The latest Nintendo Download update for North America has arrived, and it’s bringing new games galore to the eShop in your region. As always, be sure to drop a vote in our poll and comment down below with your potential picks for the week. Enjoy!

Switch eShop – Highlights

Pikmin 3 Deluxe (Nintendo, 30th Oct, $59.99) – Command a capable crop of Pikmin to strategically overcome puzzles, defeat creatures and find food for your home planet! Bring a second player along for co-op to divvy up tasks as you explore a world that seems larger than life from a pint-sized perspective. This deluxe version of Pikmin 3 includes new side-story missions featuring Olimar and Louie, additional difficulty options and all the DLC stages from the original release. Read our Pikmin 3 Deluxe review.

Part Time UFO (Nintendo, 28th Oct, $8.99) – From HAL Laboratory, the developers of the Kirby series, comes Part Time UFO, a colorful game in which you take on the role of an adorable (and helpful!) UFO. From dishing up sweets, to fishing, and building a castle, the little UFO will perform all sorts of part-time jobs. By passing a Joy-Con controller to a friend or family member, two people can perform jobs together!

Control Ultimate Edition – Cloud Version (505 Games, 28th Oct, $39.99 for Access Pass following initial download) – Winner of more than 80 awards, Control is a visually stunning third-person action-adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Blending open-ended environments with the signature world-building and storytelling of developer Remedy Entertainment, Control presents an expansive and intensely gratifying gameplay experience.

No More Heroes (Marvelous, 28th Oct, $19.99) – After being ranked #11 in the United Assassins Association, Travis Touchdown puts his trusty beam katana to the test as he faces off against the world’s top 10 assassins in deadly battle. Burn rubber through the coastal city of Santa Destroy on Travis’ motorbike and fight your way to the top in the HD remaster of this out-of-control action game. This all-American otaku won’t stop until he’s the number one assassin, baby!

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle (Marvelous, 28th Oct, $19.99) – Continue the fight in this HD remaster of the sequel to the original assassin action game! Three years after Travis Touchdown was ranked number one by the United Assassins Association, he finds himself falling down the ranks to #51. To make things worse, another assassin – Skelter Helter – swears revenge against Travis for the death of his brother. Fueled by his own desires and a thirst for vengeance, the ultimate otaku assassin unsheathes his beam katana once again and plunges headfirst into another series of battles!

Jurassic World Evolution: Complete Edition (Frontier Developments, 3rd Nov, $59.99) – Build your own Jurassic World for the first time, or relive the adventure on the go with Jurassic World Evolution: Complete Edition. Take charge of operations on the legendary islands of the Cinco Muertes Archipelago, and bring the wonder, majesty and danger of dinosaurs to life. Control the big picture with deep management tools, or go hands-on to confront challenges on the ground or in the air. Embark on a journey with captivating stories, challenging missions and remarkable dinosaurs. Jurassic World Evolution: Complete Edition will be available on Nov. 3.

Bakugan: Champions of Vestroia (Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, 3rd Nov, $49.99) – Experience an action-RPG with an original story that expands on the hit TV series and brings the Bakugan universe to Nintendo Switch for the first time. The adventure takes players on the ultimate Bakugan journey as they befriend powerful creatures, customize Bakugan teams for fiercely strategic battles and master their skills to become the Champion of Vestroia. Bakugan: Champions of Vestroia will be available on Nov. 3.

Switch eShop – New Releases

#Halloween, Super Puzzles Dream (Jorge Biedma Azuar, 29th Oct, $5.99) – #Halloween! is the hashtag for the most terrifying topic! Puzzles move onto the next level with ‘Super Puzzle Dream’, a mix between classic jigsaw and a ‘Tetris’-style dynamic mechanic. Two levels of play, ‘senior’ (for adults) and ‘junior’ (for children aged 3+), guarantee hours of entertainment for all. Become an expert and finish the puzzles in the shortest possible time and you will find yourself amongst the best in the world on the online leaderboard.

Angry Video Game Nerd 1 & 2 Deluxe (Screenwave Media, 30th Oct, $14.99) – The Angry Video Game Nerd has been sucked into Game Land! It’s up to you to guide him through three terrible and treacherous retro game worlds! Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures and Angry Video Game Nerd II: Assimilation come together for the ultimate Nerd experience! This is the definitive way to play the series… and more!

Arcade Archives SOCCER (HAMSTER, 23rd Oct, $7.99) – “SOCCER” is a sports game released by Nintendo in 1985. Play matches against the CPU in single player mode or another player in 2-player mode. Try polishing your skills in single player, then take on friends and family! Enjoy simple, but exciting gameplay in the father of all soccer games!

Barbearian (Kimmo Factor, 29th Oct, $11.99) – Hijacked to a to strange world. Forced to fight for your life. Discover the secrets of the Arbitrators and find your way back home! Barbearian is a fast-paced hack’n’slash with massive battles in a colorful, hand-drawn world.

Boss Rush: Mythology (Ultimate Games, 31st Oct, $8.99) – In Boss Rush: Mythology you take on the role of a mysterious knight who travels across different worlds in search of the most difficult opponents. Players will fight with unique bosses one after another. Seal them all. Each boss has different attack paterns, unique skills and various powers!

CASE 2: Animatronics Survival (OOO Valnat, 30th Oct, $29.99) – Two years before the attack on the police station, there was a terrible tragedy in the city, which led to the closure of the amusement park. Some believe it was an accident – others, that it was a well-planned act of intimidation. Leaflets about missing people filled the city streets. You play as Jack. He is a man who has lost everything.

Clea (Sekai Games, 30th Oct, $14.99) – Mum and Dad have been experimenting on Chaos Servants, but now, the monsters have been let loose. Clea, with her brother in tow, must escape from the Whitlock Mansion. Watch your back, Clea. Those closest to you may be the real terror. Outwit the Chaos Servants: The Chaos Servants are on the hunt. Listen for their footsteps, peek under doors, and stay far, far away.

Crimzon Clover – World EXplosion (DEGICA, 29th Oct, $19.99) – From Japanese indie developers YOTSUBANE and AdventurePlanningService, this unique top-down shooter is a wild ride you won’t want to miss out on. Your first step in Crimzon Clover: World EXplosion is choosing how you want to play, as well as which powerful ship will be yours to command.

De: Yabatanien (DICO, 29th Oct, $13.99) – [Warning: This game contains scenes that may be disturbing to players. Player discretion is advised.] Try to rescue the girls trapped inside the mansion by solving puzzles and uncovering secrets. But remember, one wrong step, and it might cost their lives. It won’t be easy to rescue them all. De: Yabatanien contains two chapters, with over 100 rooms to explore, and multiple endings waiting for you to discover the truth behind all these horrifying traps.

Demong Hunter (TROOOZE, 29th Oct, $7.99) – Demong Hunter is the story of a Hunter trying to Regain Peace by defeating the bug ‘Demong’created by the whole brain in the virtual world. Enjoy the Battle with Different Special Skills and Unique Attack Style for each Character. Enjoy Fantasy RPG elements by Collecting Gold to increase your Stats And Defeating the Boss to Collect Artifacts for Special Effects.

Detective Puz (Ultimate Games, 29th Oct, $5.99) – Detective Puz started a long journey to find the truth. In the way of finding clues, he found a strange book and after opening it, he entered the past, and now he should find his way in the middle of enemies that captured in.

Diamond Girl ★An Earnest Education in Love★ (OperaHouse, 29th Oct, $19.99) – Proper ladies can do whatever they want! You are a so-called “love-allergic” girl who spends her time at home in a track suit. You luckily get a job at the famous Misono Trading Company, but it is discovered that you are actually the heiress to the parent company’s Misono family!? You move into a mansion in order to learn how to be a proper lady…

Family Mysteries 2: Echoes of Tomorrow (Artifex Mundi, 30th Oct, $14.99) – Framed scientist travels through time to save his beloved wife and reveal kidnapper’s identity. Find hidden objects in the post-apocalyptic world, solve cyberpunk puzzles and embrace the future full of adventures! Get ready for thrilling sci-fi adventure in the big city, which offers riveting and refreshing approach to the hidden object puzzle adventure genre.

Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator (31st Oct, $7.99) – What starts out as a simple pizza tossing fun turns into something much, much more. Push through the glitchy arcade game to reveal that you are at your own Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria!

Gunslugs (Orange Pixel, 3rd Nov, $7.99) – Evil army? check! Explosions, chaos, and screen-shakes? check! A group of familiar looking heroes? check! Welcome to Gunslugs! Fight the evil Black Duck army as they try to take over the planet using their technology and a huge collection of foot-soldiers. You’ll get to fight on plane yards, jungles, Arctica, Egypt and finally the gates of Hell.

Haunted: Poppy’s Nightmare (30th Oct, $4.99) – I am Poppy – and this is my first Halloween… my parents and I moved into our new home a few weeks ago. Now I can finally celebrate my first Halloween here. I’m so excited!. Mommy has already got me a new witch costume. Hahahaha

Hunting Simulator 2 (Nacon, 3rd Nov, $39.99) – It’s open season! In stunning natural environments, choose your gear from the best official weapons and accessories and set off with your dog in search of a variety of animal species in this hunting simulation. Explore the plains of Colorado, the Texan desert and the forests of Europe in vast open worlds.

Legends of Ethernal (Natsume, 30th Oct, $19.99) – On a day like any other, a young boy returns home to find it in ruins and his parents, gone. Armed with courage and driven by the pain of his loss, he sets out on a journey to uncover the truth behind his family’s disappearance… But what he discovers will forever change the World of Arkanys…

Mad Rat Dead (NIS America, 30th Oct, $39.99) – A rat’s dream has been left unfulfilled before his death. . . that is, until he gets a second chance at life! Granted the opportunity to redo his last day on Earth, you must utilize the rat’s newfound power to pump his heart in time with the music, lest his own time runs out. You’ve got one day to live and a huge score to settle. Time to put the “beat” in beatdown! Jump, dash, and smash to the rhythm in this music-based action platformer!

My Universe – School Teacher (Microids, 3rd Nov, $29.99) – Play as a young teacher with a mission: bringing your new school back to the top! Motivate your pupils, improve their results and organize school contests and festivals. Become a model teacher as you take care of more difficult classes, win prizes and complete the director’s objectives, unlocking new items along the way.

Pixel Puzzle Makeout League (Skymap Games, 30th Oct, $14.99) – You are Pixel Girl, a superhero with the power of “pixel puzzle-solving. ” Turn your problems into nonograms, then solve ’em to save the day! Join the Puzzle League and date up to four of your fellow puzzle-themed superheroes, before the Villain third-wheels you with his doomsday plot!

Red Rope: Don’t Fall Behind + (Belka, 6th Nov, $12.99) – Red Rope: Don’t Fall Behind is an arduous challenge, a cathartic ritual that only the most valiant players will be able to carry out, be they fearless lonely travellers or couples with a strong elective affinity.

Slither Loop (Hook Games, 30th Oct, $4.99) – Slither Loop – draw lines between the dots to form a single loop without crossings or branches. The numbers indicate how many lines surround it. – 90 challenging puzzles, Easy/Medium/Hard difficulties – Beautiful abstract artstyle – Chill background music

Super Puzzle Pack (Mindscape, 29th Oct, $29.99) – Super Puzzle Pack brings together hundreds of unique puzzles played across 4 different puzzle types. Play with up to 4 players for hours of Jigsaw Fun. Enjoy two stunning hand-drawn match-3 games in a solo adventure.

TAURONOS (Restless Corp, 3rd Nov, $6.99) – Trapped inside an ancient labyrinth, chased by the mythical Minotaur. Will you reach the center? And if so, what will you discover about yourself there, in the dark? There is but one enemy. . . But it is the unbeatable Minotaur. Only by exploring the maze of the Labyrinth can you hope to discover how to defeat this immortal monster.

The Knight Of Queen (VR RPG, 29th Oct, $4.99) – Dive into the world of an old-school RPG in VR !! Become the Hero of his majesty the Queen, by exploring the world to defeat the vicious Devil King !!

The Language Of Love (Ratalaika Games, 30th Oct, $11.99) – Mitsuki moves from the country to Tokyo to attend a rigorous cram school, with the hopes of passing his university entrance exams next spring. He soon finds, however, that his other classmates treat him like a social outcast, being the oldest at his school by far.

The Long Return (Ultimate Games, 31st Oct, $0.00) – The Long Return is a casual third-person puzzle adventure game telling the story of an orphaned cub that retraces his steps from the last journey he took with his mother. Along the way you will be challenged by fun and unique puzzles, explore beautiful scenery full of life and relive past memories of your mother.

Touhou spell bubble (Taito, Today, $54.99)– A fusion of rhythm and puzzle in a simple to pick up action puzzle game! 20 characters and 48 arranged tracks from Touhou to do battle with!

Umihara Kawase BaZooKa! (ININ Games, 30th Oct, $29.99) – Umihara Kawase BaZooKa! is a fast-paced action game where the players goal is to clear the screen of enemies by performing skillful combos with their Bazooka and an extraordinary fishing rod. Choose your fighter out of 22 iconic characters and complete the Challenge Mode with 40 stages! Read our Umihara Kawase BaZooKa! review

Wallachia: Reign of Dracula (PixelHeart, 29th Oct, $14.99) – Fast-paced! Non-stop action! Retro-style! A platform game inspired by great video game classics (Castlevania). Full of shooting and deadly traps that will quench your thirst for blood.

War Titans (SC Ovilex Soft, 24th Oct, $14.99) – In a hundred-year long battle with the alien hordes the humans finally have a game changing weapon system at their disposal: the War Titans. These are some extraordinary battle machines that transform in order to be more effective against the enemy. Each War Titan comes as a combination of a mechanized war robot and an armored vehicle, and they each serve different roles on the battlefield.

Wonder Blade (East2west Games, 29th Oct, $14.99) – Oh my god! The princess was captured by villainous maniac again! What are you waiting for? Grab your weapon and free the princess, save the world! You really do not know what’s waiting for you! With all those sweet combos, killer finishing moves and devastating magic abilities the bad guys won’t know what hit them.

Yuppie Psycho: Executive Edition (Another Indie Studio, 29th Oct, $16.66) – Join Brian Pasternack, a young man with no future in a dystopian 90s society, on his first day at one of the world’s largest companies, Sintracorp. Uncertain, unprepared, and massively unqualified, will Pasternack have what it takes to shine in Sintracorp’s hierarchy? It all depends on how he performs on his first assignment… and whether he survives it.

Zombie Hill Race (Cool Small Games, 23rd Oct, $9.99) – The apocalypse has come! Zombies roam the country and escape is almost impossible!

So that’s your lot for this week’s North American Nintendo Download. Go on, be a sport and drop a vote in the poll above, and comment below with your hot picks!

The Machinery by Our Machinery is an in development professional game engine that just entered open beta. We went hands-on with The Machinery earlier in the year when it was still in closed beta if you want an in-depth but slightly out of date hands-on experience. With the move to open beta all you need to do is register an account and download the engine to get started.

In a world dominated with game engines, what makes The Machinery unique? This engine is being developed by members behind the Stingray/BitSquid engines, used in such titles as Magicka and Warhammer Vermintide. The engine is light weight, modular and written in the C language with a focus on customizibility. Details from the open beta announcement:

If you are still wondering what The Machinery is, it’s a new lightweight and flexible game engine, designed to give you all the power of a modern engine in a minimalistic package that is easy to understand, extend, explore, rewrite, and hack. Beyond games, the API can also be used for simulations and visualizations as well as building custom tools, editors, and applications.

 Some of the things that make The Machinery more hackable than other game engines are:

• The Machinery’s API is written in C. It’s easy to understand without learning the complexities of modern C++. And don’t worry, you still have type-safe vectors and hash tables, just as in C++.
• We use a modular design that is completely plugin-based. This makes it easy to extend and replace parts of the engine.
• The engine can be stripped down to a minimalistic core. Don’t need physics, animation, or sound? Just ship the engine without those DLLs.
• Individual DLLs can be hot-reloaded. You can modify gameplay, UI, etc, while the editor is running.
• The codebase is small, readable and well documented.
• We offer licenses with full source code for both small and large developers.

You can learn more about The Machinery open beta and a quick hands-on/getting started guide in the video below.

Analysts tracking the air quality in China believe that a recent drop may point to a surge in industrial activity related to iPhone 12 production.

© Remedy

Say what you will about cloud-based gaming, but the fact that we can play Control: Ultimate Edition on our Switch consoles with cool next-gen features like ray-tracing is something to be celebrated, and with more major games on the way, this approach could see the Switch’s library expanded in interesting ways.

However, not everybody is invited to this cloud-based party, it seems. Our Australian correspondent, Liam Doolan, has noticed that Control (downloaded from the North American eShop) is rendered unplayable in his part of the world.

Control – and Hitman 3, which is also a cloud version – both require stable and strong internet connections to funnel all of that data to your Switch console (as well as send back your inputs to the server).

As suggested by Australian site Vooks, that infrastructure might not exist in many parts of Australia (xCloud and Stadia aren’t available down under, either) – but another issue is that the servers pumping out this data are most likely regional, and so if Control hasn’t been officially launched in your country, you won’t be able to play it – even if you download the game from another eShop region.

Sony has delayed its multiplayer vehicular brawler Destruction AllStars to February 2021, meaning the PlayStation 5’s launch lineup just got a little bit lighter.

Destruction AllStars had initially been slated to launch alongside the PS5 in November, but will now arrive next year as a free PlayStation Plus title.

According to Sony, the decision is intended to give the combustive racer the best possible chance of roping in players on day one, and while the company acknowledges the move will dissapoint some fans, if it follows in the bumbling footsteps of recent PS Plus record breaker Fall Guys, it could be a shoo-in for success when February eventually rolls around.

“We’ve decided to move the game’s release from November 2020 to February 2021, where it will be included for two months in PlayStation Plus at no additional cost,” reads a post on the PlayStation blog.

“Destruction AllStars is a multiplayer game that’s at its best when you’re competing with gamers online from all around the world. We want as many people as possible to experience the mayhem on PS5, and what better way to do that than to provide the game to our PlayStation Plus members?”

As it stands, the launch rosters for both the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S are looking theadbare at best, with both consoles essentially relying on current-gen software to tide players over into the new year.