Author: Game Infliction

For much of 2024, a strange trend has dominated Amazon’s listings: Nintendo first-party games have been conspicuously absent from the retailer, both physically and digitally, for preorders and after release. Rather than being sold and shipped by Amazon, major Switch titles have been limited to third-party sellers only. This extended absence has also included Nintendo’s digital offerings — no Nintendo Switch Online memberships, gift cards, or digital game codes have appeared on Amazon’s storefront since early this year.

But, that seemingly ends with The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. This latest Zelda title has become the first Nintendo first-party game of 2024 to be sold and shipped directly by Amazon, marking a significant change in Amazon’s recent Nintendo offerings. Although it comes over a month after The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom’s release, the listing signals positive signs after months of silence from both Amazon and Nintendo regarding these absences.

As reported by GameRant, and discussed on the Nintendo Switch subreddit, some Nintendo preorders like Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door earlier in the year were also inexplicably canceled, leaving fans wondering about the retailer’s allegedly strained relationship with Nintendo.

This freeze has been specific to Amazon, as Nintendo games like Mario & Luigi: Brothership and digital items remain available at other major retailers such as Best Buy, GameStop, and Target. Up until now, Amazon has been a veritable ghost town for Nintendo products, lacking even the digital storefront presence that many gamers expect.

There’s also still no indication from either Nintendo or Amazon as to why this freeze-out occurred, and at the time of this article’s publication it hadn’t been fully reversed. Currently, only Echoes of Wisdom is available directly from Amazon, with no sign of digital items like Switch Online or gift cards returning for now.

For Switch fans eager to buy Nintendo titles from Amazon’s official stock, the reappearance of first-party games hints at a potential shift just as the holiday shopping season ramps up — especially with a Nintendo Switch successor announcement on the horizon.

With Black Friday around the corner, there’s also hope that this change could signal a return to Amazon deals on popular Switch games by month’s end. By no means, however, is Amazon currently the cheapest place to pick up Echoes of Wisdom right now going into the sale season. Woot, an Amazon-owned retailer (but treated as a separate business unit), has had the game consistently on sale for over a month. It’s currently listed for just $49.99 ($10 off the MSRP).

Call of Duty Zombies YouTuber MrRoflWaffles had a disastrous end to a high round Black Ops 6 run, leaving the game at round 147 and after 12 hours of play rather than saving and quitting.

Black Ops 6’s round-based Zombies mode sees players face off against endless waves of the baddies in a bid to reach ever higher levels of difficulty. Saving in Black Ops 6’s Zombies mode is only available to solo players, and you can only save one solo match at a time, which means if you leave the match without saving, there is no save to return to.

MrRoflWaffles, who has 2.11 million subscribers on YouTube, set out to break his personal best of round 141 and to hit round 200 before the disastrous mistake put an end to the attempt.

do NOT do this on round 147 in black ops 6 zombies 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/QftwaSjISE

— Milo (@MrRoflWaffles) November 7, 2024

The disaster began when a confident MrRoflWaffles signaled his intention to save and quit then load back into the match. “This is how this works chat,” he declared. “You quit the game, you reload in, and you try not to get bugs.”

MrRoflWaffles, perhaps moving too fast through Black Ops 6’s pause menu for his own good, accidentally selected ‘leave match’ rather than ‘save and quit.’ Despite the ‘leave game?’ warning pop up, MrRoflWaffles proceeded, putting an end to the run forever.

All the while, MrRoflWaffles’ chat couldn’t believe what they’d witnessed, with various messages of disbelief littering the screen.

Realization then kicked in, and, as you’d expect, MrRoflWaffles couldn’t believe what he’d done. “I left?!” he said. “What?! What?! What?! Are you kidding me?! You’re kidding me! You’re joking chat. Noooooooo!”

“12 hours of my life,” MrRoflWaffles eventually sighed after a period of silence. “The bugs won. I’d rather have fought the bugs! I can’t believe I just did that. I’m in pain.”

So, who’s to blame? MrRoflWaffles for accidentally pressing the wrong button, or developer Treyarch for putting the ‘leave match’ and ‘save and quit’ buttons right next to each other in the Zombies pause menu? For his part, MrRoflWaffles said it was entirely his mistake, but called on Treyarch to make the leave match button a ‘hold for three seconds’ selection.

“I really want to blame Treyarch for putting the leave button next to the save button,” MrRoflWaffles said. “I want to blame them, but honestly this is my fault. I pressed the button.”

Life simulation game inZoi is delayed to March 28, 2025, its producer and director has announced.

The Sims competitor from PUBG company Krafton was set to launch in early access form on PC later in 2024, but that became increasingly unlikely with no release date announced and the year end fast approaching — despite the developer insisting it was still on track only last month.

Inzoi is “a life simulation game where players become gods within the game, allowing them to change everything as they wish and experience endless new stories in various forms of life.” This was enough to capture the attention of disgruntled The Sims fans, with many claiming they’ll switch to Inzoi for good once it’s fully released. The recently released character creator demo saw life sim fans recreate real people and pop culture characters — check out some of the best attempts in the slideshow of images below.

In a letter to the game’s community, producer and director Hyungjun “Kjun” Kim apologized to fans for the delay, citing “a commitment to delivering the experience fans expect and deserve for a strong foundation of inZOI, following overwhelming positive feedback from the community over the past few months.”

The letter in full is below:

Hi everyone,

This is Kjun, Producer & Director of inZOI.

First, I want to express my sincerest gratitude to inZOI fans around the world. Your immense love and interest mean everything to us. I was especially touched by the wonderful reception we received at gamescom, and it was incredible to see everyone creating such unique Zois during our ‘inZOI: Character Studio’ demo period.

Initially, we were uncertain about introducing ‘Canvas’ to the world, not knowing how many people would actually participate. However, the turnout was amazing, with an enormous number of uploads. Seeing so much engagement brought us immense happiness, and it was inspiring to see how deeply people connected with inZOI. Your feedback and insights made us realize the responsibility we have to provide players with the most complete experience possible.

This message is about that realization. After reviewing your feedback from inZOI: Character Studio and analyzing a wealth of data from our various play tests, we have decided to release inZOI in Early Access on March 28, 2025. We apologize that we couldn’t bring you the game sooner, but this decision reflects our commitment to giving inZOI the best possible start.

It’s said that among primates, raising a human child to adulthood takes the longest time because humans must be prepared to endure and adapt to their ever-changing surroundings. The extra love and care required to nurture a child to adulthood is how I see our journey with inZOI — a game that we will be nurturing together from its Early Access birth. This change in our release date reflects our commitment to building a stronger foundation for inZOI, so we can embark on this journey in the best way possible.

Until the release date, we’ll continue working to improve any areas that need attention, striving to create a game that truly captures the essence of life simulation. Our goal is to deliver an experience fans can enjoy for a long time to come. We’ll keep you updated on our development progress, and we hope you’ll join us on this journey toward inZOI’s Early Access and beyond.

With love,

Kjun

In IGN’s preview if Inzoi, we said: “The game’s world is extremely beautiful but somewhat empty in motion, permeated by a lack of grounding lore.”

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.