Author: Game Infliction

Upcoming Nintendo Switch Games: Release Dates for 2025 and Beyond

The Nintendo Switch is going out in a blaze of glory, with some exciting games launching to make way for the console’s successor: the now officially announced Switch 2. Whether they’re exclusively developed for the Switch or ported over from other platforms, these upcoming Switch games will wrap up the Switch’s final year while also being compatible with the Switch 2 upon release.

In 2025, we’ll get our hands on the last few games that were announced during last year’s Nintendo Directs as well as The Game Awards 2024. Whether you own the original Switch or are looking ahead to what will release on the Switch 2, here are all the new Switch games we can look forward to in 2025 and beyond.

Take a look at our guide to all upcoming video games for release dates on every platform.

All Upcoming Switch Games With Release Dates

Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection (February 27, 2025)

Duelists, rejoice. This collection comes jack-packed with some of the earliest games in the Yu-Gi-Oh! series: 16 of them, to be precise. Most of the Konami-developed titles originally released in the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance generations, with highlights including 2001’s The Eternal Duelist Soul and 2002’s The Sacred Cards.

Suikoden I&II HD Remaster: Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars (March 6, 2025)

Not the first, and probably not the last, remastered compilation of Konami’s first two Suikoden games. Suikoden I & II were first released on the original PlayStation back in the late 90’s and were previously remastered for the PlayStation Portable in the 2000’s. In early 2025, new HD remasters of the classic RPGs are arriving on the Nintendo Switch.

MLB The Show 25 (March 15, 2025)

Paul Skenes, Elly De La Cruz, and Gunnar Henderson are all featured on the cover of this year’s MLB The Show, which will celebrate the series’ 20th anniversary. The baseball sim has advertised more enhancements to baseball mechanics, including an all-new Ambush Hitting difficulty, as well as more personalization in its “Road to the Show” gameplay mode.

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition (March 20, 2025)

Xenoblade Chronicles X was originally released on the Wii U back in 2015, and a “visually enhanced” Definitive Edition of the action RPG is coming to Switch in 2025. This release follows a Definitive Edition of the original Xenoblade Chronicles that was released for Switch back in 2020, while Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and 3 were released straight onto the handheld console in 2017 and 2022, respectively.

Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land (March 21, 2025)

The newest addition to Koei Tecmo’s Atelier series introduces a new alchemist, Yumia Liessfeldt, and a host of new companions. Try to uncover the mysteries of an empire’s fall while learning synthesis skills to defeat enemies in real-time combat.

Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game (March 25, 2025)

A cozy farming game set in The Shire is pretty much a match made in heaven. Tales of the Shire lets you create your own hobbit during a time of peace in Middle-earth. Starting in March 2025, you’ll be able to indulge in the ultimate fantasy by spending your days cooking and eating delicious meals with your friends.

Care Bears: Unlock the Magic (March 27, 2025)

Remember the Care Bears? Apparently the show got rebooted in 2019 as “Care Bears: Unlock the Magic,” and now the family-friendly franchise is getting a Switch game tie-in. The arcade-style collection features staple characters from the cartoon, including Cheer Bear, Grumpy Bear, and Funshine Bear.

Star Overdrive (April 10, 2025)

Star Overdrive is an upcoming indie adventure game set on a distant alien planet. Fly around on your hoverboard while conquering enemies and solving puzzles to try and reunite with your lost love.

Rusty Rabbit (April 17, 2025)

Several years after Nitroplus revealed Rusty Rabbit in a concept trailer, the side-scrolling action platformer is finally coming to Switch. Play as the middle-aged rabbit, Stamp, who has built his own mech to traverse a post-apocalyptic frozen wasteland.

LUNAR Remastered Collection (April 18, 2025)

This remastered collection brings the two original Lunar JRPGs, LUNAR Silver Star Story and LUNAR 2 Eternal Blue, to modern consoles. The remasters come with several quality-of-life improvements, including enhanced graphics and both English and Japanese voice-acting.

Capcom Fighting Collection 2 (May 16, 2025)

That’s right, it’s another fighting game collection. This time, Capcom is compiling games released between 1998 and 2004, which is what some would call a peak era for arcade fighting. This second fighting collection includes both the English and Japanese versions of six games total, including Capcom vs. SnK and the Power Stone beat-em-up series.

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time (May 21, 2025)

The highly-anticipated sequel to 2014’s Fantasy Life finally has a release date. This “slow-life” RPG combines adventure storylines with life-sim mechanics, allowing players to build a life (and a city) on a deserted island while facing mysteries of the past. Explore randomized dungeons, switch between 14 different “Jobs,” and meet friends to help you in your journey.

Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma (May 30, 2025)

The iconic RPG social sim is back. As a powerful Earth Dancer, you must travel across the eastern nation of Azuma to battle monsters and restore villages. The new Rune Factory game looks like it places a stronger emphasis on action and anime-style character designs, though improved Switch performance with an all-new storyline will hopefully mark an improvement over Rune Factory 5. This is Rune Factory, so there will be plenty of romance, now with fully voiced “scenarios” and even the ability to romance the unselected MC.

Upcoming Switch Games With Unknown Release Dates

There are plenty more Nintendo Switch games in development that don’t have a solid release date yet. Here are some more Switch games we know are on the way:

When Is the Nintendo Switch 2 Coming Out?

Over the last year, we’ve been hearing rumors about the Nintendo Switch successor regarding its appearance, release date, and name. On January 16, Nintendo finally confirmed a decent chunk of these rumors with the official announcement of the Switch 2. While the announcement trailer shows off some new features (including what looks like the potential to use the Joy-Con as a mouse), it doesn’t provide any insight into specs or game launches. More official info, including pricing and a release date, will arrive via a Nintendo Direct scheduled for April 2.

What Games Will Launch on the Switch 2?

One thing the trailer confirms is that the Switch 2 will be, for the most part, backward compatible, supporting both physical and digital games from the original Switch. Otherwise, it definitely looks like the trailer features a new Mario Kart game, and plenty of leaks have suggested third-party games like Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 7 Remake will be ported onto the console. For more info, you can check out our list of games reportedly set to release on the Switch 2.

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.

In first-person dungeon-crawler Blue Wyrm you brave mazes of rancid gemlike colours to rescue your lover

I can never remember the technical term for that wibbly effect you get in PS1 games when you sidle up to surfaces and look askance at the textures. I thought it was “dithering”, but Brendy says that’s not what dithering is you sap, you absolute dunce. If you know the answer, please educate me in a comment. But first, try Blue Wyrm.

It’s a free first-person melee dungeon crawler from SaintPesticide. It’s awash with rich, diseased shades of ruby, amethyst and malachite. And brother, it has not-dithering to spare. Here’s a video.

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Microsoft and Hellblade Developer Ninja Theory Built an AI Called Muse Designed to Generate Ideas for a Game’s Design — and It’s Already Making ‘Complex’ Gameplay Sequences

Microsoft has announced a new generative AI model designed for gameplay ideation.

The company detailed what it calls the first World and Human Action Model (WHAM). The WHAM, Katja Hofmann, Senior Principal Research Manager and lead of the Microsoft Research Game Intelligence team, said in a blog post, is a generative AI model of a video game that can generate game visuals, controller actions, or both.

Microsoft calls this generative AI model Muse, which was developed by the Microsoft Research Game Intelligence and Teachable AI Experiences (Tai X) teams in collaboration with Hellblade developer Ninja Theory. It’s open sourcing the weights and sample data and making the executable available for the WHAM Demonstrator — a concept prototype that provides a visual interface for interacting with WHAM models and multiple ways of prompting the models.

The company provided a number of gameplay clips showing what Muse is capable of. Currently, the model can generate “complex gameplay sequences that are consistent over several minutes” just by prompting the model with 10 initial frames (one second) of human gameplay and the controller actions of the whole play sequence.

The game used to train Muse was Ninja Theory’s 2020 multiplayer game Bleeding Edge. “We worked closely with our colleagues at Ninja Theory and with Microsoft compliance teams to ensure that the data was collected ethically and used responsibly for research purposes,” Hofmann insisted.

“It’s been amazing to see the variety of ways Microsoft Research has used the Bleeding Edge environment and data to explore novel techniques in a rapidly moving AI industry,” said Gavin Costello, technical director at Ninja Theory.

“From the hackathon that started it all, where we first integrated AI into Bleeding Edge, to building AI agents that could behave more like human players, to the World and Human Action Model being able to dream up entirely new sequences of Bleeding Edge gameplay under human guidance, it’s been eye-opening to see the potential this type of technology has.”

Muse is used in “world model mode” meaning it is used to predict how the game will evolve from the initial prompt sequence. The more closely the generated gameplay sequence resembles the actual game, the more accurately Muse has captured the dynamics of that game.

Generative AI is one of the hottest and most controversial topics in the creative industries. As video game development costs rise, publishers are increasingly looking to AI tools to speed up work and cut costs. Call of Duty reportedly sold an “AI-generated cosmetic” for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in late 2023, and fans accused Activision of using generative AI again for a loading screen last year. EA said in September that AI was “the very core” of its business, and just last month, Capcom said it was experimenting with generative AI to create the “hundreds of thousands” of ideas needed for in-game environments.

Head of PlayStation Productions and head of product at PlayStation Studios Asad Qizilbash weighed in on AI to say its use in video games is important to Gen Z and Gen Alpha gamers who seek “personalization across everything.”

“For instance, non-player characters in games could interact with players based on their actions, making it feel more personal,” Qizilbash said. “This is important for the younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences, who are the first generations that grew up digitally and are looking for personalization across everything, as well as looking for experiences to have more meaning.”

Microsoft is all-in on generative AI, as anyone with even a cursory knowledge of ChatGPT and OpenAI will be aware of, and so this development with Ninja Theory comes as little surprise. Still, the company will face tough questions from some within the video game development community who are worried models like Muse will put them out of a job.

In the blog post, Hofmann insisted that Microsoft’s team “focus on exploring the capabilities that models like Muse need to effectively support human creatives.”

“I look forward to seeing the many ways in which the community will explore these models and build on our research,” Hofmann continued. “I cannot wait to see all the ways that these models and subsequent research will help shape and increase our understanding of how generative AI models of human gameplay may support gameplay ideation and pave the way for future, novel, AI-based game experiences, including the use cases that our colleagues at Xbox have already started to explore.”

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.

Monster Train 2 revealed for 2025 release and you can play the demo right now

The privitisation of British Rail, now that’s the real monster. Please subscribe to my Substack for more scorching social commentary. Actually, here’s a far more fun thing you can click on: a Steam demo for Monster Train 2. If you ignored the ennui-drenched tannoy announcement because you were paying sixteen pounds at Cafe Nero for a limp panini last time around, Monster Train is a card flickenin’ roguelite strategy, and one of the better ones, too. Here’s a trailer.

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Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake Is on Sale for Up to 23% Off

Presidents’ Day video game deals may have come and gone, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still some worthy discounts to check out. If you’ve had Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake on your radar to add to your collection of physical games, we’ve got good news: Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake for Xbox, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch is on sale right now at Amazon.

Each copy has varying discounts, though. The Xbox Series X version is currently 23% off, dropping its price to $45.99, the Nintendo Switch version is 16% off, dropping its price to $50.40, and the PlayStation 5 version is 9% off with a price tag of $54.50. Regardless of the price, though, we consider this game a “shining example of how to remake a classic RPG” in our review, so pick it up at a discount for your collection today.

Save up to 23% on Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake

IGN’s Logan Plant has plenty of praise for this game in our Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake review. He explains that, “It spruces up the 36-year-old original with great quality-of-life improvements that enhance the journey without unrecognizably transforming it, along with a beautiful new coat of paint that proves Dragon Quest and the HD-2D art style are a perfect match.”

If you’re on the hunt for even more gaming deals, have a look at our roundups of the best Nintendo Switch deals, the best Xbox deals, and the best PlayStation deals. In each of these we’ve gathered up our favorite discounts at the moment across video games, hardware, and accessories so you can save some cash while stocking up on excellent items for your preferred platform. It’s also worth checking out our breakdown of the best video game deals for an overall look at the best offers for each console.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.

Moves Of The Diamond Hand is Cosmo D’s next chaotic dice-rolling RPG, with a demo out now

Cosmo D’s unwavering passion for pizza is infectious. It’s also possible that the pizza I’ve just made in the demo for Moves Of The Diamond Hand is infectious, though I have invested all my points into the cooking skill, so hopefully not. You should be able to play the demo yourself by the time you read this. It’s one for Betrayal At Club Low fans, taking the failure-is-fun dice rolling RPG systems from that, spicing them up, and letting you properly explore freely in first person this time. I first-personed my way straight to the nearest pizza shop. It almost literally killed my character, but I have baked a pie, and now I feel like a god.

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Nike Has Gone Bananas With These Donkey Kong Country-Inspired Trainers

Talk about Funky.

The worlds of gaming and footwear crossover more than you might expect. The snazzy Pokémon x Crocs collection took our breath away last year, Bull Airs released a range of console-inspired sneakers and even Converse has got involved in the past too. But all of them pale in comparison to what Nike has been cooking up: a pair of Air Max 1s inspired by Donkey Kong Country.

This news comes from footwear site Sneaker News, which reports that the ‘Big Head Origins’ design is expected to launch at some point in the Spring/Summer period of this year — though nothing has been confirmed as of yet.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Xbox Game Pass February 2025 Wave 2 Lineup Confirmed

Microsoft has announced the Xbox Game Pass February 2025 Wave 2 lineup, which kicked off with Obsidian entertainment’s single-player fantasy role-playing game Avowed on February 18.

On February 20, EA Sports F1 24 (Cloud, Console, and PC) hits Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass on EA Play. IGN’s F1 24 review returned a 7/10. We said: “In isolation, F1 24 remains a slick, deep, and marvellous motorsports experience, but it’s hard to argue it’s essential for returning players.”

Also on February 20, the well-received Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) enters Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Game Pass Standard. “Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is an isometric RPG by Owlcat Games, set in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium,” reads the official blurb. “As a powerful Rogue Trader, you command a starship, assemble a crew, and explore the Imperium, making fateful decisions in tactical, turn-based combat.” IGN’s Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader review returned an 8/10.

Here’s a big one: on February 25, Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs: Legion (Cloud, Console, and PC) hits Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Game Pass Standard. “Explore a massive urban open world featuring London’s many iconic landmarks and fun side activities where you can recruit (and play as) anyone. Everyone you see has a unique backstory, personality, and skill set for unique situations. Team up with your friends to complete new four-player co-op missions and PvP matches online.” IGN’s Watch Dogs: Legion review returned an 8/10.

Xbox Game Pass February 2025 Wave 2 lineup

  • EA Sports F1 24 (Cloud, Console, and PC) EA Play – February 20
    Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
  • Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – February 20
    Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, Game Pass Standard
  • Watch Dogs: Legion (Cloud, Console, and PC) – February 25
    Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, Game Pass Standard

As usual, a number of games leave Game Pass this month as new games enter the subscription. You can use your membership discount to save up to 20% on your purchase to keep a game in your library.

Leaving Xbox Game Pass on February 28

  • F1 22 (Console and PC) EA Play
  • Gris (Cloud, Console, and PC)
  • Maneater (Cloud, Console, and PC)
  • PAW Patrol World (Cloud, Console, and PC)
  • Space Engineers (Cloud, Console, and PC)
  • Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun (Cloud, Console, and PC)
  • Wo Long Fallen Dynasty (Cloud, Console, and PC)
  • Yakuza 3 Remastered (Cloud, Console, and PC)
  • Yakuza 4 Remastered (Cloud, Console, and PC)

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.

Activision’s Costly Call of Duty Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Crossover Has Some Players Saying Black Ops 6 Should Just Go Free-to-Play at This Point

Call of Duty’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover looks set to cost up to $90’s worth of COD Points in order to obtain all the items — and the community is now saying Activision should just make Black Ops 6 free-to-play at this point.

Activision unveiled the Black Ops 6 Season 02 Reloaded content coming to the shooter on February 20, and detailed the mid-season Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover in the process.

Each of the four turtles (Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael) has their own premium bundle. Based on previous collaborations, these bundles are expected to cost 2,400 COD Points, or $19.99, each. So, if you want all four turtles you face the prospect of handing over $80’s worth of COD Points.

But that’s not all. As it did with the controversial Squid Game crossover, Activision has created a premium event pass for the Turtles crossover, which costs 1,100 COD Points / $10. This includes a number of eye-catching cosmetics, chief among them Splinter. Again, there is no other way of getting Splinter than paying the $10 for the premium track of the event pass. The free track includes two Foot Clan soldier skins, among other cosmetics.

As many have pointed out, the Turtles crossover is heavy on the cosmetics but does not feature gameplay affecting items. No-one has to buy any or all of it to compete in Black Ops 6 multiplayer. And there are many within the community saying it’s easy to ignore Call of Duty crossovers like the Turtles one and leave those willing to spend more to it.

But that hasn’t stopped some players within the community from criticizing Activision once again for the high cost of these cosmetics, and are saying this second ever Call of Duty premium event pass suggests Black Ops 6 is now being monetized as if it were a free-to-play game like Fortnite.

“Activision casually glossing over the fact that they want you to pay $80+ if you want the 4 Turtles, plus another $10+ if you want the TMNT event pass rewards,” redditor II_JangoFett_II said. “Call of Duty’s Gross greed strikes again… DESPICABLE!”

“Guess we can expect an event pass sold every season now,” Hipapitapotamus suggested. “Remember when events were good and got you cool universal camos for free.”

“The Turtles don’t use guns,” APensiveMonkey declared. “Their fingers wouldn’t even… I hate this…”

It’s worth going into more detail on how Activision monetizes Black Ops 6. Each season brings with it a new battle pass, the base version of which costs 1,100 COD Points / $9.99. There’s an extra premium version of the battle pass, called BlackCell, which costs $29.99 (you can’t buy this one with COD Points). Then there is a constant stream of cosmetics available to buy from the store. The Turtles crossover, with its premium event pass, is on top of all this.

“So they expect the playerbase to buy the game itself, buy the battle pass/black cell and now this? Na that’s too much,” PunisherR35 added. “If this is gonna be the norm moving forward, CoD needs to move to a FTP model (campaign, MP).”

In truth, Activision’s aggressive monetization of Call of Duty is nothing new. It’s just that the new premium event pass, which made its debut with Black Ops 6’s Squid Game crossover, has pushed some fans over the edge. And as has been pointed out many times before, the standardized monetization across the $70 Black Ops 6 and the free-to-play battle royale Warzone does Black Ops 6 no favors. What might be acceptable for Warzone given it’s free-to-play isn’t necessarily acceptable for Black Ops 6, given it costs $70 just to be able to play Multiplayer.

And that’s where the calls for Black Ops 6 Multiplayer to go free-to-play come from. With each new microtransaction Call of Duty Multiplayer feels more and more like Fortnite, Apex Legends, Marvel Rivals, and of course Warzone.

Activision and parent company Microsoft will of course stick to its guns, given Call of Duty’s incredible popularity. Black Ops 6 was the biggest Call of Duty launch ever, and set a new single day Game Pass subscription record. Sales on PlayStation and Steam jumped 60% compared to 2023’s Modern Warfare 3. Clearly, Call of Duty is doing the business for Activision and new owner Microsoft, which the financial officers will no doubt be delighted with given the Xbox maker paid an eye-watering $69 billion for the company.

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.

NetEase reward US-based developers of live service hit Marvel Rivals by sacrificing their jobs to “efficiency”

Marvel Rivals is this year’s current free-to-play PC game success story, attracting many millions of players over its opening weekend and making regular appearances in the Steam Most Played top 10 ever since. It garnered an estimated $136 million in January. So naturally, it’s time to start laying people off.

Last night, one of the project’s game directors, Thaddeus Sasser, revealed that an undisclosed number of US-based NetEase Games employees had been dismissed, including level designers Gary McGee and Jack Burrows. NetEase have now confirmed the news, calling it a move to “optimize development efficiency” and assuring players that they “are investing more, not less, into the evolution and growth of this game”. Just not so much the people working on it.

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