Toei Company, the Japanese juggernaut known primarily for its work in the film and television industry, has announced the establishment of a new gaming publishing brand: Toei Games.
Originally founded in 1951, Toei Company describes the establishment as a “new challenge” and aims to release games first on Steam before expanding into consoles like the Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Its first game will be announced later this month on 24th April, but don’t expect any familiarity with the title; Toei Company confirms that its initial line-up will not be based on existing IP, but will instead be entirely new, original games from creators in Japan and around the world.
An official website is now live, but is understandably quite bare at the moment.
Toei Company is also the majority shareholder in Toei Animation, which has produced significant franchises such as One Piece, Dragon Ball, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and more.
So we’ll keep an eye out for whatever this new game is on the 24th. Like we said, it’s unlikely to be confirmed for Switch / Switch 2 immediately, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see a release later down the line.
What do you make of this? Are you excited to see some original works from Toei Games, or would you rather it work on existing IP? Let us know.
Capcom has commenced celebrations for Ōkami‘s 20th anniversary, so naturally, director Hideki Kamiya has shared a heartfelt message to commemorate the occasion.
Over on the official anniversary website, you can check out the first celebratory events for yourself. Capcom has invited fans to share their own messages, and you can even peruse some awesome Shikishi designs from key talent behind the iconic game.
For now, let’s see what Kamiya has to say:
It’s Ōkami’s 20th anniversary!
Looking back, I still can’t believe we got it out the door…but that’s a story for another time! Seeing the support you’ve all poured into Ōkami since its original release, together with my immense pride for having worked on it, could not make me happier to celebrate this milestone.
The enthusiasm and support you’ve all shown has helped sustain Ōkami’s legacy for two long decades, in which time the game has had a second adventure, a striking HD remaster, and a range of official products and projects that make me as excited as a creator as I would be as a fan. I think the affection the staff has for Ōkami can be seen— No, can be FELT in each and every one of the things they create. Me and my collection of Amaterasu figures and plushies could not be more thankful.
Ōkami’s influence can be felt in the connections people have built with the game, and with our continued support, I believe those connections will continue to deepen and expand well beyond its 20th anniversary. In the meantime, I’ll be putting my blood, sweat, and tears into the new Ōkami sequel that you’ve all been waiting for!
Until then, I hope you’ll all keep the love for Ōkami alive. Warm regards, Hideki Kamiya
The website also includes an awesome piece of celebratory art, which you can view directly below:
Image: Capcom
And finally, in collaboration with Capcom, Fangamer has revealed six new Ōkami products to celebrate the anniversary, including a desk mat, a pair of socks, a keychain, a t-shirt, a blanket, and a jacket. They all look wonderful, and they’re available for pre-order now ahead of a Q4 2026 release window.
We’ll keep an eye out for any and all news related to Ōkami’s upcoming sequel from Kamiya’s new development studio, Clovers. No platforms have been confirmed at the time of writing, but we’d be surprised if Switch 2 wasn’t included in the line-up.
20 years, huh? Time flies. Do you have any specific memories of Ōkami? Let us know with a comment down below.
Although Nintendo is already focused on the next game Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, The Good Smile Company is today celebrating the series’ past with the reveal of two new figures based on Azura from the 3DS title, Fire Emblem Fates.
Pre-orders are now available in the US and Japan, with this window closing on 10th June 2026, and there’s an “estimated arrival” date between October 2027 and December2027. Here’s the official description for these figures and another look:
“From the Fire Emblem series comes the latest figure in a series of figures made by the developer of the series, INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS! From “Fire Emblem Fates” comes a 1/7 scale figure of Azura, the songstress at the mercy of fate! Raised as a princess of Nohr, yet taken away to Hoshido—Azura carries a past shaped by a complex and turbulent upbringing. Depicted in her White Songstress attire / Dark Songstress attire, this figure captures Azura as she continues to sing, defying the cruel fate that leaves her torn between two kingdoms.”
This latest Good Smile Fire Emblem figure follows on from figures for Byleth (Dancer), Lucina, Edelgard von Hresvelg, and more. You can see what else is on offer on the Good Smile website.
In some other Fire Emblem news, earlier this year Nintendo added Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance to the Switch Online’s GameCube library.
What do you think of this latest Fire Emblem Good Smile figure? Let us know in the comments.
After years of feeling left out, it feels like London is being treated to a bit of Nintendo store recognition, of late. First, we had the Westfield pop-up at the end of last year, and now there’s another surprise store in town, taking up floor space in an Argos, of all places.
Out of nowhere, the Tottenham Court Argos is now home to a bunch of physical Nintendo merch, covering everything from plushies to games, Switch 2 consoles to accessories. Heck, there are even a few items that you usually only see online — hey Alarmo, Talking Flower and amiibo!
Being the local lad that this writer is, we popped up to the store to see what it’s all about. It’s got to be said, we were impressed by just how much merch is on display, particularly since Argos stores are usually nothing more than a sea of screens (we miss you, catalogues).
Here’s a quick look at what’s on offer, because it’s always good to go in with a list at these kinds of things:
Let’s give a little shoutout to the lesser-represented Nintendo franchises, too. It may not be much, but it’s always exciting to see Pikmin and Metroid on the shelf!
A store employee told us that the pop-up will be sticking around for a while yet, so be sure to swing by if you happen to find yourself in the capital and have a hankering for some Nintendo merch.
Will you be heading to this Nintendo pop-up any time soon? Let us know in the comments.
“Zone Profile Fantasy”? “Zoom Port Focus”? Nobody knows whether ZPF is an acronym or not, except perhaps the three-man development team behind it: Perry Sessions, Mikael Tillander, and Jamie Vance. Prior to ZPF, Sessions and Vance created a contra-style NES demo called Cavity Destroyer for Vance’s brother’s dental practice. From there, the two joined with Tillander, a coder, to repurpose some of Sessions’ old graphics work for a new Mega Drive shoot-’em-up project.
ZPF was first teased all the way back on Christmas Day 2020, with a playable demo surfacing in 2023. Declaring itself a “Future Metal Fantasy”, it bears similar stylistic hallmarks to 1993’s Lords of Thunder for the PC Engine, marrying shooting action with fantastical landscapes and cyberpunk elements.
It also features a similar shop system, where accrued medals can be spent to boost ship power, purchase lives, or convert cash to points. Initially, there are three stages to choose from, and a further three to unlock. Once all are cleared, the seventh and final domain becomes available.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)
ZPF is strict in that only one continue can be purchased from the in-game shop. It can’t be relied upon to see you through the game, but if you clear the first stage without dying, the shop can be almost completely emptied out early on. If you’re geared toward survival, your focus will lean toward powering up your ship and melee weaponry, or grabbing an extra life.
You can also halve the number of bullets on a stage, but this is perhaps better left for later in the game. If you’re in it for score, you want to be dipping on the ‘Medal X2’ as soon as the first stage ends, doubling the drop rate. The ultimate score challenge, though, lies in never buying anything from the shop at all, and instead converting all your accrued cash to points.
Visually, ZPF is a lucid, neon-drenched experience. Glowing with syrupy sunsets and fiery pits, it does impressive things with the Mega Drive’s relatively limited colour palette, and it’s easy to forget that it’s a 16-bit game when you’re being slapped with deep parallax scrolls, enormous bosses, and detailed techno-scenery. It journeys from fantasy realms filled with giant turtles, goblin castles and apple-green forests, to future space factories with decapitated astronauts floating in Zero-G.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)
You can choose from a selection of three ships before starting each stage, all with different properties. Some have a more powerful melee weapon, like the Knight, and others a more powerful concentrated shot, like the Gold ship. Gladius sits somewhere in between, offering spread fire with good screen coverage, and is the best all-rounder for beginners. Part of the game’s strategy is figuring out which ship is most effective for each area, although it’s totally possible to just stick with one throughout.
The melee attack deals heavy damage but requires you to get up close to use it. It’s particularly effective on larger enemies who can soak more bullets, but there’s a risk-reward element involved in nose-to-nose approaches. Equally, not all melee weapons are equal in power, and as such you need to have a game plan prepared if you’re going to be using them regularly. You’re given three considerably powerful bombs, but spend them wisely as only one is replenished with each cleared stage. Elsewhere, bonus lives can be obtained, usually carried by special blue falcons.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)
In terms of its visual impact and scale, ZPF is impressive for a Mega Drive game. The sprites are large and robust, and the crafting is nicely handled, and while there’s some slowdown in places, there’s rarely a sprite flicker. It’s enjoyable to learn and to weed out its secrets, but can prove frustrating while you get to grips with its pitfalls. Certain tiny bullets (particularly prominent in the Goblin Castle) are almost invisible in the Switch’s handheld mode, and the ultra-colourful backgrounds often make it tricky to see incoming fire.
In terms of bullet patterns, the game spits out slow, random bursts alongside floaty aimed shots that head in your general vicinity. It sits midway between Japanese-style shoot-’em-ups and ‘euro-shmups’ — as they’re known amongst aficionados — making it feel somewhat unique. It has an unusual segmentation, too, where the screen will flash white several times a stage, changing the background scenery and enemies. It’s a little odd at first, but it kind of grows on you.
Contrary to popular belief, ZPF isn’t all that difficult, it’s just uneven, sporting sudden spikes and excruciating sniper pot shots that require pre-emptive learning. It’s also screaming out for a ship speed toggle. As it stands, your movement tends to be slightly too quick for such large bullets, making annoying accidental collisions commonplace.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)
There are minor niggles, too, like the shop select screen being active before it’s actually revealed on screen. This means if you’re tapping the button to get through the stage introduction, you can easily convert all your medals to points by accident, leaving you with an empty wallet. The developers obviously spotted this issue, but instead of resolving it by default, you need to head to the options and turn ‘Shop Zipper’ off.
Elsewhere, it’s difficult to know which sprites are destructible and which aren’t, like the carriers that appear in the Space Infestation stage. Bosses look fantastic, but their patterns range from aimless and easy to abrupt and thankless, eagerly blindsiding you with attacks that have little in the way of foreshadowing.
While these road bumps can all be overcome with practice, the critical problems reside more with the Switch port itself. There are no screen filters and no screen size adjustments, locked in a 4:3 aspect even in handheld mode, which isn’t ideal. The control setup changes are clunky, assigned to an exterior menu, and there are no save states or rewind functions.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)
All you really get is the game itself, and that’s okay if it ran 1:1 with its Mega Drive counterpart, but it doesn’t. While there don’t seem to be any lag issues, the port suffers from persistent intermittent scroll judder. It’s noticeable immediately on stage one, and the worst part is it seems to impact the actual game controls, too, so when it judders, your movement is affected just enough to occasionally throw you off. The larger the screen, the more pronounced it is. On a TV in docked mode, it’s incredibly aggravating; on a smaller, 16” screen, it’s still present but feels better; in handheld, it remains present but appears largely diminished.
I also had a crash on the stage one boss where I was forced to restart the game, as he no longer would take or return fire.
Conclusion
ZPF is an interesting new Mega Drive shoot ’em up that, with its key-collecting secrets, hidden bosses, stage variety and fantasy theme, feels unique. It’s been put together with a lot of love, and while its clear the development team aren’t expert shoot-’em-up designers, they’ve still done incredibly well with the hardware. It’s frustrating at times, and many will be put off by not having continues or any method of practice, but those who persevere will find an enjoyable route to high scores and one credit clears.
The issue primarily is the bare-bones Switch port that has zero additions or quality-of-life features, and suffers from a juddering issue that really damages the experience. If you’re buying on Mega Drive — and it’s recommended you do so — add a point to the scoreline.
Ubisoft has confirmed that Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced will finally be properly revealed this week on 23rd April at 5pm BST / 6pm CEST / 9am PT / 12pm ET.
Yes, the upcoming remaster / remake / whatever the heck it is will be receiving its own dedicated showcase, during which we’ll presumably be treated to some gameplay along with platform confirmation and release date.
Of course, the question on our minds is whether Resynced will launch on the Switch 2. We’re not completely convinced it will at this stage, but given that Ubisoft managed to get Assassin’s Creed Shadows running remarkably well on the system gives us plenty of hope.
As part of its announcement, Ubisoft also reiterated that the original Black Flag has “reached over 34 million players”. It remains one of the most critically-acclaimed entries in the series, perhaps only topped by Assassin’s Creed II, which you can play on Switch as part of the Ezio Collection.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on the upcoming showcase, and you can tune in directly on YouTube or Twitch if you want to catch it for yourself. Otherwise, we’ll provide all the necessary highlights here, including whether or not it’s bound for the Switch 2.
A recent rumour from Insider Gaming indicated that Resynced will launch on 9th July 2026 which, if true, really isn’t that far away. Fingers crossed.
Will you be checking out the upcoming Black Flag Resynced showcase? Are you hoping for a Switch 2 release? Let us know.
Have you all been living the dream this weekend? If you’ve been playing Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, then you likely have! Stuffed full of hilarious possibilities and an endless amount of creativity, it’s been the meme of the weekend.
And good friend of the site Jon Cartwright highlighted some interesting news about the life sim’s development: the game may have been ready almost a year ago, if a USK rating is to be believed.
According to the rating, the game was classified on 20th May 2025, meaning it was at least ready for play-testing and basically done, save a few final things.
This isn’t anything new for Nintendo; over the years, there have been frequent reports that the company has sat on game reveals and announcements for games that are already complete.
Nintendo may have had to do some last-minute tweaks on Living the Dream between the May 2025 rating and the release, but essentially, this rating implies that the Big N had the space to find a slot for the game that worked.
It also meant the team likely wasn’t scrambling to get the game done on time, which is always a good thing. And that seems to have been reflected in the reviews and online feedback from fans, who are having a blast making people laugh online with their ridiculous creations.
Are you enjoying Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream on Switch? Want to see anything added to the game? Let us know in the comments.
Bandai Namco has announced that the A24 movie adaptation Elden Ring will release on 3rd March 2028. It will also be filmed for IMAX, so expect some sweeping landscape shots to feature throughout.
This means that, yes, we’ve received a firm release date for the Alex Garland-directed movie before the upcoming Switch 2 port of the original game. What the heck is going on..? Regardless, full production is set to commence in Spring 2026 (so basically any day now), and the full cast has also been confirmed:
– Kit Connor (Warfare, Heartstopper) – Ben Whishaw (Skyfall, Paddington) – Cailee Spaeny (Alien: Romulus, Civil War) – Tom Burke (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Black Bag) – Havana Rose Liu (Bottoms) – Sonoya Mizuno (Ex Machina) – Jonathan Pryce (The Two Popes) – Ruby Cruz (Willow, Bottoms) – Nick Offerman (The Last of Us) – John Hodgkinson – Jefferson Hall – Emma Laird – Peter Serafinowicz
Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition is still expected to launch on the Switch 2 in 2026, though it’s now been over a year since the debut trailer was showcased during the Switch 2 Direct in April 2025. It’s since been playable at numerous gaming events, but Bandai Namco has refrained from providing a firm release date.
Pre-orders for the game opened up on Amazon, indicating that the Game-Key Card release will be priced at $79.99.
Will you be checking out the Elden Ring movie in 2028? Let us know your thoughts with a comment down below.
Sometimes a game is so good it creates its own genre. Whether you call it a survivorslike, bullet heaven, or something else entirely, Vampire Survivors pretty much invented an entire roguelite subgenre. So, when your game creates a whole new genre, where do you go next? Cards, of course.
Vampire Crawlers is the latest game from the Vampire Survivors studio, Poncle. The greatest trick that has been hiding in plain sight is that Vampire Crawlers isn’t a sequel. It’s not a spinoff either. Vampire Crawlers is an adaptation. It translates the survival sensation to a deckbuilder really well, twisting familiar tenets into a new creation, and it’s mostly structurally sound, even if it sometimes buckles under its own weight.
Vampire Crawlers is all about combos. Like traditional deckbuilders, you have a pool of mana, and each card costs mana to play. However, the order you play cards matters greatly. If you play cards in ascending mana cost order, you’ll get a combo, multiplying the damage, Armor, or other effects you gain from the next card played in the combo. For instance, if you play the Whip (costs zero mana), then play Garlic (costs one mana), Garlic will deal double its usual damage.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)
That’s not the only combination mechanic, though. Evolutions are also here, allowing you to combine your cards into more powerful ones. Most of these formulas are exactly as they were in Vampire Survivors. If you know your way around those weapons, you’ll be right at home combining weapons here.
My go-to quickly became NO FUTURE, an explosive bouncing device created by combining the Runetracer and Armor. It’s very powerful, scales really well with the Duplication Ring, and is probably the reason for the photosensitivity warning that displays when you launch the game.
If there’s anything to complain about regarding combat, it’s that it’s a little hard to strategise. New cards are gained by levelling up, much like how you would receive weapons and equipment in Survivors. However, when you level up, there’s no way to look at your deck to see which mana cost card you could use more cards of to boost your combo, or create possible evolutions. You gain more control over these level-ups as you buy upgrades in the game, such as the ability to skip rewards or banish certain cards from the reward possibilities, but it would be nice to lay plans a little more carefully and with more knowledge.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)
Certain user interface elements can be a little tough to manage in fights, too. It borrows the very helpful intention system, allowing you to see how much damage and shield the enemies will be looking to use. However, it’s hard to tell how close enemies are to death. If you hover over a card, you get to see a preview of how much damage it will do to each enemy, and those numbers will be red if it’s going to take one out.
But because of not having max health numbers, it’s hard to know if you should be more aggressive to take out enemies or build up Armor on certain turns. And like Vampire Survivors, once you get a powerful enough build, you don’t really need to think about the numbers. You just kill everything.
Where Vampire Crawlers really lets its combat sing is its lack of limitations. There are cards to increase your mana and allow you to draw cards. This is the easiest deckbuilder I’ve played to essentially create an endless turn. Though there are some mechanics built to curb these infinites, you can continue pushing your luck to keep the numbers going up forever. There’s no limit on the amount of cards you can have in your hand at once. There’s no mana cap. The only thing limiting you is getting the right cards to make your build work.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)
It wouldn’t be a game in the Vampire Survivors series without a ton of unlocks. New cards, characters, and other gameplay modifiers are unlocked as you play, and while you may eventually find the character and cards you turn towards whenever you get the option, the constant drip of new things made it always feel like I had at least one new way to freshen up my next run.
You can even modify cards in really unique ways. In one run, I created a Whip that cost -1 mana, meaning I had a lower floor to start combos on, and I got 1 mana just for playing it. Oh, and it stole money from every foe it killed.
However, under the weight of all this content and depth, some cracks start to show. I had a frequent visual bug where, despite all enemies being defeated, one or two remain on screen. It was easy to move past in the dungeon, but could make things a little confusing for a moment.
The worst bug I faced was after defeating a boss encounter, but the encounter didn’t end. I had to use a technique to summon another enemy just to defeat it and end the encounter; if I didn’t have the means to do that, I would have had to reset the run (which was going really well!). I’m not sure if these issues are Switch 2-specific (I played the Switch 1 version on a Switch 2, although Poncle has since revealed a native Switch 2 version), but I’m crossing my fingers they’re eventually fixed regardless.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)
Speaking of Switch 2-specific, Vampire Crawlers really sings, especially in handheld mode. With how busy the screen can get with various effects and how crowded your hand can get, the touchscreen is a godsend. You can tap pretty much everything on the screen to see what is going on with it, and get definitions for certain stats. The cards in your hand can also be rearranged using this which feels great. It’s a dream “I have a half-hour lunch break to play a run” roguelite.
Conclusion
If you’re going to create a deckbuilder out of Vampire Survivors, I think Vampire Crawlers is pretty much exactly the result you’d hope for – minus some bugs. It combines all of the weapons and power-ups from the first game with clever fusions and twists on traditional deckbuilding tentpoles.
Even things that are annoying — not being able to check your deck when selecting an upgrade and hard to track damage numbers — feel like quirks of the franchise. It scratches my brain in a familiar way, and the euphoric feeling of creating a broken build still feels great.
Though many folks loved Bayonetta 3 (we awarded it a 10/10 upon release), many fans have understandable concerns regarding the game’s multiverse setting and the events of its ending. Spoiler alert right from the start with this one, we’ll be diving into some pretty hefty stuff here.
So to explain further, Bayonetta 3 included a multiverse narrative in which our heroine was simply one of many Bayonettas, each of which found herself in grave peril. This in itself felt like a pretty drastic departure from the narratives of the first two games, but according to creator Hideki Kamiya in his latest book The World of Hideki Kamiya (thanks, Nintendo Everything), he actually dropped hints long before Bayonetta 3.
“We often hear that said, but actually the existence of a multiverse was depicted from the first Bayonetta. Since it was displayed in a low-key way perhaps it didn’t fully convey the idea.
“So in Bayonetta there is a scene directly after you battle Balder right? In that, you rescue Cereza, a young child who had been absorbed into Balder’s body, and then send Cereza to the past, and it’s here that the timeline splits.
“After sending Cereza to the past, there is a scene where Bayonetta returns to the present and approaches Luka, and the background is doubled-up and blurred. That is a depiction of the real universe and another, diverged universe layering over each other. It’s a display of two worlds existing in parallel.”
He goes on to encourage those who believe that the multiverse idea came out of nowhere to go back and play the first two games, though he also concedes that “the explanations were not sufficient”.
Moving onto the ending of the game, in which many had assumed concluded with the death of Bayonetta and the introduction of Viola as the new main protagonist, Kamiya also states that hints are dropped to imply that Bayonetta is actually alive and well.
“But in Bayonetta 3, some amongst the players imagined the situation quite negatively, and just accepted that ‘Bayonetta is dead.’ That was a big miscalculation on my part, and I understood the difficulty of thinking about how much space players should have left open for interpretation.
“To say it clearly, the ending of Bayonetta 3 does imply that Bayonetta is still alive. There’s a menu where you choose your destination with a dart, that is a bit like Viola’s room right? As you clear stages, things you gathered during Viola’s journey such as photographs and keepsakes start getting added there too. After clearing the final chapter in the menu there will be a single new photo of Viola added, and in that photo you can clearly see Luka from behind. If Luka is there in this world, perhaps somewhere Bayonetta is too…”
We’re not entirely convinced these explanations will be sufficient for some fans, but it does all make sense, at least. However, we sincerely doubt we’ll see anything from the Bayonetta franchise anytime soon now that Kamiya has left PlatinumGames. The company still exists, to be sure, but a lot of the core creators have now moved on.
Kamiya is currently hard at work with his new studio Clovers on a direct sequel to the acclaimed adventure Okami, though its release window and target platforms are currently unknown.
Do you think Kamiya’s explanations are sufficient here? Share your thoughts with a comment in the usual place.
