Julius

Chris Dring of the newly minted The Game Business dropped this piece the other day about multiple AAA publishers having plans to delay out of 2025 to avoid GTA VI (not remotely unexpected). And then comes Devolver...

More of the Doomsday cast have yet to be revealed: I'd guess like there might be some location shoots where leaks might've been a concern, so they got ahead of it with these announcements...maybe? Who even knows anymore

Great pic Think I preferred the old logo. Video to recap the announcements too: A lot of names missing, but I imagine some are being held back to be a surprise and others for Secret Wars? No Spidey seems a bit crazy but I guess Spidey 4 is going to explain that (and probably pull Tobey and Andrew back in, too). Probably post-Secret Wars, I imagine. Soft reset and then we get a Mutants Saga with the new X-Men at the fire. That's what's confusing me about the plans for Doomsday and Secret Wars, though, honestly. They keep saying it's a new beginning but everything we hear and see - such as with this casting announcement - feels like it's a final, final hurrah for Marvel stars of yore, from before the MCU, such as with the OG X-Men cast.

Biggest one yet (they ended on RDJ by the way)

I mean yeah, who wouldn't want to say they slapped the greatest footballer of all time, H-o-T? I think I'd rather have a kickabout with him, but hey, you do you

I'm pretty sure they're shooting Doomsday and Secret Wars back-to-back like they did Infinity War and Endgame, so I could see it being the case that they're just getting every name which could easily be spoiled across the two films out in the open? If they could barely keep No Way Home's returning characters under wraps, I feel like there's no way they'd be able to do it with so many more names added to the credits. And can we just talk about the budget for these films? Like seriously? RDJ probably asked for half a billion to come back and I wouldn't be shocked if the Russos were getting a crazy amount too. I'm surprised that there are even going to be other actors in this, to be honest. More seriously: revealing names one by one...logically they should be ending on RDJ as Doom, but we already know that he's returning. A lot of these castings are already very big (some people complaining about spoilers lol), but I wonder if there could be a new casting announcement at the end of all of this? Anyways, move on to Spidey already and give me Tobey and Andrew back (again) please

Welp. Here's some gameplay footage. Guess this is just another way he could fight the allegations...

Monthly games are: Available 1st April.

Marvel have started a random livestream which so far has just been a chair with Chris Hemsworth's name on the back: Doomsday cast? UPDATE - Vanessa Kirby's chair has entered the frame. UPDATE 2 – Anthony Mackie's chair has entered the frame. UPDATE 3 – I cba to do anymore updates UPDATE 4 – friend mentioned Endgame. I just checked and we're 23 days away from being as far from Endgame as Endgame was from Iron Man 3 (the start of Phase 2). Urgh. Gross. All kinds of existential gross.

The Triple-i Initiative returns Thursday 10th April at 17:00 BST. The note next to Untitled Studio made me chuckle

I think it really depends on if they're planning on releasing two separate SKUs of Prime 4: If there are separate Switch and Switch 2 SKUs planned, and it's coming at the launch of the Switch 2, then yeah, I think you could feasibly save it for the Switch 2 Direct. If there aren't and only a Switch SKU is planned, I think you show it off tomorrow and it is used as the example in the Switch 2 presentation of some hypothetical next-gen boost being applied to backwards compatible games. Obviously, Nintendo have had games launch simultaneously on two platforms with separate SKUs before on systems which technically had backwards compatibility, and even some that didn't, but the potential for "boosts" to certain games and these Directs only being a week apart makes me think they'll do anything they can to not muddy the waters. Or maybe they willingly do that anyways. I mean, it is Nintendo. I'm leaning towards it being the latter. I don't think the OG Switch gets mentioned in the Switch 2 Direct outside of talk about backwards compatibility and a potential boost to performance for select games. Prime 4 is going to be a prime (heh) candidate to showcase that. Besides that, yeah, I'm just going to throw out there what I mentioned in the other thread: I think a couple more games releasing for NSO as you guys have mentioned makes complete sense, too. To go back to the well asking for more ports, something for Prime 2 and/or 3 makes sense here to me with 4 on the horizon. Hell, I could see a repeat of 2023's Feb Direct where they get shadow-dropped on the eShop after the Direct. Would be a nice little stinger after showing Prime 4!

With the official announcement of tomorrow's Direct confirming it as a Direct proper and being 30 minutes long, I've got to admit, my hype and expectations for this Switch 2 Direct have risen a good bit in the last 15 minutes The board will have been cleared. I'm ready to be dazzled

Well, there it is. 30 minutes long, livestreamed. Nintendo, The Kings of Left Field, zig instead of zag in a big way one final time this gen, announcing what will be seen as a swansong presentation for the original Switch. And thus begins what will surely go down as one of the most hype weeks of Nintendo news ever. My body isn't ready, but let's do this

Pyoro is back and saying that tomorrow's Direct won't be a Partner or Indie event: That leaves general Direct or a Mini... Worth noting that a number of Direct Minis have been announced the day of or shadow-dropped in the past.

Pretty sure I got attacked by coyotes on my way to Mexico when I played Red Dead, during what was clearly meant to be the moment (musically) when that transition was happening Totally killed the vibe but gave me a good laugh

Yeah, 14:00 GMT / 15:00 BST in the summer has generally been when they drop news of general Directs for a little while now, though if it's under different branding then it might go up at a different time – for example, last year's Partner Direct got announced at 22:00 GMT. So I guess we'll know by tonight at the latest, because I'm with you, I'd be pretty shocked if they shadow-dropped this. Before rumours of this started going around I was thinking they'd drop the Switch 2 Direct runtime sometime today, but I figure they'll just give it a little bit of lip service to close the Direct out if that's happening tomorrow?

1 week remains.

Art book incoming:

Oh, you sweet summer child. Played up until around the same point I did when I first played the game forever ago, at least according to my trophies, picking up the Honey Bee in Episode 6 and completing all Side-Ops available up to this point. This evening, my outfit of choice was the Sneaking Suit, which paired well with a casually late approach to a 18:00 kick-off. Man oh man, is this game moreish! I'm struggling to put it down at times, and that feeling of just going for "one more" keeps ending up in a good few more hours sunk into the game. There are just so many unique ways to approach these different missions, and the story missions feel like they were fawned over much more than the random command posts and checkpoints dotted around the map you're typically raiding as part of Side-Ops. I think there was more of a flow to this session which really helped – drop in, complete a Side-Op, take D-Horse or the Chopper over to the next Side-Op, call in supplies for the Mission. The story itself, so far...eh. I genuinely forgot Kiefer Sutherland voiced this Snake with how long the game can go without and real dialogue. But the Tactical, the Espionage, and the Action? Awesome! So many moments I've clipped because of close-calls, off-the-cuff tranq darts flying through the air, or diving for cover from an enemy Chopper doing recon. There's such a great tension to the general gameplay which captures the essence of MGS so purely and with such potency that it's a real shame it doesn't feel like part of a truly cohesive package at times. In terms of the feeling of moment-to-moment gameplay, this already feels like it's my favourite MGS. I want to draw attention to one of my biggest things I want to keep an eye on moving forward with MGSV, and that's the objectives, or lack thereof and of the tracking during some Side-Ops and Missions. I 100% understand that this is an MGS, they want things to be ranked, but man is it so easy to end up with an outcome which you don't intend. For example, the Honey Bee mission – I went to this big relay base on the way to secure any intel I could which might help me out when trying to get the Honey Bee. Prisoner spotted who might have potential intel on the Honey Ber's location, okay cool, I clean the place up in 5 to 10 minutes, all comms equipment destroyed, one guy spotted me for a second but I put him to sleep and Fulton'd him out of there, and...wait, where the hell is the prisoner?? Oh he's suddenly now over by the main objective for the Honey Bee, over 1 km away. I guess they move him at some point or maybe it's because someone spotted me briefly and they decided to get him out of there, but I wasn't a fan of was how poor a job the game did of keeping me informed – why isn't Kaz screaming at me that the guy I've gone to this relay base to secure, have ID'd through the Int. Scope and tagged with a marker, to get intel from vital to the main mission is being sped away?! Okay, so I eventually catch up, clear out most of the caves and base around the Honey Bee, next up is freeing the prisoner. It's getting light out, though, and more guards are coming into rotation, and I'm in my all-black Sneaking Suit...I hide in the toilet and smoke a Phantom Cigar to pass the time until it's night-time. Prisoner died. Look, again, I know it's an MGS, Kojima likes his realism and he is a prisoner that could be killed at any point they decide he's worn out his usefulness, but I didn't get the vibe from the game or what Kaz had said - and how little he cared about the prisoner being so hastily transported away before - that there was any great urgency to the situation at hand with the prisoner. Especially so early on in the game, how about a little "Snake, you can pass the time, but I don't think that prisoner is going to make it through the day" from Kaz to just hint that, hey, it's now or never? It's just one of those where this idea of "realism" seems to be brushing up against the actual fun of the game, which is a shame because the game is actually fun. With the time I took to plan out my approach at both bases to then be met with what felt like a bad outcome makes it feel like the rating system is coming first, and that finishing the missions ASAP comes ahead of finding your own fun, completing side objectives you don't know exist, and so on. Same sort of deal at the end of the Honey Bee mission, too. Mist Boys turn up, this is clearly a situation where I'm surrounded and so I should run, right? I CQC the first Mist Boy, break out into a sprint and...am shot down very quickly by other Mist Boys. Okay, cool, Miller said we can use the Honey Bee when he said we shouldn't before, so I go to use it and...it doesn't really do much to improve the situation. I try running again; I die again. "Man, I swear the first time I played this I escaped on my horse..." I call in D-Horse and get the hell out of there, first time. It's just so weird! Game is telling me in the story and with the vibe and being in an MGS game surrounded by enemies to get out of there, Kaz wants me to put up a fight, and the solution was...to call in my D-Horse because I remembered that's how I got away last time? The push and pull of this game so far has been unrelenting Just a couple more smaller nitpicks I've come across while going along in this latest session, then: The time to develop things - especially the hour or so it takes to build out new parts of Mother Base - is going to be a pain, I know it. When interrogating enemies and they offer up details on, say, a specialist and point out where he is on the map...I seriously wish opening the map in a certain window of a few seconds of receiving said intel or being able to cycle through such intel was an option, because I end up needing to zoom in and out on multiple points of interest in a region to try to figure out where they were talking about. And half the time I still can't find what it is they're talking about! Speaking of which, gained intel on a prisoner being stowed away nearby on a Side-Op. Complete the Side-Op, mark the prisoner on my map to run over to next, start going with D-Horse, and... we're clear of the Side Op, mission complete, and dude has now just vanished without a trace from the map? I love the iDroid visually and audibly. I hate that it feels like it's constantly connecting to the internet with the slight delay between some screens. It probably is, too, which honestly makes it even worse.

Game Informer is back, baby! Magazine will be making a return. Website is active again with some reviews already posted for releases from the time they were away. Seems like they were picked up by Gunzilla, who are apparently in the NFT space, but they've granted GI their independence so...all should be good?

According to Insider Gaming, the Switch 2 will release in June, and with it comes a three-phased plan for the remainder of 2025: I've got to imagine that third-party studios getting access to dev kits in June is referring to smaller third-party studios and not big AAA studios, indie wunderkinds and long-time collaborators throughout the life of the Switch. All of this makes sense to me. I'll be honest, I'm not too clear on what the three-phase plan action is from the article, I guess other than perhaps an emphasis on first-party early on – it simply sounds like they're saying that they're curating the first six months of the Switch 2 down to the smallest games, and want these releases staggered rather than an all-at-once approach where one partner might be competing with another or Nintendo's own game, which makes complete sense to me.

Free Title Update 1 drops next Thursday: VOD of the Showcase:

Maybe they just want to say "please note, there will be no updates on the Switch 2 during this Direct" one final time

Just spent last night doing Side-Ops, one of which involved bailing out a sheep, another of which went pretty sideways and so I went against my preferred stealth method to Kratos-level deliverance of death. Yeah...I think I'm just going to go back to the main Missions for now and tackle Side-Ops as and when I feel like I've got something to actually gain from them, or am open to the distraction. They're good fun but already feel just a little bit repetitive, also not helped by the fact that they just keep adding more every time I complete a pair of Side-Ops. The potential for emergent gameplay feels great, but yeah, these early Side-Ops all feel pretty similar, and honestly while I'm impressed with the world visually, there's a lack of interconnectedness to the rest of the open world as soon as you take out their relays/radios and the game feels incredibly narrowed in scope. They feel like Peace Walker Side-Ops spread across an open world, but without much to connect them besides a continuous open space – again, at least so far. Also, have me a good chuckle being referred to during recon for one mission as "the Head Hunter" (funnier yet as at that point I was just putting the guys on a snooze rather than on ice) and hearing that they're considering starting to wear helmets

Yeah, this all but confirms it. He's been on a bit of a hot streak of late, so no real reason to think it's not legit. Can't help but groan about everyone who always comes out of the woodwork to make claims that they knew all along -- "my contact wasn't 100%, but..."; "Now that [legit leak source] has said it, I might as well share..."; "someone messaged me but I wasn't 100%, but now [aforementioned legit leak source] has said it, I think it's a certainty too." Ugh, anyways, a quick wishlist for me outside of the aforementioned Fire Emblem and Kirby: Chrono Trigger port – first big event after the anniversary, I'm tired of this tomfoolery S-E. For the love of Time just give me a straight port at this point. Update on DQ I & II HD-2D – 4½ months removed now from III's HD-2D success, I think an update now makes sense because I think S-E should have bigger DQ-shaped fish to fry come the Switch 2 Direct next week. If not, it'll probably get lost in the shuffle on DQ Day in May or during Not-E3 in June, but this feels like a great chance for it to take centre stage. Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD ports – while there are other Zelda games I want to get to before it, Wind Waker is definitely the one I most want to play for the first time. I have it on Wii U but the prospect of a Switch port has kept me kicking that bucket down the road. Do it, you cowards. Thanks for reminding us of it @S.C.G Where are the rest of the best of the indies?! – indies have been such a massive and defining part of the Switch's success, that it's crazy that some of the best indies which make the most sense on a device like the Switch haven't landed on the system yet. Where the hell are Papers, Please and FTL?! I feel like similar things were said about Skyward Sword HD, particularly concerns about how it would play handheld, but I think it was received just fine? Money is always the answer from a business perspective. From a consumer perspective, why wouldn't we want native ports on modern platforms? I think there's definitely value in both the GameCube releases being made available via NSO and having native ports. Zelda games have sold better on Switch than they have on any other platform, we're looking at an all-but-guaranteed 150m+ unit selling console now so the install base is there for the taking, and there's arguably less to do with Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD than some of the other ports we've already seen on Switch – like you said, if anything, these will end up being stripped back vs the Wii U versions (I do wonder if they'd fix the changes I know some weren't happy with in Wind Waker HD, though? If they don't, if anything, that could be a value-add for the original GameCube version). We've also had it happen before where Nintendo have released a game - Super Mario 64, as part of 3D All-Stars - which went on to come to NSO, so it's not unheard of. If anything, I think our biggest concern shouldn't be whether they're on the way, but rather that they will be making WW and TP – whether sold individually or as a collection; I'd imagine the former because...money – a time limited release like they did 3D All-Stars, for when they eventually come to NSO as part of a potential GC catalogue. Anyways, you want a GameCube game which I'm shocked isn't already on Switch but could absolutely be a visual masterpiece on Switch 2, making it worth saving for the latest console, considering what they managed with 3? A Luigi's Mansion remake. Yeah, I know they put it on 3DS, then decided to bring Dark of the Moon from 3DS to Switch rather hastily...but it has always struck me as odd that you can play the second and third games on Switch, but not the first.