Nintendo confirms.
If you’ve ever used the video streaming app Hulu on the Switch, just so you know – support for it is ending next month.
In a notice on Nintendo’s American support page, it’s been confirmed the app will “no longer be available” on the eShop, and support officially ends on 5th February 2026.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Including Daisy, Peach and 36 others…
Last year, Nintendo lifted the lid on a brand new Mario Tennis game for the Switch 2. It’s called Mario Tennis Fever and will be launching next month on 12th February 2026.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
1047 Games has some thoughts regarding how Splitgate: Arena Reloaded is faring on Steam, and it’s got a message for fans: “Steam Charts don’t measure fun.”
The Halo and Portal-inspired FPS re-launched December 17 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S after the studio chose to U-turn with an overall rework for Splitgate 2 back in July 2025. It was a move made amid layoffs at 1047 that saw both the sequel and its popular predecessor pulled offline as the studio promised to return with “big, sweeping changes.”
Those changes seemingly failed to attract players, with just around 2,300 players logging in to play the free-to-play game on Steam at launch and a little more than 800 playing at the time of this piece’s publication (via SteamDB). The Splitgate community quickly drummed up debate about what another disappointing launch could mean for the future of the shooter, but 1047 has a different take.
1047 Games Responds to Recent Steam Charts Conversations pic.twitter.com/ir9W0BjFHo
— SPLITGATE: Arena Reloaded (@Splitgate) January 6, 2026
“Steam Charts don’t measure fun,” a message from the team says. “They show one number, on one platform, at one given moment. They don’t show the full picture or what it feels like to actually play, and they definitely don’t capture the community that’s actively helping shape what Arena Reloaded is becoming (including upcoming content like Arena Royale).”
It’s hard to separate Splitgate: Arena Reloaded’s launch player numbers from the nearly 26,000 users who showed up for Splitgate 2, but 1047’s targeted response does aim to remind players that the re-launch also came to consoles and the Epic Games Store. Metrics for those platforms aren’t as openly available as they are for Steam, so it’s unclear if interest is similarly quiet elsewhere.
Regardless, the studio wants both veteran and potential players to know it’s put work into getting Splitgate: Arena Reloaded ready for launch, and it doesn’t plan on slowing down anytime soon.
“To our amazing community: thank you,” 1047 continues. “Your feedback and passion have helped make Arena Reloaded better every day.
“And to everyone who hasn’t played yet: Arena Reloaded is free, the gameplay’s the best it’s ever been, and we’d love for you to jump in and form your own opinion. A lot of passionate people worked very hard on it.”
As 1047 takes to social media to combat the negative sentiment surrounding its re-launch effort, its Arena Royale component is expected to launch in the near future. Splitgate: Arena Reloaded came with a rebuilt progression system, new and reworked maps, and more. We gave Splitgate 2 a 7/10 review upon its launch last year.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
Magic: The Gathering sealed product is making waves at big box retailers and TCGPlayer, but who has the best prices this week? Well, both Amazon and secondary marketplace TCGPlayer have their bargains, so I’ve noted the best deals down to save you looking, as well as the other best deals of the day.
Alienware has just dropped a massive discount on their NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 build, coupled with one of the best gaming processors on the market right now in AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Looking for a cheap and cheerful deal instead? How about two 6.6ft braided USB-C cables that can handle up to 240W for the price of a coffee? Thought so. Coming in at the product you didn’t know you needed today is a cordless air duster for easy cleaning of desks, PCs, fans and more that’s currently half off from $39.98. Let’s get into it:
Amazon is putting out some decent pricing, with my favorite pick here being the “Game Edition” of Cloud Strife-themed Limit Break Commander Deck. It’s around the same price as TCGPlayer, making it market value, with the artwork being based on in-game moments instead of the traditional MTG artwork.
The same can be said for the Marvel’s Spider-Man Play Booster Box containing 30 booster packs with the following:
• 14 Magic: The Gathering cards
• 1–4 cards of rarity Rare or higher
• 3–6 Uncommon cards
• 6–9 Common cards
• 1 Land card (Traditional Foil Land replaces a Land in 20% of boosters)
• 1 card of any rarity is Traditional Foil; Foil Showcase Mythic Rare in 1% of boosters
Meanwhile, TCGPlayer is the place to go for MTG preorders. It’s the cheapest for the Lorwyn Eclipsed Play Booster Box and Bundle, with the next Universes Beyond entry Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Play Booster Box, Turtle Power! Commander Deck and Bundle, the latter being over $15 cheaper than Amazon.
There’s some gorgeous Final Fantasy scene boxes coming in cheaper than Amazon too, not to mention the standard Limit Break Commander Deck being just under $5 cheaper on TCGPlayer. It pays to shop around for sure.
This beast is loaded with an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU, GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card, 32GB DDR5-6400MHz RAM, and a 1TB SSD. That alone sells this system with the custom cooling that makes Alienware’s Area-51 builds worth the premium. The good news is we’re seeing a rare discount on something that has an RTX 5090 in it, a solid 10%, or $550 off, knocking this build down to $5,049.99. What’s not to love?
Thanks to my kids destroying countless USB cables over the years, I know what makes a USB-C charging cable that lasts. Braided wins out over rubber cable every day of the week due to its flexibility and durability. Thick caps on either side protecting the port will also be a lifesaver, but getting 240W-capable cables can sometimes cost a fortune.
Not today! You can get Lisen’s 6.6ft double pack for a ridiculously reasonable $5.60. These will handle fast charging for pretty much everything you can think of, from a mobile phone or Switch 2 to a MacBook. Even if you don’t need a new cable, it’s worth buying spares when deals like this crop up.
Cleaning dust or crumbs out of your keyboard is a pain. No-one likes doing it and it takes ages to brush them all out. I was in the “Why the hell do I need an electric duster” camp, but then I bought one and I’m using it quite a lot.
I use mine to clear out vents, fans, GPU and more inside my PC, and even use it to get to hard-to-reach places in the car and on my desk. They’re very handy to have in your desk drawer and it’s a great deal for $20.
Well, the good news is you can get the Phantasmal Flames Elite Trainer Box with Prime delivery without getting stung. It has nine booster packs, a gorgeous Charcadet Illustration Rare promo, Mega Charizard X–themed sleeves, card dividers, a tournament-legal coin, alongside some nice-looking dice.
Cynthia’s Garchomp ex Premium Collection has four Journey Together and two Destined Rivals booster packs, so if Trainer Pokémon cards are your thing, you’re good to go.
If it were me making a choice from the TCGPlayer selection here, I’d go for the Destined Rivals Booster Bundle. It’s $13 cheaper than Amazon right now and works out at $4.66 per booster pack, which is one of the best prices I’ve seen for Destined Rivals booster packs recently.
If you want a decent Mega ex card for your Grass-type deck, I’d recommend the Mega Venusaur ex Premium Collection. If you run Meganium alongside it from Mega Evolution, you can double your Grass Energy value while being able to move a Grass Energy from one Pokémon to another thanks to their abilities. That means you can set up and use Mega Venusaur ex’s “Jungle Dump” attack for 240 damage in one turn (it costs four Grass Energy).
You’ll also get the following booster packs:
Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of “Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior”. Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.
A rare feat.
Super Meat Boy‘s reputation precedes it. The notoriously-difficult precision platformer is designed to be extremely challenging, and death on every single screen is basically inevitable. Amazingly, it’s taken over 15 years for anyone to fully complete the game — that’s get 106% completion — without dying, but it finally happened at the end of last year (thanks IGN).
Back in December, Nintendo speedrunner shredberg became the first person ever to fully complete Super Meat Boy deathless. Yes, seriously, no one has been able to do this since the game was first released on the Xbox 360 in 2010. The platformer came to Switch in 2018.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
2025 was bursting with really cool new game releases: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Death Stranding 2, Ghost of Yōtei, Blue Prince, Donkey Kong Bananza, I could go on. And yet, it seems like the vast majority of players (at least in the US) spent most of their time playing the old hits on repeat, because the five most popular games on PlayStation last year were exactly the same as the year before.
This comes from Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, who shared on Bluesky today the top five most-played games in the US on PlayStation for 2025:
And for 2024:
The layout is different (I guess) on Xbox, with Minecraft and Roblox flipped for 2025, and a slightly more complicated order for 2024: Call of Duty at No. 1, then Fortnite, Minecraft, GTA V, Roblox. But uh, same five games.
It’s a pretty damning indictment of the current state of the industry. As Piscatella said himself almost a year ago on the Kinda Funny Gamescast, this is a fairly recent trend. As he explains, the COVID-19 pandemic prompted a surge in the video game audience, with huge numbers of people playing games who never had before. As a result, many of the major gaming markets effectively reached a cap on how many new players they can obtain in future years, because everyone was already there.
On top of that, that capped audience is now playing a smaller number of games overall. Some of that is just because games are getting more expensive. More people are gravitating toward live service games they’re already familiar with where they can spend smaller amounts of money for a fun experience on a platform they already own, rather than spend larger amounts of money to try new things on new platforms.
But some of that is simply a natural consequence of the rise of live service. As Piscatella continues to explain, the way the market used to work is that players would buy one big new game, spend all their time on that, then move onto the next one. But people just aren’t buying new games anymore.
“If you take the top ten service games every month…on PlayStation and Xbox, seven out of every ten people that turn on their console will play at least one of those games every month, and in terms of total time they’re taking, those ten games alone every month take up 40% of total playtime on the consoles.”
Piscatella also shares that at the time, Circana expected 30% of people that play video games would not buy a video game in 2025 (the actual numbers for the full year haven’t been released just yet). A further 18% would purchase a new game every six months or less frequently. Only 12% buy a game once a month, and 4% buy new games more often than that.
“So when we’re talking about the developers and publishers who are being hurt the most, are the games that are really targeting this 16% of total players that are purchasing very frequently, while the vast majority of players are buying a game or two a year, and they’re playing Fornite, Minecraft, and Roblox.”
The result is that it’s harder than ever for brand new games to break through, which has been a major part of the recent wave of layoffs, studio closures, project cancelations, and just general industry devasation that we’ve been reporting on primarily in the US industry for the last couple of years.
Piscatella concluded that Kinda Funny presentation with a sentence he’s said to me many times, and continues to say: “The biggest competitor to any new video game is Fortnite.”
Circana is expected to release its full report on US video game sales in 2025 later this month.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
If you want a single platform to play games at home and on the go, the Nintendo Switch has got your back. Even better if you’re a fan of Sonic: Ever since the Switch arrived in 2017, Sega has worked like clockwork to consistently release Sonic games for the hybrid console. Last year we got Sonic x Shadow Generations alongside the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie, so it’s safe to say Sega’s speedster is bigger than ever.
Now that the Switch 2 has officially launched, it’s pretty much guaranteed more Sonic games are on the way. The next big release, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, is launching on the original system, but as we move toward Switch 2-exclusives, some good ol’ backward compatibility means your existing Sonic games aren’t going anywhere.
For anyone looking to check out the modern era of Sonic (and friends), here are all the Sonic the Hedgehog games you can play right now as well as upcoming Sonic games on the Switch 2.
A total of ten Sonic games have been released for Nintendo Switch. This spans the first year of the system back in 2017 to the most recent game, Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, released in 2025. Keep in mind that this list below does not include the additional games available with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription.
Sonic Mania was developed by PagodaWest Games and Sonic fangame community member Christian Whitehead as a love letter to the classic Sonic the Hedgehog titles released on the Sega Genesis and Sega CD platforms. Taking place after the events of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the game remixes eight iconic levels, including Green Hill Zone and Chemical Plant Zone, and introduces five new ones, including the glamorous Studiopolis Zone and the peaceful Press Garden Zone. This game also introduces a new troupe of Eggbots called the Hard-Boiled Heavies for Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles to beat.
Mania is considered one of the best Sonic games of the 2010s because of the experiment in allowing a group of Sonic fans to create a game other Sonic fans would love, the vivid neon graphics, and the new challenges present in every stage.
Sonic Forces makes Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic form a resistance against Dr. Eggman after he conquered most of the world alongside Infinite, a masked jackal who uses the Phantom Ruby to create doppelgangers and warp reality. The game switches gameplay modes between third-person Boost gameplay with Modern Sonic, side-scrolling gameplay with Classic Sonic, and a mode with the custom avatar character, which can be any animal you want, whose weapons use Wisp power-ups. Forces’ writing and lighting aren’t exactly the best in the series, but the game is still tolerable for some people.
Team Sonic Racing takes racing games to a whole new level by having players race with each other, not against each other. This game has a cooperative gameplay mechanic similar to Splatoon and Overwatch, using Sonic Heroes as a frame of reference, where you play in teams of three characters and work together to win each race, paying very close attention to your teammates’ performance and sharing Wisp power-ups with them to allow them to speed up and pull your ranks. Since most of the karts are sports cars, you can customize them with gold rims and paint your car any color you want West Coast Customs style.
Released a year before the real-life Tokyo Olympic Games was scheduled to begin (only to be postponed to 2021 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic), Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 brings the platform rivalry between the jolly red plumber, the speedy blue hedgehog, and their respective friends back to the world stage with new events, like surfing, skateboarding, karate, and sport climbing, and bonus features. The game includes a story mode that takes Mario and Sonic back to the Tokyo 1964 Olympics and their early 2D sprite selves, while everyone else works to help bring them back to the real world in the present day. You get the best of both eras and some history lessons about the Olympic Games in Tokyo to go with it.
Sonic Colors: Ultimate is a remastered version of the original Sonic Colors developed by Blind Squirrel Games for Sonic’s 30th anniversary in 2021. The remaster enhanced the graphics to brighten up the colors of Eggman’s interplanetary amusement park and the character models, introduced a new Jade Ghost Wisp to help Sonic phase through walls and ceilings, replaced the traditional lives with rescues from Tails, and introduced mini races against Metal Sonic. You can also collect Park Tokens to customize Sonic with the wackiest designs for his shoes and gloves.
Sonic Origins compiles the first four classic Sonic games released on the Sega Genesis and Sega CD and remasters them for modern consoles and the audience that plays on them, whether they’re veteran fans seeking a nostalgia fix or young fans who want to understand Sonic’s history. Players can experience the game in Classic Mode, which is the original format presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio, or Anniversary Mode, which replaces lives with coins and allows Sonic to use Drop Dash as he did in Sonic Mania. Each game in the compilation features new animated cutscenes at the beginning and end done by the incomparable Tyson Heese to connect all four games into a cohesive story, provided you play them in the original release order.
Sonic Frontiers is the first open-world game in the Sonic franchise – or should we say, “open-zone”? – born out of a trend of open-world games being styled after The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Sonic explores the vast Starfall Islands to fight cybernetic enemies, solve various puzzles, and run through Cyber Space levels modeled after the levels from past Sonic titles in an effort to save his friends from the digitized dimension. Both veteran and new Sonic fans alike will enjoy running around the mysterious island set to a soundtrack that strikes a delicate balance between serenity and chaos.
Sonic Superstars is a collaborative effort between Sega and Arzest to bring 3D graphics to a Classic Sonic game, a move that surprised everyone at the 2023 Summer Game Fest (including this author). With Classic Sonic being a CGI character on his own for the first time and classic levels getting revamped with new music and upgraded level designs, the game allows up to four people to locally play together as Sonic and his friends throughout 11 levels across the Northstar Islands and grants new powers for every Chaos Emerald they collect to overcome obstacles.
Sonic X Shadow Generations is a remastered version of 2011’s Sonic Generation that goes beyond graphical upgrades and quality-of-life improvements by including an all-new campaign comprised of reminagined Shadow stages from past Sonic games. The two campaigns combine for 15-20 hours of content across over 150 stages, leading us to say in our Shadow x Generations review that it “soars far and above previous enhanced versions we’ve gotten in the Sonic franchise.”
The latest Sonic game follows up on 2019’s Team Sonic Racing, featuring the full set of Sonic characters as well as new crossover racers like Joker, Hatsune Miku, and Steve from Minecraft. Jada Griffin’s review of Cross Worlds for IGN says the game “fires on all cylinders with a fantastic roster, excellent courses, and lengthy list of customization options.”
If you’re looking to play some classic Sonic games with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, there are a few available under the SEGA catalog. You can find more info about them below:
Sonic the Hedgehog is reaching its 35th anniversary in 2026, joining a host of other video game anniversaries that will make you question the passage of time. Some fans speculate the anniversary will lead to a new release, but SEGA hasn’t confirmed any upcoming Switch games yet.
Outside of games, Paramount has confirmed it will make Sonic the Hedgehog 4. The movie is targeting a Spring 2027 release window.
Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. She has contributed her work to various publications, including Digital Trends, TheGamer, Twinfinite, Mega Visions, and The Escapist. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.
Prepare your wallets.
Uh oh, you’d best get your wallets ready folks, because the official Pokémon Center pop-up store is making a return in London this February as part of the 2026 Pokémon Europe International Championships.
Open from Thursday, 12th February to Sunday, 15th February 2026, accessing the store will once again require a reservation, and more details for this will be shared closer to the time. As for what kind of exclusive products you can expect to find, The Pokémon Company has confirmed that Mega Evolution will play a big role this year thanks to its reintroduction in Pokémon Legends: Z-A.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Greetings, racers. We’re 34BigThings, the team behind Redout and now the revival of Carmageddon. Our armageddon involves WW3, cellular degeneration, and, of course, evil corporations. Let’s dive into the world you’ll be racing in when our Carmageddon spinoff, Carmageddon: Rogue Shift, launches February 6.
When you take the wheel for the first time, the old world has long since ended. Devastating wars, natural disasters, and swarms of zombies have left humanity on the brink. Zombies, called the Wasted in this universe, outnumber humans 10,000 to 1. Each night, streets swarm with the undead, forcing survivors to barricade themselves in high-rise buildings. Chaos chokes the ground level, where graffiti, trash, and crumbling buildings stretch endlessly.
There is just one chance to escape this nightmare: the Carmageddon. Because, while you’re driving, you’re surviving.
Your story begins as a faceless racer with little more than a rust bucket, scavenged fuel, and a makeshift weapon to work with. Every victory in these deadly races promises power, prestige, and valuable prizes to the participants. The champion wins the right to attempt the perilous journey that leads to the spaceport beyond the mountains. To traverse this treacherous terrain, you’ll need the experiences and gear that can only be gained from the Carmageddon races. With just one jet left, the only chance to flee this dying world is worth more than any reward.
We wanted to create a robust game loop with a fast, accessible, but never trivial handling model at the core of it. Your car is your fortress, your safe haven and your main offensive weapon – pretty much the protagonist. With 15 unlockable vehicles each with their own drivetrain, weight, center of mass, suspensions, tire friction and pressure, response to steering, you’ll have quite some variety to explore.
But this is just the beginning: on top of this you can unlock and mount 13 weapon classes and 80+ perks. Build outrageous synergies that transform a single Boost canister into an unstoppable deathroll, or multiply the amount of missiles you fire with a single shot, or convert explosion damage around you into repairs for your car. Exploring in videogames isn’t limited to virtual spaces: we want you to experiment and come up with absurd combinations and spectacular strategies. You’ll need to.
Opponents will not roam around trying their best to hit you occasionally, but will actually behave like there’s a one way ticket to salvation waiting for them at the finish line: they’ll be fast and ruthless, and you’ll need to balance speed, offense and defense if you want to succeed. Some of these opponents will drive colossal war-rigs – yes, bossfights.
We mentioned evil corporations earlier. Well, in this timeline, the combination of wars and natural disasters led to supply shortages and famine. To combat this, a food supplement called MiVis was created and effectively ended the worldwide hunger crisis. Like some sort of cruel cosmic joke, long-term consumption of MiVis caused the cellular mutation responsible for the outbreak. The more MiVis consumed, the more you waste away, leading to the coining of the term “Wasted.” Did this development stop production of MiVis? You guessed it, absolutely not.
Corporations suppressed the dangerous effects of MiVis until it was too late, prioritizing profits over people. The people who consumed the most became special wasted, horrible supermutations that morphed into something even less human. Last and certainly not least, there’s the ultimate abomination. A creature whispered about but rarely seen: the monster that guards the only path to the spaceport and your final challenge.
In Rogue Shift, no two runs are exactly alike. As you progress through randomly generated paths, you’ll have the opportunity to win events and defeat opponents to gain upgrade credits. The Carmageddon ain’t over when you wreck your ride, though. Each time you begin anew, you retain certain permanent bonuses unlocked with beatcoins. You’ll need to carefully plot out your route through the wasteland, making stops for repairs and new gear. Difficulty increases dynamically, so keep your head on a swivel. As you make it further with each subsequent run, synergies and archetypes will become apparent, giving you countless ways to craft the ultimate killing machine.
We made Carmageddon: Rogue Shift to challenge you in a way that keeps you coming back. Our goal is to get you into that flow, firing-on-all-cylinders flow state we fondly remember from the original Carmageddon games and, more in general, the combat racing games that defined the genre.
We can’t wait for you to jump in the driver’s seat and put your skills to the test. Wishlist today and we’ll see you on the wasteland.
As the Bob Dylan song goes, how many lush alien planets must a Man presumptuously land on and turn into poorly optimised Toyota plants before he finally decides he’s sick of being an extractivist piece of shit? Dylan was being rhetorical, but I studied at the school of Homer Simpson, and want you to give me an actual figure. I’m going to say: four and a half. If you’ve yet to hit your personal quota, well, here’s StarRupture out now in early access.
