It’s a bad idea to predict a year’s worth of Videogame Happenings while you are delirious with cold, but one of the advantages of being delirious with cold is that you become incapable of noticing that ideas are bad. In the brief interval before I eat a bowl of cakemix and fall asleep, here are some quick opinions about the Trends and Tribulations of 2026, mostly based on our reporting from 2025. The evergreen short version: it’s never too late to get back into amateur dentistry.
The Pokémon franchise has begun its 30th anniversary celebrations with the reveal of a special new logo, an animation featuring Fat Pikachu, and the promise of more to share in less than two months’ time.
2026 is the 30th anniversary of Pokémon, which began its path to world domination with the Japanese launch of Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green back on the Game Boy three decades ago. (The series then arrived in the USA two years’ later, launching with Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue.)
As the clock ticked over to January 1, 2026 in Pokémon’s home region of Japan, the brand began its celebrations with the reveal of a new 30th Anniversary Pokémon logo featuring Pikachu, introduced by none other than Fat Pikachu — the mascot’s far plumper original design that’s now rarely glimpsed in official Pokémon media. Here he is in action:
ポケモン30周年、はじまる！
『ポケットモンスター 赤・緑』の発売から30年。
2026年2月27日（金）にポケモンは30周年を迎えるよ。
今年は最高の1年になる予感！
お楽しみに！#ポケモン30周年 pic.twitter.com/iPXR83Ib66— ポケモン公式 (@Pokemon_cojp) December 31, 2025
“Pokémon 30th Anniversary, Here We Go!” the brand wrote in a post on social media. “30 years since the release of Pokémon Red and Green. On February 27, 2026 (Friday), Pokémon turns 30. We have a feeling this year is going to be the best one yet! Look forward to it!”
Expectations for this year’s celebrations are sky high, following last year’s so-called Teraleak of Pokémon game development data that spilled various details of the franchise’s highly-anticipated 10th generation of games. Alongside a fresh roster of new creatures, fans expect these titles to feature new gameplay mechanics and procedurally-generated areas for the first time.
2026 will also see the launch of promising-looking Pokémon life simulation spin-off Pokémon Pokopia, which arrives exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2 on March 5. A blend of Pokémon characters with gameplay more similar to Animal Crossing, the game seems likely to find success.
More details on all of that are expected to arrive on the brand’s big 30th anniversary, now less than two months’ away on February 27. While not formally confirmed just yet, this date has now become the annual date fans expect to sit down and watch a new Pokémon Presents, the company’s Nintendo Direct-style announcements showcase. There’s not long to go now.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
When it eventually drops.
Back in December, Nintendo announced that the 2025 edition of its annual ‘Year in Review’ — where your play stats for the year are collected and displayed in a fun little round-up — wouldn’t be arriving until January this time. We’re still waiting for further word, although at this stage we’d imagine it’ll be coming next week.
One thing worth noting beforehand, however, is that you’ll need to have the appropriate settings turned on for your Nintendo Account in order to receive the round-up. This writer missed out on last year’s review, but a New Year’s email from Nintendo highlighted a couple of opt-ins that needed tweaking.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Oodles of games are coming out in 2026, and many look impressive. There’s the new Resident Evil, yet another reimagining of Tomb Raider 1, and a 007 game that reminds me of the often-forgotten cartoon series James Bond Jr. All will probably be decent, and some might even dictate my guide writing duties.
Eight hours and more than 10,000 parries later, a Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 superfan is being praised for beating one of the game’s toughest bosses in frankly ridiculous conditions.
Underpowered but undeterred, Reddit user Recordbreaks has posted a screenshot showing that they beat the super strong Duollistes boss after managing 10,545 successful parries — which feels like more than I’ve completed in the entire game.
The encounter took eight hours, two minutes and 36 seconds, during which time Recordbreaks says they “took one break maybe for about 5-10 minutes” in order to go get snacks, then “went back to it.”
Added to Clair Obscur last month as part of the game’s highly-anticipated farewell update, Duollistes is housed within the new Endless Tower location. This area hosts a series of bosses that are designed to provide some of the toughest challenges in the hit role-playing game, though they still shouldn’t take the average endgame player anywhere near eight hours.
“Only reason it took me this long is because I haven’t properly built Verso for damage in the millions yet,” Recordbreaks admitted, saying his squad was still around level 80. “He was doing maybe 200,000 damage per hit and that’s if Roulette was working in my favor which it wasn’t most of the time.”
While some fans have said Recordbreaks could simply have quit the battle, sorted their build then restarted, the vast majority of fans are praising the player for putting in an actual work shift’s worth of time to beat the boss anyway.
Most surreal of all, however? Throughout the whole battle, Recordbreaks avoided dodging to the point where not a single successful dodge is recorded, opting instead for the tougher option to parry attacks every time.
“22 parries a minute, pretty much one parry every three seconds,” one fan noted, after doing the math.
“Bro that’s a full-time job spent for that boss and 10k parries damn,” admired xXxZeroTwoxXx. “Congrats bud.”
“Why? Cuz I felt like it,” Recordbreaks replied, when asked the reason for their perseverance. “How? With sheer will and determination. What’s wrong with me? Haven’t gone to a therapist to work that out yet.”
With work on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 now complete, fans are already speculating what might come next, as the game’s developer has teased that Clair Obscur was a “franchise name” and Expedition 33 was just one story within its universe. In the meantime, you can catch up on the full patch notes for Expedition 33’s final update here.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Nintendo has said it was unwilling to backtrack on the design of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond’s controversial open world hub despite seeing “changed” attitudes to open-world games, as the project had already been rebooted once already.
The Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 blockbuster launched last month to mostly positive reviews, but also a broad swathe of criticism specifically for its annoying supporting characters and bland open-world desert hub where you ride around rather aimlessly on a motorbike.
Now, in an interview with Famitsu (translated via ResetEra / Nintendo Everything), the Metroid Prime 4: Beyond development team has revealed that it struggled balancing Nintendo’s desire to experiment with open-world gameplay with the Metroid series’ core exploration, and ultimately had to stick to its original plan for the game rather than risk delaying it any further.
“At the start of the project, perhaps due to the influence of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, we saw a lot of comments on the internet saying ‘we want to play an open-world Metroid,'” Nintendo said. (The interview does not label comments from individual developers by name.)
“However, Metroid’s core element of ‘increasing the amount of explorable areas by unlocking powers’ is not very compatible with the ‘freedom to go anywhere from the beginning’ of open worlds,” Nintendo continued. “Thus we thought to design a limited area that could be freely explored, and have that be a hub that could connect to other areas. Then we thought that if one could move around on the bike in a satisfying way in that area, it could be a segment that mitigates the tension from exploration, and paces the whole game.”
In other words, the hub design seen in the finished Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was Nintendo’s original compromise for including some open world elements while sticking to the franchise’s core exploration in its main areas.
“In the end, the game took much longer than expected to finish, and we realized that players’ impressions toward open-world games had changed,” Nintendo added. “That being said, development had already been reset once before (when we started again from scratch with Retro Studios) so backtracking development again was out of the question, and we resolved to move forward with our original vision.”
Arriving 18 years after Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, the last game in Retro Studios’ beloved Prime trilogy, Prime 4 was officially announced at E3 2017. Initially, Bandai Namco was put in charge of development, but development was rebooted in January 2019 back at Retro Studios after Nintendo decided the game’s development had fallen short of expectations.
Nintendo’s comment that the open-world hub was part of its “original vision” for Prime 4 certainly suggests it was not Retro Studios’ design, though the implication is that Nintendo only realized the flaws with it after the game’s development was begun anew.
“During this time, shooting games and action games went through evolutions, with an increase in game speed in particular, but taking in those changes would have made it difficult to construct the tempo of an adventure game, so we actively chose to not take them into account,” Nintendo concluded. “Therefore, I think this game is pretty much divorced from the changing of times.”
The idea of Samus gaining psychic abilities also predated Retro Studios’ reboot, and originated as an explanation for why she is now able to control the Charge Beam’s directional shot. After Retro took over the project, Nintendo said it asked the studio to implement further gameplay features that expanded on the idea of Samus gaining a psychic power set.
“Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is an excellent, if relatively uneven, revival that reaches heights worthy of the Metroid name in its best moments,” IGN wrote in our Metroid Prime 4: Beyond review, scoring the game 8/10.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Better late than never.
If you’re a fan of pixel art RPGs with a hint of Pokémon in its gameplay, then you’ll want to keep an eye out for Navinosuke – The Yo-kai Buster – on the Switch. Originally developed in the early 2000s but never officially released, it’s now been updated with improved UI and gameplay for modern audiences. Developer KOHACHI STUDIO announced the revival back in June 2025, but renewed interest online in recent days has compelled us to highlight it (and the release of a certain Nintendo hardware might have overshadowed it back in June).
Scheduled for release in early 2026, Navinosuke sees you explore a fictional version of ancient Japan as you work to solve a series of mysterious disturbances caused by Yo-Kai (supernatural entities). There are more than 150 unique Yo-Kai to discover on your journey, some of which will befriend you, and others you’ll need to battle.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Deus Ex lead actor Elias Toufexis has branded the franchise’s owners as “psychopaths,” as the wait continues for a new entry in the dormant stealth action series.
In a post on X, Toufexis laid out his work schedule for 2026, which he said included Bungie’s upcoming shooter Marathon and three unannounced projects. Of course, this tease prompted Deus Ex fans to suggest that at least one of these mystery projects was a long-awaited new Deus Ex sequel — something Toufexis was quick to shut down.
“…no Deus Ex because the people in charge are psychopaths,” Toufexis wrote.
Toufexis has been vocal in support of a new Deus Ex game materializing over the years, though it has now been a decade since the arrival of 2016’s Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Developed by Eidos Montreal, the game arrived on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One to positive reviews.
But rather than develop a follow up, the next few years saw Eidos Montreal put to work on Square Enix’s failed Marvel’s Avengers live-service game, as well as its own take on Guardians of the Galaxy, alongside its continuing role as a support studio for the Tomb Raider franchise. With these franchises taking priority, Deus Ex fell by the wayside.
Fan excitement for a new Deus Ex was rekindled after Square Enix sold Eidos Montreal — and the Deus Ex franchise — to publisher Embracer, and indeed, a new game in the series was reportedly worked on for two years. Alas, this project was reported to have been canned in 2024, amid Embracer’s widespread restructuring.
“As you guys all know, Jensen is one of the characters I’ve played who is near and dear to my heart. It seems I will always be associated with him and that’s just fine with me,” Toufexis wrote in a subsequent reddit post, after word of the game’s cancellation spread.
“Alas, his story seems done. I’m relatively certain the game that was canceled was not an Adam Jensen story, so the cancellation angers me more than anything else because friends at Eidos got laid off. Video game companies right now are in a weird place. I hope it gets straightened out.”
A year ago, Insider Gaming reported that Eidos Montreal was once again pitching an idea for a new Deus Ex title, though there was no suggestion this idea had been successful. Next up for the series will be Aspyr’s recently-delayed Deus Ex Remastered, a polished up port of the franchise’s original entry, which has been pushed from its original February 2026 launch date following fan concerns over its quality. The project currently lacks a new launch window, and pre-orders have been refunded.
Toufexis previously claimed he spent two years working on Far Cry 3, recording lines as the game’s protagonist Jason Brody, before Ubisoft replaced him in the role. The voice actor claimed the reason for this switch was his work as the Deus Ex protagonist, whose voice had become too “popular” and recognizable.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Following a Switch 2 rating for Pikmin 3 Deluxe.
Earlier this week, a Nintendo Switch 2 rating for Pikmin 3 Deluxe was spotted on the European age rating board PEGI.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Last month, we wrapped up another year of gaming with some 2D goodness and new takes on sports. Some big new releases included Marvel Cosmic Invasion, Skate Story, and Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow. Which game was your favorite?
How does it work? At the end of every month, PlayStation Blog will open a poll where you can vote for the best new game released that month. After the polls close we will tally your votes, and announce the winner on our social channels and PlayStation.Blog.
What is the voting criteria? That’s up to you! If you were only able to recommend one new release to a friend that month, which would it be? Note: re-released games don’t qualify, but remakes do. We define remakes as ambitious, larger-scale rebuilds such as Resident Evil 4 (2023) and Final Fantasy VII Remake.
How are nominees decided? The PlayStation Blog editorial team will gather a list of that month’s most noteworthy releases and use it to seed the poll.
