Nintendo’s Retro Studios has hired a pair of game designers as it continues to ramp up production of Metroid Prime 4. The Texas studio’s latest hire is New Super Lucky’s Tale designer Mark Capers from nearby Playful. Capers has previously acted as a designer forEpicMickey and its sequel, so he will be familiar to a number of fellow Junction Point veterans already present in Retro’s design team. Playful Studios recently announced it was“significantly” reducing its full-time staffas it transitions to a new production model....

The studio behind the console versions of Minecraft has announced a new open-world multiplayer survival sandbox game called Reforj. Dundee, Scotland-based 4J Studios is developing the game forPCand current-generation console hardware on a proprietary voxel sandbox engine which it hopes will transform the genre. In an interview withGamesIndustry.biz, 4J founder and chairman Chris van der Kuyl said the studio intends to build the game “with the community”. And to that end, in January it hired popular YouTuber Stampy (Joseph Mark Garret) to work on the project as a game designer....

Black Adam will be joining the MultiVersus roster later this week, it’s been confirmed. A tweet on the officialMultiVersusaccount revealed that the DC Comics anti-hero will be added to the game as its 22nd playable character. Joining Black Adam is a new Arcade mode, which will also be added to the game at the same time. Although it’s not clear what this mode entails, it’s believed to be a traditional arcade-style format where players fight through a series of opponents....

New footage has been revealed of the abandoned Star Wars: 1313 project. The gameplay,released by Battlefront III research site The Vault, shows Boba Fett as the protagonist as he makes his way through a series of unfinished locations. Star Wars: 1313 was originally announced by LucasArts at E3 2012 via an impressive trailer. However, the game was essentially cancelled when Disney bought LucasArts the following year and decided to put a hold on all existing projects....

Next week’s free Epic Games Store title has seemingly been revealed ahead of its official announcement. According to ever-reliable dataminer billbil-kun (viaDealabs),Saber Interactive‘s Wild Card Football will be free to download fromEpic’sPCmarketplace from August 29 to September 5. “Wild Card Football is a fun pick-up-and-play arcade-style football game featuring 7v7 team-focused gameplay with the unique Wild Card system that lets you change the course of the action in an instant with special power-ups and rule-breaking abilities,” reads itsEpic Games Storelisting....

Niantic Spatial has confirmed that it has laid off 68 staff, following the sale of its games business. It was announced last month thatPokemonGo, Monster Hunter Now, and the rest ofNiantic’s games business wasbeing sold to Monopoly Go maker Scopely in a deal worth $3.5 billion, but it has since emerged that there will be layoffs at its new company Niantic Spatial, as a result of its “new focus”. Now, as spotted byGame Developer, aWorker Adjustment and Retraining Notificationreport published in California has revealed the extent of these layoffs....

Nintendo of America has asked as US District Court for a default judgment against a streamer who regularly played pirated games before release and taunted the company, following his failure to respond to a Court Order. Last yearNintendosued Jesse Keighin, who it claimed would stream games on various online platforms under his username Every Game Guru. The lawsuit alleges that since 2022, Keighin has streamed “at least 10 of Nintendo’s leaked games” before they were released, “more than 50 times in total”, the most recent beingMario & Luigi: Brothership....

Nintendo has confirmed the battery life of Nintendo Switch 2. According to the manufacturer, theSwitch 2console will contain a 5220mAh lithium-ion battery. This is a higher capacity battery than the one included with the originalSwitch(which is a 4310mAh battery), and the one included in the Switch Lite (3570mAh). However, because Switch 2 games require significantly more power than the original Switch, a higher capacity battery doesn’t mean longer battery life in every situation....

Nintendo Switch 2 ‘Editions’ of original Switch games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, will retail for $80, it’s been confirmed. The news comes asNintendohas begun releasing pre-order information for software coming to the new system. According to multiple US retailers,The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom,Super Mario Party Jamboreeand Kirby and The Forgotten LandNintendo Switch 2Editions will cost $80. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildwill sell for $70, according to the retail listings....

Nintendo has reiterated that Switch 2 will be backwards compatible with existing Switch games, but warned that not every game will be fully playable on its new console. At the end ofits announce trailer showing Switch 2 for the first time,Nintendoshowed a message that said Switch 2 “playsNintendo Switch 2exclusive games, as well asNintendo Switchgames”. It then clarifies that this isn’t purely restricted to physical game cartridges, adding: “Nintendo Switch 2 plays both physical and digital Nintendo Switch games”....

Nintendo has announced a new live stream focused on indie game news. The company’s latest Indie World showcase will take place on Tuesday, November 14 at 9am PT / 12pm ET / 5pm GMT. The presentation will be viewable onNintendo’s YouTube channel, and via the video embedded at the top of this page. According to Nintendo, the new presentation will feature “roughly 20 minutes of new announcements and updates on indie games coming toNintendo Switch“....

Suda 51 has said that another game starring No More Heroes protagonist Travis Touchdown could happen if there’s enough fan demand. Speaking toGNN, Suda 51 was asked about whether there was any potential for another game in the No More Heroes series, despiteNo More Heroes 3being positioned as Travis’ final battle. “Yes, that’s right, Heroes No More 3 is Travis’ last battle,” Suda said. “Nobody could say what’s going to happen 10 years from now, and I can’t say either....

Two years after Steam Deck launched, over 14,000 games are now compatible with Valve’s handheld. That’s according to tracking siteSteamDB(viaGaming on Linux), which lists 14,023SteamDeck compatible titles. Of these games, 4,607 have been ‘Verified’ byValve, meaning they work “great on Steam Deck, right out of the box”, while 9,416 are deemed to be ‘Playable’, meaning they “may require some manual tweaking by the user to play”. Valveis in the process of reviewing the entire Steam catalogueand is marking each game with one of four ratings designed to show how smooth the experience will be when playing that game on its handheld....