It’s a strange feeling to go hands-on with an entire roster of new blockbuster Nintendo games that, just a few hours before, we didn’t even know existed, but that’s exactly the situation we found ourselves in at the Nintendo Switch 2 Experience event in Paris, France. Before it opens to the public later this week,Nintendoinvited select press to try outSwitch2 and its launch games, hot off of theNintendo Directbroadcast which finally confirmed thatSwitch 2 will launch on June 5, and launch withMario Kart Worldand around 20 other games....

Cyberpunk 2077’s sole expansion, Phantom Liberty, will officially be released on Tuesday, September 26. However, the time and date the expansion is available will vary based on your region and chosen platform. Ahead of Phantom Liberty’s release,CD Projekthas confirmed the global launch times onXbox Series X/S,PS5andPC, which we’ve listed below. What time isCyberpunk 2077Phantom Liberty released? On Xbox Series X/S and PS5, Phantom Liberty will be released on September 26 at 12am local time in all regions....

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has reiterated that the company doesn’t have any plans to allow the release of Series X exclusive games. It’s currently a mandatory requirement for developers to ensure that their games are compatible with both Series X and Series S to release them forMicrosoft’s consoles. But some developers have argued that having to cater to Microsoft’s entry-level consolelimits the potential of current-gen games. In December 2023,Baldur’s Gate 3received a delayed release onXbox Series X/Safter Microsoft allowedLarian Studiostolaunch the S version without split-screen co-op, a mode it had been struggling to get working sufficiently on the lower-powered console....

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree reviews have been published ahead of the expansion’s release. Before the reviews went live, VGC’s Jordan Middler sat down with Hamish Black fromWritingOnGames, Jade King fromTheGamer, and David Carcasole fromPlayStation Universeto discussFromSoftware‘s latest expansion. This discussion contains no spoilers, and is very careful to preserve the experience for first-time players, so don’t worry about ruining your first run in the Land of Shadows....

The Pokémon Company has released plushes of Umbreon and Espeon, which are accurate to their in-game Pokédex size. The plush series, which has previously includedPokémonlike Slowpoke and Psyduck, released Flareon, Vaporeon, Jolteon, and Eevee earlier this year as part of its Year of Eevee campaign. Espeon measures 32 inches, while Umbreon is slightly smaller at 31 inches. Both are available on the Pokémon Center for £379.99 each. Both life-sized Pokémon plush are due for release in November....

Nintendo’s next game console is targeting a launch in March 2025. That’s according to a new report by Japanese news publicationNikkei(paywalled), which claims that theSwitchsuccessor’s internal delay –reported first by VGC and othersearlier this month – was partly so thatNintendocould avoid potential hardware supply issues. Although Nintendo had planned a launch in late 2024 for ‘Switch 2’, according toNikkei“priority was given to ensure the initial inventory of the successor console and a lineup of software titles at the time of its launch” in an attempt to avoid widespread reselling....

6 years after its release, Battlefield 1 has re-entered the Steam top 10 best-sellers chart and is boasting huge concurrent player numbers. As spotted byEmopulse, the shooter, which was first released in October 2016, has seen a massive jump in popularity, seeing its largest concurrent player count ever. It’s worth noting that the game was added toSteamin 2020. The player count, which reached 49,732 over the past 24 hours, is around 44,000 more players thanBattlefield 2042registered in the same period....

Square Enix has announced plans to hold a Final Fantasy 7 25th anniversary stream next week. The 10-minute broadcast will air on June 16 at 3pm PT / 6pm ET / 11pm BST. It will be viewable onYouTubeandTwitch. “At only around 10 minutes long, it will be short and sweet, but we have packed in lots of information, so I hope everyone can look forward to the unveiling,” teased FF7 Remake directorTetsuya Nomura....

Sony has revealed that a third of its $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie will be spent on employee retention. As part of its February 2022 earnings report for Q3 2021, the company showed a slide explaining that of the $3.6 billion being put aside for the deal, around $1.2 billion of this will be used to reward existing employees, as long as they don’t leave. BecauseBungieisn’t a public company, the majority of its shares are owned by its employees....

Early alternate names for Pokémon Ruby version and Pokémon Sapphire version have seemingly been discovered. The games, released in 2002, were the third generation of thePokémonseries, and the first to be released on GameBoy Advance. Now, Pokémon fans looking through the game’s original code have discovered what they believe to be alternative titles for the games, suggesting they weren’t originally planned to be released as Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire....

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is finally here, bringing with it a huge new world, a ton of new Pokemon, and plenty of new mysteries to uncover. A new addition to the franchise is the academy that players can attend. While you’ll join the academy at the start of the game, once you’ve left, you can go back to the academy and take classes. There are several different classes that you can attend in the game, including Biology, Math, Home Economics, Battle Studies, Languages, and Art....

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has built on a strong commercial start to become the “second largest profit generating game” in publisher Ubisoft’s history. The company talked up the success of the title as part of its second quarter earnings results on Thursday. Ubisoftsaid in November 2020 that the 12th major instalment in the franchisesold more units in its first weekthan any other entry in the series, which had at the time sold over 155 million units since debuting in 2007....

Astro Bot had a “solid” commercial start in the US, according to research firm Circana. Sony’sPS5exclusive was the second best-selling game during its launch week, trailing only NBA2K25, which 2K released on the same forPC, current and last-gen consoles. “Across both physical & digital,Astro Botranked 2nd in unit sales in the US for w/e Sept 7th (behind only NBA 2K25), and the Astro Bot DualSense was the week’s best-selling accessory,” Mat Piscatella, executive director, video games at Circana, said onBluesky....