The delayed U.S. House Judiciary Committee has set a new date for its antitrust hearing with Apple CEO Tim Cook and other tech company chiefs, with the executives set to attend the hearing on July 29.

And we’ve come to the end of another busy week in the world of video games – a week filled with analysis of a technical titan from a previous generation, the third anniversary of Splatoon 2, some freshly showcased upcoming titles, and gaming chairs plastered with Mario’s face. Now, it’s finally time to sit back and chat about our weekend gaming plans.

Members of Nintendo Life have done just that below, and we’d love for you to join in via our poll and comment sections. Enjoy!

Liam Doolan, news reporter

This weekend I’m continuing my adventure in Paper Mario: The Origami King. I’ll admit, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the new battle system when I was first started playing it, but it’s grown on me since then. Hopefully, this is a Paper Mario game I can actually see through to the end this time around.

Apart from Nintendo’s latest release, I’m also planning to spend some time with the Devolver Digital title, Carrion. I don’t handle horror games all that well, but reverse horror – that’s no problem. I can’t believe how fun it is to be the amorphous creature everyone is running away from!

Gonçalo Lopes, contributing writer

Package from the East means I will be spending this weekend with imports like Umihara Kawase BaZooKa!, Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia, the elusive retail edition of Sayonara Wild Hearts and the nostalgic Famicom Namcot Collection. But the eShop had a very strong week as well so expect DEX, Carrion, and Panzer Paladin to do the rounds as well.

Game of the week is Crysis Remastered. Not because it is a small miracle to have it running at all on an Nvidia Tegra-powered tablet but for the fact that I had never played any of the series entries before. Now excuse me, I have some soldiers to terrorize by throwing them this chicken I just picked up by the shoal.

Austin Voigt, contributing writer

I plan to kick back and enjoy some laid-back games that require minimal effort on my part – at least, until Saturday afternoon. This week, I’ve been mainly focused on Paper Mario: The Origami King and Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town. Both are easy to jump in and out of, but enjoyable nonetheless. Paper Mario especially was a pleasant surprise with its beautiful graphics, hilarious writing, and unique battle system. Friends of Mineral town is a fairly nostalgic play for me, as the original game on Game Boy Advance was easily one of my favorites growing up.

And then – with the absence of any real Olympics to watch – I’ll be joining some friends in a Ring Fit Adventure Olympics livestream, where I’ll likely come in last place in everything and die of exhaustion! But it’ll be fun nonetheless (come watch if you’re in need of some entertainment, I’m sure I’ll do something ridiculous and lose it all for my team).

Gavin Lane, features editor

After splashing on Konami’s Castlevania, Contra and Arcade Classics Anniversary Collections (hey, they were 75% off!), I’ll be going on another Retro binge this weekend. After playing my Game Boy on holiday, I’m eager to play Belmont’s Revenge on Switch.

I also got properly stuck into Cuphead for the first time last week, so I’ll continue playing that. I’ve also been unlocking characters in Streets of Rage 4 with two players. What a fine, fine pair of games – real lookers, too. And I’m sure I’ll drop in on the Bug-Off in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, too. Gotta get me that Nook Miles stamp.

As always, thanks for reading! Make sure to leave a vote in the poll above and a comment below with your gaming choices over the next few days…

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is considered to be one of the greatest Nintendo games of all time, so how would you feel about its spiritual successor being funded on Kickstarter?

This is exactly what the Mexican-based team Dragon Vein Studios plans to do with its timed-battle RPG, Another Crusade.

The game is greatly inspired by Super Mario RPG, we are actually trying to become its spiritual successor. If you ever dreamed of a sequel to it, we too share that dream, that’s why we are making this game.

In order to be released on the Nintendo Switch, this Kickstarter project needs to reach its stretch goal of $44,250 USD within the next 27 days. At the time of writing, it’s raised just $2907. The initial launch is planned for Q4 2021.

Would you be up for a spiritual sequel to Super Mario RPG? Leave a comment down below.

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For those of us in the games industry, we’ve always understood the incredible power of gaming. Over the past few months we’ve seen gaming become a part of our social fabric in ways we could never have imagined. It’s clear, now more than ever,​​ the crucial role gaming can play in our lives.

​Today we announced we are bringing Xbox Game Pass and Project xCloud together at no additional cost for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members – unleashing the power of gaming by making it more accessible than ever before. This September, in supported countries, gamers will be able to play more than 100 Xbox Game Pass titles on their phones or tablets, from the cloud, as a part of their Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership. This is one of many creator focused breakthrough innovations we will unveil, and a product of our multibillion-dollar investment in gaming tools and technology that benefit both players and developers.

As the Head of Gaming Ecosystem at Microsoft, my team is focused on empowering game creators to conceive, build, launch, and manage games – using any and all of Microsoft’s software and services, from Azure to Xbox  – to reach any player and every device. When we created Xbox Game Pass and Project xCloud, our goal was to put the amazing titles from game creators all over the world into the hands of more players across more devices. We see a future where players can play console-quality games on any of their devices.

As an industry, we are moving from a world of device-centricity to a place where players, their friends, and their content becomes the center focus.  This shift creates incredible challenge and opportunity for game makers. As players increasingly demand that their gaming experience span devices, creators must have the platform, tools, and services to deliver that experience. The days of having to manage a multitude of builds, game instances and communities across device types and brands will be relegated to the past – unlocking access to more players, opening up revenue opportunities, and expanding gaming communities.

Our commitment has always been to listen carefully to what players and game creators want from the future of gaming. And, as Microsoft and Xbox’s Gaming Ecosystem team, we are on a mission to empower game creators to realize their dreams – by building the platform, tools and services that help make that future a reality. Today’s announcement is another step towards that promise, creating a path for console developers to reach millions of new players globally, on mobile.

Over the next few months, we will continue to share updates and information on our journey with Xbox Game Pass and Project xCloud. Next Thursday, July 23^rd, please join us for the Xbox Games Showcase and at 10:00am PT on August 3^rd, we’ll share more updates on game development at Microsoft through Game Stack Live.

You can read more about today’s announcement, plus the commitments Team Xbox is making to all gamers, on our Xbox Wire blog post​.

Andrée Cossette, managing director of Ubisoft Québec, is departing the studio in the midst of a wave of allegations of abuse emerging from across Ubisoft’s many studios.

Cossette’s departure is oddly timed. For her part, a post on social media seems to indicate that the exit isn’t tied to the numerous allegations about life at Ubisoft, but rather a normal departure after 22 years with the company.

The truth seems far more complex. It’s worth reiterating that across the numerous stories we’ve reported on Ubisoft, the pattern of abuse not only encompasses employees who treated other Ubisoft developers like sexual objects or emotional punching bags, but a culture in management that allowed abuse to take place as long as the games shipped on time.

Among other issues, Ubisoft Québec is one studio where developers fought “tooth and claw” to get playable female characters like Evie implemented in their games while facing intense pushback from Ubisoft leadership. It’s a far less egregious offense than the abuse of employees, but it’s one notable incident that allegedly took place under Cossette’s watch.

Ubisoft has released a statement stating that Cossette’s departure is not timed to the allegations. By their account, it’s perfectly normal for studio leadership to leave the company in the midst of an international crisis.

After yesterday’s Xbox Games Showcase, developer Dontnod took an unusual step in publishing an FAQ with spoilers for its narrative adventure Tell Me Why.

(This is a spoiler warning for the rest of the article, as well as a trigger warning for discussions of transphobia to follow.)

The spoilers discussed in the FAQ do not directly discuss plot points. Rather they lay groundwork for how the game depicts one of its central characters, Tyler, who is transgender, and the depiction of Tlingit characters and culture (the Tlingit tribe resides in Alaska, where the game is set). The document also appears to act as a content warning to help players gauge if Tell Me Why will be triggering for any players who’ve experienced trauma around the game’s themes.

From an external point of view, the FAQ also reveals the thorny issues around telling stories featuring Trans and Indigenous characters when no one on the development team appears to be a member of either group.

Both transgender and Indigenous creators have spoken about the complex emotions of watching their stories be told by creatives who have not lived through their respective realities.

Dontnod’s document does appear to be a good-faith effort to inform players about the emotional intensity of the game’s plot, trading an “unspoiled experience” for transparency about how the developers aim to depict a story that mimics real-life traumatic pain.

Trailers for Tell Me Why have shown that the Ronan Twins experienced some kind of violence at the hands of their mother before the game starts. Since transgender people often experience familial violence, there was some speculation that the game’s plot is spurred by a troubling depiction of transphobia.

Dontnod’s FAQ states that this is not the company’s intent. Apparently the game’s writers have attempted to paint the Ronan twins’ mother as a character undergoing some other (possibly supernatural) crisis, who was supportive of her transgender son and trying to learn more about his identity. The game also does not use Tyler’s assigned birth name (commonly referred to by transgender folks as a ‘deadname’), though it does contain discussions and brief depictions of transphobia and homophobia.

The studio explictly states in the FAQ that it does not want to follow in the footsteps of other mainstream stories like the film Dallas Buyer’s Club (our reference, not theirs) that rely on the experience of transitioning and the pain of transphobia as central story points. “Because so many mainstream narratives about trans people are rooted in pain or trauma, it was important to our team to tell a different, more multi-dimensional story with Tyler,” the FAQ says.

Elsewhere, the FAQ attempts to address the inclusion of Tlingit characters, explaining that Tlingit artists were comissioned to create in-game assets that represent the tribe’s culture. Dontnod also states that it partnered with the Huna Heritage Foundation to consult on how it depicts the game’s Indigenous characters and culture. The FAQ does not state if Tell Me Why’s two Tlingit characters are voiced by Indigenous actors.

If that all seems like a complex document for a developer to put out, it’s because these are complex issues made worthy of scrutiny by Dontnod’s seeming lack of trans & Indigenous creative leads, and the historical exploitation of both groups in commercial media.

This FAQ can represent a good-faith effort by Dontnod to let players know about how it’s approached these sensitive themes, yet players (and fellow developers) may still have reason to be wary about the game’s direction. After all, developers from both groups have spent the last few decades telling their own stories in different ways, sometimes to explore their trauma, other times to celebrate their own existence.

How successfully Dontnod has told Tell Me Why’s story will become clear when it debuts on August 27th, 2020.

The new update to Dead by Daylight Mobile sees the introduction of a new game mode: training. While training game modes are quite popular in games across a multitude of genres, few of them have as many benefits as the Dead by Daylight Mobile training mode does.

Unsurprisingly, the training mode is a solo experience where you can refine your skills against bots. The gameplay is the same as you would see outside of training, and you get to keep 50% of Bloodpoints and 10% of Character experience if you appease or outwit The Entity. The game mode offers advantages for new and veteran players, as the bot’s difficulty scales up depending on your skill level.

If you have yet to play Dead by Daylight Mobile, then you are missing out on a brilliant and yet terrifying survival experience – which you can read about in our Dead by Daylight Mobile review. The game is a four-on-one multiplayer horror where one killer hunts and stops the other four players from escaping. Dead by Daylight Mobile isn’t just entertaining, it is also exhilarating as the deranged killer can sneak up on you at any moment.

Dead by Daylight Mobile training mode trailer: What to expect from the new mode

If you are yet to see any of the gameplay for the new mode, this trailer will give you a better understanding of why training was added and how to use it.

Dead by Daylight Mobile update: Cook Out outfits

As part of the Dead by Daylight Mobile update, four new skins have been added for players to collect. The outfits are only available inside Gold Tier Super Mystery Boxes and are available from now until August 23.

The new outfits include two killers and two survivors:

• The Huntress: Wild Feast (Killer)
• The Clown: Chef Carnage (Killer)
• Jane Romero: Guest Superstar (Survivor)
• Ace Visconti: Maitre Ace (Survivor)

If you are playing Dead by Daylight Mobile and would like to see the best survivors and killers, then you should read our Dead by Daylight character tier list.

Tokyo-based Rabbit & Bear Studios has announced that it is creating a spiritual successor to Konami’s classic Suikoden series.

The studio – which was founded recently by many of the key creators of the Suikoden franchise – plans to launch a crowdfunding campaign for the game on 27th July, which is entitled Eiyuden Chronicle.

The game is described as “an ode to the classic JRPG genre from the PlayStation era that will feature classic JRPG exploration and battles in high-resolution 2.5D graphics, pixel-based characters, a story of war and friendship, a diverse cast of 100 unique heroes to join the protagonist’s endeavour, and a fortress building system to grow their army.” A guild system will allow players to change the attributes of their fortress, while battles will be turn-based and feature up to 6 party members.

Here’s the plot:

Our story begins in one corner of Allraan, a tapestry of nations with diverse cultures and values.

By dint of sword, and by way of magical objects known as “rune-lenses,” the land’s history has been shaped by the alliances and aggressions of the humans, beastmen, elves, and desert people who live there.

The Galdean Empire has edged out other nations and discovered a technology that amplifies the rune-lenses’ magic. Now, the Empire is scouring the continent for an artefact that will expand their power even further.

It is on one such expedition that Seign Kesling, a young and gifted imperial officer, and Nowa, a boy from a remote village, meet each other and become friends.

However, a twist of fate will soon drag them into the fires of war, and force them both to reexamine everything they believe to be right and true.

The team behind Eiyuden Chronicle includes:

• Yoshitaka Murayama – Scenario Writer/Director (Suikoden I, Suikoden II, The Alliance Alive)
• Junko Kawano – Lead Artist (Suikoden I, IV, Arca Last)
• Osamu Komuta – Director (Suikoden Tierkreis, Suikoden Tactics, Arca Last)
• Junichi Murakami – Producer/Art Director – (Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, OZ)
• Motoi Sakuraba – Composer (Tales Series)
• Michiko Naruke – Composer (Wild Arms Series)

While the game isn’t confirmed for Switch yet – or indeed any console format – a stretch goal for Switch will “definitely” be included as part of the campaign, Rabbit & Bear Studios tells us. The release date is expected to be Fall 2022.

Murayama, the project leader of Eiyuden Chronicle, had this to say:

The first thing we decided when our members came together was, ‘It’s about time we made a really interesting game that we ourselves want to make.’ We chose Kickstarter in order to make an interesting game with the players in mind, hold the rights to the planning, world, and story of the game, all while keeping the fun of the project. Please lend us your support in this new challenge of ours! We promise to create something that heeds the call of your voices.

The Kickstarter campaign will run from July 27th to August 28th. Will you be laying down your cash?