sylux is indeed a major presence in Metroid Prime 4 — and last week the character was even announced as getting an amiibo figurine, too.
As for the idea of a game featuring time travel, fans have long held onto Tanabe’s suggestion — and even pointed to the black hole shape seen in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond’s logo in the hope that it might mean Samus can create some kind of time-dilating space hole to travel into the past or future.
Now, supposedly leaked box art for the game posted on reddit appears to mention Samus as being stuck on the game’s planet of Viewros after being transported across space and time — prompting more chatter that time travel, just like Sylux, has remained part of Tanabe’s plans.
“I’m assuming it’ll work exactly like how Dark Aether works in Prime 2,” wrote Metroid fan Spinjitsuninja on reddit, before the supposed box art leaked. “We see several portals in the recent trailer anyways, so unless those are awkward warp points, I think it shows similar world design. They could always have the game take you to different eras, with more than two ‘worlds’ to go between? But that might be ambitious.”
“Calling it now: you have to hit a certain speed on the bike to time travel, back to the future style,” added another fan, Gleethor on ResetEra. “Could even see it near instantly changing the landscape around you when you time travel, which could certainly explain why it’s relatively sparse.”
Last week’s Metroid Prime 4: Beyond trailer finally revealed the game’s release date and also showcased a new open-world motorbike for Samus, though the video felt something of a low-key showing within the wider Nintendo Direct. Here’s hoping we get to see more of the game before its December 7, 2025 release date — if only we could time travel to that.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
With the build-up to the next big Amazon Prime exclusive sale (Prime Big Deal Days, or October Prime Day, as it’s better known) well underway, we’re already starting to see some notable early discounts that you should absolutely consider snapping up ASAP.
That now includes a handful of new Nintendo Switch 2 games down to record low prices at Amazon, including Donkey Kong Bananza, down to $53.54 (previously $69.99). Other discounted games include Cyberpunk 2077, Mario Kart World, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and Breath of the Wild, with the additional discount automatically applied during checkout.
So what’s the catch? These are technically sold under Amazon Resale. Now hold your eye rolls, as we’ve seen deals like this before, and these discounts are some of the IGN Deals team’s most anticipated offers going into the biggest sale period of the year.
Most of what I’m recommending in the sale is classified as “Used – Like New,” essentially what Amazon deems almost brand new, never used, with small damage to the packaging, but not to the contents themselves. So you’re not losing anything, or buying a game that looks like it’s been recently run over repeatedly.
We’ve also already noted some PlayStation deals at Amazon Resale, with the PS Portal dropping to around $140 (but now sold out), and the DualSense Edge controller, also down to around $140 right now (also likely to sell out soon). In case you hadn’t already realised, the main with kind of deals is stock tends to be extremely limited, so be fast to the trigger if you don’t want the disappointment of missing out.
This is one of the best ways to buy into some of the most expensive new games available, and find rare discounts where you normally wouldn’t (I’m looking at you, Nintendo).
Plus, you still get the 30-day Amazon return policy, so it’s still a much safer option than just buying a used game off some random on Facebook Marketplace.
Plus, if you’re looking for more Switch 2 game deals, we also recently covered discounts on other games sold by Amazon this week (not resale either), including Split Fiction, Sonic x Shadow Generations, Madden NFL 26, and more.
Robert Anderson is Senior Commerce Editor and IGN’s resident deals expert on games, collectibles, trading card games, and more. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter/X or Bluesky.
Dark Math Games, one of the multiple studios staffed by former Disco Elysium developers to pop up and announce a very Disco Elysiumy RPG last year, have given their game a revamp. XXX Nightshift is now called Tangerine Antarctic, with the switch also bringing a shift from isometric perspective to third-person.
If you missed the recent flourishing of Disco spiritual successors created by ex-ZA/UMers, the others include Longdue’s RPG Hopetown and Summer Eternal‘s mystery project. Meanwhile, Disco writer Robert Kurvitz and artist Aleksander Rostov are making something for a studio called Red Info, and ZA/UM themselves are working on a new CRPG called Zero Parades. It’s all very easy to keep track of.
Multiple genres in one easy-to-store package.
Japanese dev outfit Sting has just announced Baroque YA, a collection of four games from the genre-spanning series, will release on Switch (in Japan only, for now) on 18th December.
Originally released for the Sega Saturn all the way back in the Spice Girls-heady days of 1998, the first Baroque is a post-apocalyptic RPG in the roguelike vein that was eventually ported to Wii in 2008.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Helldivers 2 developers Arrowhead have opted to pull a recently deployed variant of the shooter’s Terminid bugs offline for five weeks, in order to fix issues with them. Yep, for now you can dive onto planets like Oshaune and explore some Into the Unjust update caves without having to worry about burrowing bugs jumping out to mercilessly kick your bottom.
Rupture Warriors have been the main source of Rupture Strain ire since their arrival at the start of this month, as their ability to pop out of the Earth and instantly murder unsuspecting troops has proven tough to counter. At first, those hosting sessions were most at risk of dying like this, but Arrowhead’s attempt to rectify the issue in Tuesday’s patch seemingly put everyone in each party in an equal amount of danger, though some players did dispute this was the case.
Development footage of what appears to be upcoming superhero action game Marvel 1943: Rise Of Hydra has burst upon the internet like Black Panther clawing his way into a seedy Parisian bar and flinging himself at alt-fascist soldiers in a whirlwind of kicked chairs and bursting bottles. This also being the content of said video.
Assuming the leaked goods are the Real McCoy, they suggest that the game will be a fast and furious brawler with a fair amount of environment destruction, which is probably what you’re expecting from a game with Azzuri and Steve Rogers on the poster.
