The Treehouse is set to kick off shortly, promising 80 minutes of gameplay between the two titles. Remember, both Mario Wonder and Pokopia have already received overview trailers of their own, so we expect today’s presentation to be more about the vibe of playing, hopefully giving us an even closer look at what’s in store.
Here’s the exact time that the presentation will get underway in your region:
North America: 2pm PST / 3pm MST / 4pm CST / 5pm EST
The full Treehouse event is being livestreamed on YouTube, but if you want to chat along with your fellow Nintendo Lifers while you watch, then we’ve got you covered with the stream below.
So, grab 80 minutes’ worth of snacks and drinks, and let’s get ready for some gameplay!
The legends of Caves of Qud stretch back into the ancient times, through mists of lore, to a moment of destiny. That’s right – all the way back to 2007, when American team Freehold Games began development on this ambitious roguelike RPG. After a 17-year journey to version 1.0 in 2024, gathering a devoted PC following, this intimidating, systems-heavy cult classic has rolled a new character on Switch.
The game is set in the post-apocalyptic, science-fantasy land of Qud. It’s populated by factions with either allegiances or animosities, ridden with organisms that either tolerate or seek to devour you, and driven by either rich spirituality or advanced technology. The either/ors are key, because whenever you start a run in Qud, it recalculates the decisions that set the whole scenario going. Your quest, as a new adventurer, is simply to get out there and survive in an exceptionally vivid open world.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)
Before setting out, you must choose between two genotypes: mutated humans and true kin. Mutants possess biological traits like a beak or slime glands, while true kin are humans enhanced by cybernetics like night vision or dermal insulation. Mutants are more fleshy and vulnerable at first, with a latent power ready to explode outwards as they level up; the true kin start tough and precise from the early game, but feel more and more dependent on technology as the levels climb. The two options are distinctive and fun.
At this point, though, we need a reality check. “Yes,” you say, “I’ve read that there are three-armed mutants and winged cyborgs and a stunning open world – but I’ve also seen the screenshots! Aren’t we getting a little carried away?”
It’s true that this harks back to an era of astonishingly over-imaginative cover art and flickery ASCII graphics, but the effort to see the wonder in Caves of Qud is only needed for a few minutes. Barely has its stingy tutorial dropped you in at the (very) deep end when the efficient visual style and humour-lined, Hugo-Award-winning scenario reach out and grip you. The pixelated rectangular tiles that sometimes look like they could be ASCII writhe into life as robots and mysterious creatures. The sweeping music and ambient soundscape rouse into epic scores with triumphant melodies and the bustle of thriving towns.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)
And once you’ve leapt into the world of Qud, what happens? Well, anything, really. You’re free to play as you like, just aiming to survive and become part of its procedurally generated history.
You won’t survive, though. My first achievement was collected by dying. It’s simply called “Welcome to Qud”. And this being a true roguelike, when you see “You died”, that’s your lot. No save points; no meta-progression: back to square one. It’s sad when your level-10 mutant croaks it after several hours’ play, but it’s also just part of their story. Qud is about making stories, and in that regard, it’s excellent.
However, there’s more to Caves of Qud than just regenerated lore and maps. A human spine of authored content runs through the cybernetic flavour text from the algorithms.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)
Firstly, the basic topography of the world map is unchanging. This gives the sense of new progress made each time you restart – it’s the same world, so how long can this character live in it?
Secondly, there is a quest line that’s completely authored. This epic takes you through caves, markets, and townships, hunting artefacts and running rescue missions for droids.
Or does it? Given how much danger is out there in Qud, trying to follow a plot amidst it all is hard work. It’s one thing to lose a dozen hours’ playtime when it’s a throwaway run of survive-until-you-don’t. It’s another to say goodbye to this week’s questing, knowing you’ll need to replay from the start. There’s also a massive difficulty spike – an evil trap from the developers, you might even say – designed, surely, to kick your character’s bucket just as you feel you’ve surmounted the early game.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)
There’s a grossly unfair dungeon, and given the roguelike rules, you’d better be in the mood to laugh it off and go again. (If you’re like me, you’ll fall for it repeatedly, finally clear it, after many hours, only to discover your character’s tongue has rotted and they cannot talk.)
On the other hand, the ingenious and fan-favourite edge cases of the deep system interactions — melting through walls, falling in love with inanimate objects, becoming formerly inanimate objects — are unlikely to come about without being forced into the dire straits of desperately keeping a run going.
There are additional play modes to address this. Besides “Classic”, there’s “RPG”, which lets you save your game at settlements – not ideal as these are infrequent stops on your quest. Rounding it out is “Wander”, which means most creatures won’t attack you and you gain experience through discovery, not combat.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)
This is a real tension at the core of Caves of Qud: without the authored content, it would lose the wonder of uncovering a story, but without the roguelike rules, the elaborate mechanics don’t get a chance to play out. None of the available game modes really squares that circle.
However you look at it, though, Qud is massive. The map is expansive, the systems are ornate, and the lore is compelling even before all the generated embellishments. But the interface is small. Text can be enlarged only at the expense of the play area, which itself is most effective when zoomed in. I found a playable balance, but you’ll want to consider your setup: a bigger-screened handheld, a big TV, or a monitor-on-desk scenario would probably be best – the vestiges of Qud’s PC past are clear to see.
The control scheme, meanwhile, is clever – clicking or holding ‘ZR’ to pass turns becomes the main interaction and it’s satisfying. Given all the behind-the-scenes number-crunching that makes the systems run, load times can drag slightly, and occasionally this translates to sluggish movement as the game gets ready for your next turn, which is usually instantly available.
Conclusion
Caves of Qud has a devoted following for good reason. Its world is vivid despite its graphical style — the wonderful music helping out — and its rapid turn-based gameplay is addictive. The hardcore roguelike approach is brutal but makes each run special. This is at odds with the main thread of an RPG quest, which demands that every run is aimed at the same goal. However, that tension provides an energy that’s hard to resist. It’s compressed a little uneasily onto Switch, but can be made to work.
Maybe not legendary status on Switch, then, but a tale worth passing down to another generation of console players.
Bethesda has released a new launch trailer for Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition on Switch 2, celebrating the release of what might be the ultimate version of the post-apocalyptic RPG.
It gives us a proper good look at some of the characters and locations you’ll see on your journey through The Wasteland, and while the recent announcement trailer admittedly did little to excite us, this one is pretty darn cool.
The Anniversary Edition contains the main game itself along with six official expansions, including Far Harbor, Automatron, Nuka-World, and more. There are also over 150 Club Creation items included in the bundle, so plenty to tinker around with.
We’ll have our own review of the game soon, so if you’re waiting to see how it holds up on Nintendo’s console, then we’ll have all the answers for you. And after what happened with Skyrim on Switch 2, you never know what to expect, hm?
Are you keen to check out Fallout 4 on the Switch 2? Let us know your thoughts with a comment.
Super Evil Megacorp has continued to support its Hades-inspired roguelike, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate, ever since it first arrived on Switch back in 2024. We’ve already seen new fighters and game modes get in on the action since launch, and today, the team has revealed that it has even more in store for 2026.
Splintered Fate’s first DLC of the year is out right now, adding the assassin mutant fox, Alopex, as a playable character. This newbie looks like a pretty nimble fighter, packing a punch at close range with her kama main weapon and dealing explosive damage with throwable kunai.
The paid DLC also includes five new artifacts, letting you add extra modifiers to your runs. Here’s a list of each of them, and a brief description of what they’re all about:
Polar Bear Netsuke– Every 10 seconds, Final Strike will throw out a line of flames. Cooldown is halved under half health.
The Maltese Hamster – Your Tool charges slower, but deals extra Damage.
Channel Six Mini Camera – Your Special charges slower, but deals extra damage.
Hot Cocoa (with Marshmallows) – You have -1 dash. When you dash, gain a burst of movement speed.
Buddy the Wraith – You have an allied Utrom Wraith, which levels up and evolves over a run
It’s not all paid extras, mind you. The dev has also released a free update today, which adds four challenging new ‘Pepper Runs’ to Arcade Mode, a Ninja Ranks prestige system, new combat rooms in the main campaign’s Sewers, Docks, Streets, and Rooftops locales, and a slew of balancing tweaks.
It all adds to a game which, while perfectly fun at launch, always felt like it was sitting in Hades’ shadow. “Despite the power of the IP and a co-op addition,” we said in our review, “it doesn’t pack enough of a punch to avoid unfavourable comparisons to Supergiant’s classic and constantly feels like it’s on the back foot because of it”.
Will you be checking out this Splintered Fate DLC? Let us know in the comments.
With all of Nintendo’s surprise announcements in recent weeks, there’s every chance that you missed the start of Fangamer’s Carnival Sale. Well, have no fear, because we were delighted to spot this morning that we still have almost a whole week to make the most of the sweet discounts.
The sale is now live on the Fangamer EU site, where it will be sticking around until 2nd March at 5pm GMT / 6pm CET. There’s a decent spread of items up for grabs, too, with everything from t-shirts to pins, vinyl to plushies, getting in on the price cut.
While the sale is by no means exclusive to Nintendo-relevant titles, you’ll find tie-in products for a whole bunch of games that we’ve enjoyed on Switch and other systems from the House of Mario. We’re talking Balatro, Ace Attorney, Citizen Sleeper 2, Outer Wilds, Stardew Valley, Tunic, Undertale… need we go on? If the idea of a Banjo-Kazooievinyl soundtrack box set with a 31% discount gets you as excited as some of us here at Nintendo Life Towers, then you know what to do.
Here’s a closer look at some of the sale items that we’re particularly keen on:
Be sure to head over to Fangamer EU to see the full Carnival Sale lineup.
Will you be picking anything up in this sale? Let us know in the comments.
Nintendo has released a new Creator’s Voice video, this time focused on Koshi Nakanishi, the director of Resident Evil Requiem.
With the game launching later this week on 27th February 2026, the video focuses on providing an introduction to the story along with the wider franchise itself. It also goes into how easy it was to develop Requiem for the Switch 2, with Nakanishi-san promoting features like GameChat for those who might be a bit too scared to play on their own.
Here’s what he had to say:
“Nintendo Switch 2 has improved graphical specs, so we wondered if Requiem could run on it – and it did, with ease. When we, the development team, first saw it in our hands, we were sceptical too, so we had to do a triple take. We thought to ourselves ‘Oh, this is really running on Nintendo Switch 2?. It all worked so smoothly that we just decided to go ahead with the game as-is and make it for the console. With specs like these in handheld mode, it looks great.
“With Nintendo Switch 2, you also have GameChat. That’s perfect for horror games. Even players who think they can’t play alone can have fun together just by inviting friends to watch. So I feel like GameChat was made just for Resident Evil.”
Nakanishi-san also mentions that Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is one of his preferred games in the Zelda series. When he directed Resident Evil Revelations for the 3DS, he designed the Scarmiglione enemies to act in a similar manner to the armoured soldiers in Zelda II, raising their shields up and down to protect themselves.
Spoilers for Resident Evil Requiem are making the rounds online, so be extra careful in these final days leading up to release. Capcom has pleaded with fans not to share any leaks, while original Resident Evil 2 creator Hideki Kamiya has also provided his own opinion on the matter.
Will you be picking up Resident Evil Requiem later this week? What do you make of Nintendo’s latest Creator’s Voice video? Let us know with a comment.
It’s a busy week in the world of Pokémon, with the franchise’s 30th anniversary fast approaching and the 10th anniversary of Pokémon GO coming up in July. Yes, it’s been nearly a decade since we began scouring the great outdoors for Pocket Monsters, wandering head-down into restricted areas, and giving ourselves Poké Ball-based RSIs. Blimey!
10 years on and it’s still GO-ing strong (apologies), with community events and so much weekly news that it can be difficult to keep track. Which is where One More Catch comes in.
Helmed by veteran games journalist and writer Matthew Reynolds — whose work you probably know from such places as Polygon, Eurogamer, and hundreds of PGO guides over the years — this venture takes the form of a website and newsletter seeking to evolve traditional coverage around the game while expanding into the wider world of Pokémon as Gen 10 approaches.
“These are all things I’ve wanted to pursue for years,” Matt writes in a welcome post, “but never could quite find the time while working for large sites with wider remits.”
Here’s how he sets the table for this new endeavour beyond PGO:
One More Catch will also cover the next generation of Pokémon games. How will competitive play change with the launch of Pokémon Champions? In what ways will the new mainline games — tipped to be announced on Pokémon Day — change the franchise? And what actually is Pokémon Pokopia? I’d also like to look at the wider world of creature collecting games and AR releases that regularly surround Pokémon’s orbit when I can find the time, including writing about my beloved Monster Hunter Now.
There will be a mixture of features, guides, and analysis, and the newsletter will go out every Monday. If you’re a GO player or you’re interested in something a little different that distils the vital info without the noise of the modern net, consider heading over to the site. It has all your usual subscription tiers available (there’s a 10% discount across all tiers until 9th March), as well as the free newsletter tier that’s just a sign-up away. Or there’s just a good old-fashioned website if that’s what you’re after.
Oh, and if you’re wondering, no, we’re not involved in this in any way. But Matt’s good people, and One More Catch is looking great. If you’re into Pokémon, give it a look.
Rayman was Ubisoft’s first major commercial success, the company going public a year after its release in 1996. A PlayStation launch title, it was originally conceived for the unreleased Super Nintendo CD-ROM before being developed for Atari’s Jaguar. A fantasy platform game that pops with oil paint colour, its stages encompass themes like the musical Band Land and sugar-laden Candy Chateau.
Rayman, a limbless, affable character, seeks to save the land from Mr Dark, a nefarious sorcerer. To do this, you must free six caged Electoons on each of its 17 stages set across six different worlds. As you earn new powers of combat and scenery traversal, backtracking is necessary to find cages previously out of reach. It’s a simple platform game, but one graced with charm and affection.
Despite the number of Rayman games and spin-offs released, this collection focuses only on the initial game. It includes the PlayStation original, the Atari Jaguar release, those for the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance, and the MS-DOS PC version. The Sega Saturn release isn’t present. While the PlayStation and Jaguar games are largely the same, the Jaguar lacks FMV, doesn’t look or sound as good, and nerfs the ice physics – but has an Arkanoid-style minigame included. Originally, it benefited from no loading times over the PlayStation, but that’s moot here.
While Rayman still looks good, its platform collision needs learning and its impressive animation means it takes a couple of seconds to duck and perform other actions. There are also many leaps of faith involved. The Game Boy Color version is the only other game in the collection that’s totally original, and is surprisingly good despite shorter stages. The Game Boy Advance version is cropped in, but like the Game Boy Color is a little cleaner to navigate thanks to fewer animation frames. For some reason, this version suffers frame-rate issues, however.
The MS-DOS release and its add-ons are of most interest, featuring 24 additional stages designed for expert players, 40 stages designed by fans, and another 60 levels designed by Ubisoft. Elsewhere is a single-stage 1992 prototype of the Rayman’s original Super Nintendo build. There’s almost nothing to see or do and it’s over in seconds, but it’s interesting to see the game’s origin.
The package includes screen filters, cheats for every game, save states, and a rewind function. Like all Digital Eclipse releases, the History section is superb, charting every beat of its development and featuring over an hour of documentary footage.
If you’re a super fan of the original game and want every possible version of it, the package totally delivers. But considering how many Rayman games there were, including its sequels and spin-offs, it would have been nice to at least have had Rayman 2 included. The elephant in the room, however, is the absence of the original soundtracks. They have been remixed or replaced across the board with a nice composition by Rayman Origins and Legends composer Christophe Héral, likely due to Ubisoft not fully owning the rights to the original audio.
Despite being announced for Switch back in 2024 and even being given an “early 2026” release window last year, Amazon Games and Glowmade have today announced that the party platformer King of Meat will be shutting up shop before it could make the jump to Nintendo systems.
While the game has now been removed from all storefronts to prevent any new purchases, the King of Meat servers will be sticking around on all currently available platforms (Steam, Xbox Series and PS5) until 9th April, so those with the game already downloaded still have a few weeks to make the most.
Between now and the server’s close date, all those who purchased the game are entitled to a full refund.
“Despite the creativity and innovation Glowmade brought to King of Meat, the game has unfortunately not found the audience we hoped for,” a new message on the King of Meat website reads. “As a result, we have made the difficult decision to conclude our investment in the game, and King of Meat’s servers will close on April 9, 2026. Players will be able to access and play all existing content until then, so we encourage you to enjoy your remaining time in the game with your fellow Contenders.”
After clarifying refund availability, the message concludes with the following thank-you note:
We want to sincerely thank every player who supported King of Meat and the wonderful community that formed around it. Your enthusiasm, imagination, and feedback have meant the world to us and to the team at Glowmade. We’re grateful for Glowmade’ s partnership and passion throughout this journey and wish them continued success in the future.
Live service closures have come thick and fast in recent years, but it’s still a shame that we never got to see this one materialise on Switch, especially after it cropped up in the March 2025 Nintendo Direct. Here’s hoping that Glowmade’s next project has the legs to last a little longer.
Did you ever check out KoM on other platforms? Were you hoping to see it materialise on Switch? Let us know in the comments.
The annual Pokémon Day Presents showcase is rolling around once again this year, though there’s a big birthday to celebrate this time as the series turns 30.
Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen have already been revealed for Switch, but there’s every chance that this year’s event still has a surprise or two in store — and with 30 years of series history at its disposal, TPC has more than enough nostalgia to pull from.
In this guide, we’ll run down everything you need to know about the February 2026 Pokémon Presents, including when it begins, how you can watch it, and what we expect to see.
What time is the Pokémon Presents February 2026?
The first Pokémon Presents of the year will take place on 27th February 2026, with the main show kicking off at 2pm UTC.
Here is the precise time that the Presents will start in your timezone:
North America: 6am PST / 7am MST / 8am CST / 9am EST
UK/Ire: 2pm GMT
Europe: 3pm CET / 4pm EET
Asia/Oceania: 11pm JST / 10pm AWST / 1am (Fri) AEDT
Where can I watch the Pokémon Presents February 2026?
Image: The Pokémon Company
You’ll be able to watch the February 2026 Pokémon Presents via a whole host of streaming options. The entire event will be streamed on The Pokémon Company’s official YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok accounts, with regular updates shared to TPC Instagram.
Of course, you can also watch along here on Nintendo Life. We’ll be sharing our usual livestream post before the event kicks off, so you can pop in for some pre-show chat.
How long will the Pokémon Presents be?
This year’s February Pokémon Presents will run for 25 minutes.
As pointed out by Serebii‘s Joe Merrick, this actually puts the showcase on the longer side when compared to previous year’s Pokémon Day presentations, tied only with the 2023 event for the longest runtime yet.
What will be announced in the Pokémon Presents February 2026?
Well, your guess is as good as ours!
As we noted at the top of this guide, The Pokémon Company lifted the lid on FireRed and LeafGreen a week in advance of the event, but we’re not ruling out more news about beloved series classics.
Whatever happens, you can guarantee that a good section of the show will be dedicated to the series’ mobile apps, competitive scene and trading card game, and we’re keeping our fingers crossed for some Gen 10 info, too.
You’ll find a more detailed rundown of our predictions in the feature below.
Will you be watching the Feb 2026 Pokémon Presents? What do you hope to see? Let us know in the comments.
