February 27 is Pokémon's big 30th anniversary of its original launch in Japan, and while details are slowly trickling in on how Nintendo and Game Freak plan to celebrate, TIME Magazine is already getting into the spirit.

The 96-page special edition issue of the magazine is coming out with three different covers, each featuring iconic pocket monsters from over the year - one cover depicts Mega Charizard X, one has Lugia and Ho-Oh, while the third shows off Rayquaza. You can purchase any of the three covers for $14.99 each on Amazon now.

No Man's Sky's next big update, Remnant, is here, introducing something developer Hello Games has "been wanting to give players since the very beginning": a gravity gun.

Called the Gravitino Coil, the powerful anti-gravity module for your multi-tool will turn the sci-fi game into "a physics playground," allowing you to "grab large objects and fling, toss, or carefully carry them around the world." It can also be used as a ballistic weapon, allowing you to grab sentinels or heavy objects, turning them into projectiles.

We'll now also be able to collect and recycle the salvage and debris found on planets, turning them into "highly prized" resources, and construct new trucks, tipping flatbeds, and haulers to transport resources back. By carefully sorting and depositing the materials you find — being careful not to accidentally blow yourself up with the "highly volatile" stuff, of course — you'll reap "great rewards."

"You can work alone or join a salvage crew with friends," Hello Games explained. "It creates this really fun and tactile new loop of searching for wrecks, loading trucks full of cargo and hauling across the alien landscape to industrial yards to gain new loot and rewards."

There's also other rewards up for grabs, as well as vehicle parts, a steampunk armor set, and vehicle customization to "create bespoke tracks and haulers for your needs."

Last but not least, there's a new limited-time community expedition on the way, where players can band together to clean up and salvage materials like a space-age trash collection crew.

"Last year was a big year for No Man’s Sky. Even we struggle to know how we pulled off so many large updates last year — Worlds Part II, a Switch 2 release, and Voyagers in the same year, interspersed with smaller but significant updates in Relics, Beacon and Breach," said Hello Games boss, Sean Murray. "As we head into our 10th year post release, our small team is excited for our first update of the year.

"2026 represents 10 years since we launched, and I couldn’t be prouder. For any game to reach such a milestone is a privilege. It wouldn’t be possible without your continued support and we genuinely appreciate it."

Despite being almost a decade on from launch, however, No Man's Sky recently celebrated its best-ever player numbers, following the launch of its Breach and Voyagers updates last year. The Breach update lets players salvage wrecks, unlocking new ship-building parts along the way, while Voyagers added multiplayer ship crew capabilities and skydiving, among many other features.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Have you ever fallen in love?

I did nearly a decade ago, with Overwatch, Blizzard’s hero shooter of near-immaculate design. But that relationship sadly became strained, distant even, ever since its decision to move on from those initial glory days and reinvent itself as a sequel. Well, now Overwatch has gone and seduced me all over again, like a Hanzo scatter arrow delivered straight from Cupid's bow. And it's all thanks to one woman: the corporate villainess tank, Domina. And it has absolutely nothing to do with those thighs.

This week saw the launch of a new era for Overwatch. Blizzard has ditched the “2”, implemented a long-overdue menu overhaul, kicked off a brand new, year-long story, and, crucially, added five brand new heroes to the roster. You’ve got Anran, a fire-fan-wielding damage-dealer; Emre, a tactical operative equipped with more firearms than actual arms; Mizuki, a cursed ex-yakuza member with a healing hat; and Jet Pack Cat, who is, well, a cat with a jet pack. And then last, but certainly not least, is Domina, an incredibly destructive tank with a deadly pulse-action laser beam, explosive crystal bombs, and a giant extra pair of mechanical arms that erupt out of her shoulders. I think I love her.

Vaira, if I should be so bold as to use her real name, is the sort of aggressive tank character that I’ve always been drawn to in Overwatch. With nearly 300 hours clocked in dive tank D.Va alone, it’s pretty clear that there’s nothing more satisfying to me than launching a behind-enemy-lines attack on an objective and absorbing all of the opposite team’s attention as I try to cause as much chaos as possible. Domina isn’t a dive tank, though. Yes, she can cause huge amounts of damage like everyone’s favourite South Korean mech enthusiast can, but if I were to compare her to anyone, it would be a powerful combination of the reworked Orisa and Reaper.

Domina is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to taking the enemy head-on, thanks to a couple of skills that deter foes. One is a very large shield that looms high over her and her teammates. I have to say I was initially worried about this ability, since I still carry mental scars from that period when Overwatch was a complete shield-fest five or six years ago — never again do I want to see a Bastion and a Torbjorn turret sitting behind an Orisa and Reinhardt shield combo on that dreadful first Paris choke point. But Domina’s force field has a fun wrinkle that plays tactically into both teams’ approach, as squares can be punched out of it with a moderate amount of damage, creating literal windows of opportunity for those faced with it. It’s a smart approach to shielding in Overwatch that, at least right now, feels balanced for both attackers and defenders.

Then there’s her sonic repulsors, a pair of energy blasts fired from the palms of her extra mechanical hands. They not only deal a bit of damage, but also boop people away from her. I’ve already had maybe too much fun pushing players off the edge of Illios and Lijiang Palace’s perilous points like a super-sized Lucio. Combine that with a crystal grenade that floats through the air towards enemies before detonating, and a laser beam that fires off a shotgun-like burst at the end of a trigger pull, like a devilish combination of Symmetra and Reaper’s weapons, and you have a hero who can single-handedly run an entire match. I did tell you it wasn’t about the thighs.

Look, I’ll admit that she’s probably too powerful right now and will, in all likelihood, be subjected to a nerf in the coming days or weeks. But while she’s here in all her glory, I can’t recommend Domina enough.

That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of fun to be found elsewhere in Overwatch right now — this entire update is a genuinely incredible shift for a game that only a short time ago faced an existential threat, and it’s inarguably more enthralling to play now than it has been in many, many years. That being said, I do still yearn for those glory days of 2017 to 2019, and find myself queuing to play its unranked 6v6 mode more than any other. It still feels the most balanced, satisfying way to play Overwatch, and if Blizzard was ever to fully revert back to the two tank, two support, two DPS team structure of old, I think Overwatch would truly own my heart once again.

As for now, I fear my beating chambers belong solely to Domina and her stacked set of skills that simultaneously feel fresh, but also referential to the Overwatch of old. As I’m writing this, I’m counting down the hours until I can play as her again and send people falling to their doom down an Illios well, or imprison them in her explosive Panopticon ultimate ability.

I can’t help but smile when I see that Overwatch is benefitting from its highest concurrent player numbers in over a year, and feel happy for the developers who have worked so tirelessly to make sure this universe that people love so much will not die. This update has made me fall back in love with a game I once held closer to my heart more than any, and a large part of that is down to how fun its five new heroes (but mainly Domina, let’s be honest) are. If Overwatch carries forward this momentum into the rest of 2026, it may become a problem for the rest of my social life.

Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.

Imagine E.T. snorted your dad off a space toilet. You’d be mad, but there wouldn’t be anything you could do about it. Unless you happened to have an arsenal of powerful alien guns and some tricked-out power armour. This is the story of you, an unassuming kid who just happens to love video games, and how Earth getting taken over by a vast interstellar drug cartel turns out to be the making of you.

The events of High on Life start at the outbreak of alien invasion on a seemingly normal day in sleepy suburbia. Your parents are out of town, your cokehead sister, Lizzie, wants to throw a wild party, and all you want to do is lose yourself in a Legally Distinct first person shooter. Relatable.

Out of nowhere arrives the G3 Cartel, led by a disgusting slimy slug man called Garmantuous; a blob of distorted flesh more hideous than Jabba the Hutt and twice as mean. He’s here because, sadly, human beings are a very potent recreational drug. In a spot of obscenely bad luck, evolutionarily speaking, we just so happen to be like catnip to the various species that make up galactic civilisation. So the G3 cartel is here to enslave us, stick us all in jars, and sell us on street corners, showing absolutely no regard for our rights as sentient beings. They even murder beloved Hollywood stars Jack Black and Susan Sarandon!

Fortunately, an early chance encounter with tips the scales ever so slightly back in humanity’s favour. You meet Kenny, a sentient gun from the planet Gatlus. The Gatlians are proud race of living weapons who are also enslaved by the cartel, subjected to a brutal bioengineered plague. Any survivors are pressganged into forming the bulk of the cartel’s lethal arsenal.

You know, I’m starting to think these guys aren’t very nice.

Kenny turns out to be an affable young gun with an axe to grind against the cartel and a plan for you both to get even. With his help, you escape the ravaging of Earth by warping your entire house to Blim City, an alien metropolis full of gleaming towers, fantastic technology, and, well… pawn shops, criminal gangs, filthy slums, and gobby delinquents. It is a city after all. They’re all Birmingham or Detroit or whatever when you get down to it.

So here’s Kenny's plan: you become a licensed bounty hunter and destroy the G3 cartel’s entire sordid operation by systematically murdering all of its top brass... which involves chaotically murdering much of its bottom brass. All of which is quite impossible without the help of Gene Zaroothian: a down-on-his-luck, formerly famous bounty hunter who has at some point resorted to selling his own legs for a bit of quick cash. In exchange for a permanent seat on your couch and custody of the TV remote, he sets you up with the aforementioned Tricked Out Power Armour and the all-important Bounty-5000, a vast alien computer that combines the functions of a contract board and a Stargate. He also sets you up with your first mission: head to the slums, recover Gene’s knife “Knifey”, and assassinate 9-Torg, a local crime boss. And also 5-Torg, her cloned sister, if you like.

While not strictly speaking part of the G3 Cartel, 9-Torg’s gang do business with them as drug runners and so it feels perfectly morally consistent to, y’know, murder them all. With Knifey recovered and the associated skills of knife crime and grappling unlocked, your crusade to save humanity from the scum of the universe begins in earnest.

Target 1: Krubis

Your first target is Krubis, the big cheese of G3’s mining operations on the planet Zephyr Paradise, with a thick New Jersey accent and drills for hands.

“Mining operation?”, you say? "I thought this was a drug cartel? What could they possibly be mining for?"

Drugs. They’re mining drugs. Specifically, a living drug called Furgles, another sentient race enjoying the dubious honour of somehow having evolved to give other aliens a really good high when snorted. They tend to live underground in caves, hence all the mining. Furgles share the planet with the Moplets, a race of Despair Bears with scrotums for faces who have been brutally enslaved by Krubis in order to keep the mines running.

Krubis, however, has a problem. With the discovery of humans, who have proven a much more potent narcotic, the demand for Furgles is set to collapse. He and his product is now fast slipping out of favour with Garmantuous, meaning his position within the G3 Cartel rests on very shakey ground. Which is what happens when you dig too many tunnels.

Soon enough, however, that’s the least of his concerns, because you kill him and take his gun, Gus, the JB Smoove voiced frog-faced shotgun with a vacuum function who can shoot large sawblades that you can use as platforms. He’s also the only Gatlian who has arms, which is ironic for a race of arms. You know, armaments. Ah, forget it.

Meanwhile, back home, while Lizzie has been getting into the alien dating scene, Gene has been making himself a bit too comfortable on the couch, and so you find the two at each other’s throats.

Target 2: Douglas

The second G3 target is Douglas, the cartel’s head of training. And also torture. And while some level of evil is required to work in recruitment, Douglas’ unrelenting cruelty and hedonism makes him extremely bad at his job, often making new recruits fight each other to the death despite the G3’s existential staffing problems. This, of course, means he’s fast slipping out of favour with Garmantuous, which seems to be a running theme here. How can such a chaotic and badly managed organisation be the dominant criminal conspiracy in the galaxy? It’s almost like someone else is really pulling the strings here...

Douglas is a small, vulnerable octopus creature who is obsessed with setting pointless, arduous training tasks. In disguise as Dr. Joopy, he almost convinces you to lead him back to the power armour he’s accidentally locked himself out of while on a bender, but the ruse is uncovered by Gus, and so you can just shoot him instead of playing his stupid games. Or not. Either way you end up fighting his suit, win, and acquire a new Gatlian companion: Sweezy, an obnoxious needler with a nifty time bubble alt fire which can be used to get into air ducts.

Target 3: Doctor Giblets

Clugg Nuggmin, Blim City’s magistrate, summons you to his office to congratulate you on your campaign against the drug trade, and offers his assistance in rescuing the human race by building a safe haven for your people and a giving you a device to teleport any humans you find directly there. Setting aside for now the high probability of this guy having a nefarious agenda, you proceed to the next assassination mission… stopping briefly to solve another domestic between Gene, Lizzie, and her dipshit boyfriend, Tweeg.

The next target? Doctor Giblets, the cartel’s deranged warp scientist, who’s currently hiding out on Zephyr Paradise. Current intel on Dr. Giblets says he’s gone into hiding after murdering all of his own men, and is in possession of a powerful Gatlian. Upon finding his secret base, however, you find only a Busted Gatlian, which is utterly broken and inoperable after being experimented on. Before you can deal righteous revenge on his abuser, though, Giblets accidentally trips over and... dies. Far from saving you the bother of a boss fight, though, this leads to one of the hardest battles in the game in the form of Dr. Giblets’ posthumous revenge.

Giblets ends up thoroughly dealt with, and the Busted Gatlian is delivered back to Gene to see if anything can be done for them. But Giblets wasn’t the only G3 boss on Zephyr Paradise performing horrific medical experiments.

Target 4: The Skrendel Brothers

Next on the hit list: the Skrendel Brothers, overseers of Skrendel Labs, a vast drug facility where the cartel are experimenting on humans in order to increase their potency. On the way there you rescue another Gatlian, Creature, and learn of the nasty experiments that have turned him into a gun that is permanently pregnant, capable of shooting his own offspring as projectiles. What is it with these guys and horrific medical experiments?

The Skrendel Bros are a compound being of triplets who combine into an ultra form during your final battle with them, which they obviously lose. By now you’ve become enough of a thorn in the cartel’s side to garner the attention of Garmantuous himself, who warns you to back off, with the implication that your long lost parents will be harmed if you don’t. However, it actually turns out that Garmantuous has Hollywood’s beloved Jack Black and Susan Sarandon, not your parents, in one of the game’s funniest twists and long-form gags. Which I completely spoiled in the intro to this recap. Hey, look, if you were bothered about spoilers, you wouldn’t be reading a recap, right?

In the meantime, it turns out that the busted Gatlian is a former resistance leader by the name of Lezduit, who's now a shadow of his former self due to mistreatment, but is still a hugely powerful firearm. However, it seems that he has a troubled past with Kenny...

Blim City Invasion

It wouldn’t be a video game without a perilous third act where you nearly lose everything. Firstly, Lizzie has gone missing, and so you head to Space Applebees in the slums where her boyfriend, Tweeg, works as a cook. That’s right, there’s a Space Applebees, in one of the funniest and most unlikely pieces of product placement ever featured in video games. This would be like having a licensed OMEGA watch in a Bond game that you only ever see covered in shit.

At Applebees, Kenny takes one of the game’s rare quiet moments to explain his unwitting part in the downfall of the Gatlian race, confessing that he became the personal firearm of a G3 smuggler and ended up, through cowardice and incompetence, leading the Cartel directly back to his home planet, triggering a war which his people lost due to a genetically engineered disease that turned most of them catatonic. Feeling the a huge strain from this guilt, Kenny vows to save humanity to atone for the genocide of his people. Which is all pretty heavy stuff for a daft Rick and Morty first-person shooter, but the pathos is regularly interrupted by an Applebees waiter just to keep things as light as possible. This is, without a doubt, the best bit in the game.

Moving on, it turns out Tweeg is a G3 agent tasked with infiltrating your home by romancing Lizzie and gaining her trust. He’s seen kidnapping her in his space RV and fleeing Blim City, but before you can chase, the place is overrun with Cartel, forcing a hasty escape involving once again warping your house to a new location. This time, you arrive on the toxic ruins of Gatlus, the home planet of the Gatlians.

Lizzie’s fine, by the way.

Target 5: Nipulon

The penultimate boss is Nipulon: Garmantuous’s right hand man and the G3’s chief of customer relations. He runs an infamous drug den and is, contrary to the wisdom of most high-level operatives in the illegal drug trade, partial to his own merchandise.

And, of course, like Batman’s Scarecrow or a tired parent with access to kid-grade Tylenol, Nipulon is skilled in weaponising drugs. This leads to one of the trippiest boss fights in modern gaming, in which we learn that, no matter the odds, any challenge can be overcome with the power of teamwork. And that handling firearms while intoxicated can sometimes lead to a positive outcome. Actually, you know what, I don’t think there is a moral to this story, it’s just a bunch of stuff that happens.

Finish the Fight

After dispatching Nipulon, Gene manages to save the powerful Gatlian Lezduit from oblivion: with no more guns to collect and no more upgrades to purchase, the only thing left to do is return to Earth and kill Garmantuous, permanently ending the tyranny of the G3 Cartel once and for all and saving the human race from the ignoble fate of becoming ecstasy for ALF.

Even the firepower of Lezduit won’t quite be enough to take down Gamantuous, however. The only way to kill this crime lord, surmises Gene, is to ram a bomb up his backside. And so, at the climax of a prolonged Bullet Hell battle, with an incapacitated Garmantuous showing his entire ass metaphorically and literally, the butt bomb enema fails to explode. The remote detonator is faulty.

Yes, the game’s punchline requires you to sacrifice one of your newfound friends by pushing them up the villain’s anus. A fitting end for the galaxy’s biggest asshole, for sure. The only question is: who to sacrifice?

The most prudent choice is Kenny, given how this noble sacrifice completes his redemption arc, but it doesn’t really matter because your choice is immediately undermined when it turns out that whichever gun you cast into the void immediately comes back after surviving the resulting explosion.

That’s right: Oh my god, they don’t kill Kenny. Except they might as well have done, because when the High on Knife DLC rolls around his character gets unceremoniously written out with a bit of exposition, for reasons that are beyond the remit of this recap.

Incidentally, the major revelations from the DLC are: Knifey is not a type of melee Gatlian but a native of the planet Australia 2, hailing from a race of pacifist knives who can’t stand him. And also that getting rid of the dysfunctional G3 Cartel doesn’t actually make humanity any safer from the intergalactic drug trade, but we already figured that out from the secret ending of the base game, in which the big villainous mastermind behind it all is revealed to be Dr. Gurgula. He's found in the bowels of the Human Haven set up by Magistrate Clugg, ostensibly to help you save your people but actually to recapture them and provide human subjects to Dr. Gurgula for even more horrible experiments. The game is pretty unequivocal that this reveal is a tease for the sequel, in which you, your sister, Gene, and at least some of the returning Gatlians are fugitives on the run from galactic authorities.

And that is the entire story of High on Life, or at least the stuff you actually need to know before you play High on Life 2.

We already knew that Overwatch fans were returning in their thousands with the advent of its new name and "story-driven era," but Overwatch hasn't just matched its original Steam release-day fervor, it has smashed it, more than doubling the platform's concurrent peak set back in 2023.

You'll remember that Blizzard's sequel unfortunately stumbled out of the gate, and while it saw a massive surge of players at the start, those numbers dropped in the following year. As time went on, user reviews complained about a number of issues such as monetization and controversies around the cancellation of the game's long-awaited PvE Hero mode.

Now, however, with the launch of yesterday's (February 10) first year-long storyline, The Reign of Talon, Overwatch — the game formerly known as Overwatch 2 — smashed its original concurrent Steam peak of 75,608. And while we'd already seen a spike in players over the weekend, Sunday's peak of 69,135 simultaneous gamers has been almost tripled, with SteamDB recording 165,651 concurrent Steam players overnight, marking an excellent start for the rebooted hero shooter.

The Reign of Talon focuses on the antagonistic faction Talon as it takes over around the world, while Overwatch continues to fight back. In-game events, hero trailers, animated comics, short stories, and map updates will tell a story across six seasons rolled out throughout the entire year, beginning with the launch of five new heroes as the new season kicked off yesterday.

New heroes include Domina (tank), Emre (damage), Mizuki (support), Anran (damage) — who some of us met over the weekend — and Jetpack Cat (support). More heroes will join in the future, with a new hero added in each of Season 2-6 to come. A new story arc is planned to begin with another Season 1 in 2027.

We're also getting a Hello Kitty-themed in-game event from February 10-23, a new Meta Event called Conquest, where players choose to align with either Overwatch or Talon over five weeks to compete for rewards including lootboxes, skins, and titles. There's also a major UI and UX overhaul with a new hero lobby and a promise of faster navigation on the way.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Blizzard Entertainment is just one day away from unveiling the future of Diablo with its 30th Anniversary Spotlight.

Just like last week’s gargantuan Overwatch Spotlight, the February 11 presentation is said to show an extended look at new announcements and updates for the classic dungeon-crawling franchise. That means reveals for Diablo 4, Diablo 2: Resurrected, and Diablo Immortal, as all three games seek to keep players scrounging for loot in 2026.

Unlike the presentation for its hero shooter, Blizzard has given fans a taste of what to expect. Diablo 4, which launched in June of 2023 and received its Vessel of Hatred expansion in October 2024, is barreling toward the launch of its next expansion, Lord of Hatred, this April. We already know one of its two new classes will be the Paladin, but Blizzard says the Diablo 30th Anniversary Spotlight will come with a look at the yet-to-be-revealed class, too. The World of Warcraft company also teased that fans should expect a deep dive into “major updates to skill trees” as well as its new endgame systems.

Diablo 2: Resurrected is an unexpected but welcome addition to the Spotlight. Blizzard has been coy when it comes to what it will show for its Diablo 2 remake, only teasing that “there’s a lot we want to share with you,” as it prepares for the launch of Ladder Season 13 February 20. Some are hoping for quality-of-life changes while others speculate about a potential Steam release, but with the 2021 remake largely remaining faithful to the original 2000 experience, it’s hard to say what its future holds.

Finally, there’s Diablo Immortal, Blizzard’s 2022 mobile spinoff. A closer look at the 2026 roadmap is locked in, as the company has told players its ongoing story will carry them “deeper into a world shaped by corruption, conflict, and consequences.” Its blog post on the matter promises more information about a new class, a new region, and “the return of a malevolent force.”

The Diablo 30th Anniversary Spotlight premieres tomorrow, February 11, at 2pm PT/5pm ET, and can be streamed on Twitch and YouTube. Keep an eye on IGN for a breakdown of all of the biggest announcements and reveals but, in the meantime, you can check out our reviews for Diablo 4, Diablo 2: Resurrected, and Diablo Immortal.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

I treat sales like a stress test for taste. When prices drop this hard, it becomes very easy to buy things you will never actually play, and much harder to spot the ones that'll genuinely earn your time / attention / love. Let's remove the guesswork. I've already put hours into these games, and this list comes from experience rather than impulse. Every one is worth a run (Gotham Knights maybe less so.)

Contents

• Retro
• Nintendo
• Xbox
• PlayStation
• PC
• LEGO

This Day in Gaming 🎂

Today I’m celebrating the 26th birthday of The Sims. When this launched, I must confess that my first thought was, “Well, this is barely a game right here.” The Sims seemed more like a virtual fish tank that was only fun if I kept concocting new (and worryingly sociopathic) ways to torment the virtual peoples in my employ. Though this game and genre didn’t flick my switch straight away, personally, the lights clicked on and stayed burning bright for the many, many more of you. After 15 years this original sold a whopping 11.24M copies, so it absolutely deserves a place of honour in the PC gaming pantheon.

Aussie birthdays for notable games.

- The Sims (PC) 2000. Get

- Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour (GC) 2004. eBay

- Shadow of Rome (PS2) 2005. eBay

- MAG (PS3) 2010.

Nice Savings for Nintendo Switch

• EA Sports FC 26 (-49%) A$46 A familiar rhythm with small but meaningful tweaks, still best enjoyed in short bursts, and still prone to menu friction once you dig too deep.
• Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled (-35%) A$45.30 Still brutally honest about skill gaps, still secretly mean, and still one of the sharpest kart racers once nostalgia wears off.
• Lunar Remastered Col. (-22%) A$58.10 A warm, earnest JRPG throwback that shows its age, but rewards patience with charm modern games rarely attempt.
• Borderlands 3 Ult. Ed. (-52%) A$43.10 The writing still divides, but the gunplay finally carries the whole experience once everything is bundled.
• TowerFall (-75%) A$7.50 Pure couch multiplayer tension, instantly readable, endlessly replayable, and capable of ending friendships in under five minutes.

Or gift a Nintendo eShop Card.

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Exciting Bargains for Xbox

• Resident Evil 4 (-49%) A$30.50 Still impeccably paced, still confident in its redesigns, and still terrifying without relying on cheap tricks.
• Gotham Knights (-70%) A$32.50 Messy systems and repetition remain, but the co-op and city vibe land better once expectations are lowered.
• Assassin's Creed Valhalla (-55%) A$44.60 Enormous, occasionally indulgent, but still rewarding if you treat it like a long term historical hangout.
• No More Heroes 3 (-90%) A$7.40 Stylish, scrappy, and knowingly uneven, but Suda51’s personality carries it through every rough edge.
• Dead Cells (-50%) A$16.70 Still one of the cleanest action loops around, still punishing, and still impossible to play just once.

Xbox One

• The Last Campfire (-90%) A$2.30 A gentle, melancholy puzzle adventure that values tone over challenge, perfect for a quiet evening.
• LEGO Worlds (-41%) A$29.50 More sandbox than structure, charming in bursts, but best approached with creative patience.
• Diablo III Eternal Col. (-56%) A$44.30 Still absurdly playable, still dangerously moreish, and still Blizzard at its most accessible.

Or just invest in an Xbox Card.

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Pure Scores for PlayStation

• Ghost of Yotei (-21%) A$99 Visually striking and contemplative, but deliberately slow, asking patience before it truly opens up.
• Star Wars Outlaws (-68%) A$34.90 Ambitious and uneven, but nails the fantasy of being a small time operator in a huge galaxy.
• Unicorn Overlord (-40%) A$57.20 Deep tactics wrapped in lavish art, surprisingly approachable, though commitment is non negotiable.
• Hitman World of Assassination (-48%) A$54.60 A masterclass in player freedom, endlessly replayable, and still unmatched in systemic stealth design.
• Kena Bridge of Spirits Del. Ed. (-34%) A$49.90 Gorgeous presentation hides a surprisingly tough combat curve that may catch some off guard.

PS4

• Gran Turismo 7 (-58%) A$46.10 Reverent and obsessive about cars, sometimes frustrating, but unmatched if you love the culture.
• Assassin's Creed Mirage (-63%) A$29.90 A tighter, quieter Assassin’s Creed that trades scale for focus, mostly to its benefit.
• Mortal Kombat 11 Ult. (-55%) A$40.20 Content rich and mechanically solid, though its grind still overstays its welcome.

Or purchase a PS Store Card.

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Purchase Cheap for PC

• God of War Ragnarok (-40%) A$57.40 Spectacular without being hollow, emotionally grounded, and mechanically confident across its entire runtime.
• Black Myth Wukong (-25%) A$67.40 Visually stunning and occasionally punishing, with combat that demands precision more than flair.
• Mortal Kombat Elder God Bndl (-84%) A$19.90 An absurd amount of content for the price, though learning curves remain unforgiving.
• Everspace 2 (-80%) A$13.90 Clean systems, satisfying dogfights, and a structure that respects limited play sessions.
• Hogwarts Legacy (-86%) A$12.50 Lavish and familiar, best enjoyed as a focused tour rather than a completionist marathon.

Or just get a Steam Wallet Card

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When you have a series that's consistently gotten new games for almost 40 years, you have to think about how younger generations will be able to play them. That, and, of course, thinking about your bottom line, has led every publisher to lean more and more into multiplatform releases. On top of PC ports, Square Enix has released a decent amount of remasters and special editions of the Final Fantasy series specifically for Nintendo's handheld.

The Final Fantasy games hitting Switch isn't entirely unprecedented. The connection between Final Fantasy and Nintendo dates back to the series’ infancy, when the first game debuted on Nintendo's Famicom system in 1987. In fact, the first six mainline Final Fantasy games debuted on Nintendo platforms before Square Enix jumped to PlayStation as the series’ primary platform with Final Fantasy 7.

We've got a lot to look forward to on both Switch systems in 2026, including Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on Switch 2. Below, we’ve compiled a complete list of Final Fantasy games available on the Nintendo Switch and what to expect next.

How Many Final Fantasy Games Are Available on Switch?

There are 22 Final Fantasy games you can play on the Switch — 13 mainline games, one prequel, and eight spinoffs. These games have been split into two sections below: mainline games (ordered by original release date) and other games (ordered by Switch release date).

Every Mainline Final Fantasy Game on Switch and Switch 2

Final Fantasy 1–6 Pixel Remaster

The first six Final Fantasy games are all available on Switch as part of Square Enix’s Pixel Remaster collection. Each game has been overhauled with new graphics, rearranged soundtracks, updated UIs, and new galleries for players to explore the creatures, illustrations, and music from all six games. If you're interested in diving into the original Final Fantasy experience, this is the best way to do it.

The Pixel Remasters are available individually ($12–18 USD/each) or as part of the six-game Final Fantasy I–VI bundle ($75 USD). If you're looking at the games individually, I'd recommend FF6, as it has one of the more immersive storylines.

Final Fantasy 7

One of the series’ most beloved games, Final Fantasy VII, is also available on Switch. This is not a remastered version of the game but rather a port of the 1997 original with three extra features: a 3x speed mode, the ability to turn battle encounters off, and a battle enhancement mode to make encounters easier. While the newer remasters, Remake and Rebirth, introduce modern action RPG mechanics to Cloud Strife's battle against Sephiroth, the Switch edition of FFVII is one of the best opportunities to experience what made the original PlayStation game so impactful.

Final Fantasy 8 Remastered

The series’ next entry is also available on Switch as Final Fantasy VIII Remastered. This updated version was released in 2019, 20 years after FF8 originally debuted on PlayStation. Additions to the remastered version include a 3x speed mode, the ability to turn off random encounters, and battle assist options to lessen the difficulty of combat.

Final Fantasy 9

Final Fantasy IX on Switch, like FFVII before it, is a port of the original RPG, which, despite not being quite as "famous" as Final Fantasy VII, is considered to have one of the best storylines in the series. The Switch version includes a few extras compared to the 2000 original, including high-speed and no-encounter modes, an autosave feature, and HD cutscenes and character models.

Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster

Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster is a bundle of Final Fantasy X and its sequel X-2 (the series’ first-ever direct sequel). The two games feature over 100 hours of RPG content, according to IGN sister site How Long to Beat, and include upgraded graphics and reworked audio (with the ability to switch back and forth between the new and original sounds).

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age

Skipping the now-shuttered MMORPG Final Fantasy XI, the series’ next mainline game available on Switch is Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age. The Zodiac Age, a remaster of the 2006 original, features HD graphics and a re-recorded soundtrack, as well as the Zodiac Job System, an increased battle tempo, an optional high-speed mode, and autosave functionality.

Final Fantasy 15 Pocket Edition HD

Final Fantasy XIII and XIV: Online are not available on Switch, which brings us to Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition HD. It’s the latest mainline game available on the platform, as FFXVI is still only available on PS5 and PC.

Final Fantasy 15 Pocket Edition HD is an abridged version of the original game with cartoonish character models, simplified combat, a reduced skill tree, and fewer side quests. Pocket Edition HD does, however, retain the full FFXV story, boys on the road and all.

Final Fantasy VII: Remake Intergrade (2026)*

We have officially entered the 'only on Switch 2' section of this list. In this case, that has nothing to do with the game being Switch 2-exclusive. Rather, the increased power of the Switch 2 console has allowed for some heftier ports, including Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade. We specifically re-reviewed this game when it launched on the Nintendo console, acknowledging that while you're limited to 30fps, it "checks pretty much every box you could ask for from a portable version."

Other Final Fantasy Games on Switch

World of Final Fantasy Maxima (2018)

World of Final Fantasy Maxima, co-developed by Square Enix and prolific Japanese developer Tose, came to Switch with new content and the subtitle ‘Maxima’ two years after it was first released on PS4 and Vita. It’s an accessible RPG aimed at younger audiences that combines the series' Active Time Battle system with the ability to capture Mirages (i.e., creatures) to use in battle.

Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon: Every Buddy! (2019)

Chocobo’s Mystery Dungeon: Every Buddy! is a remastered version of the 2007 Wii game Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon. This Final Fantasy spinoff is a turn-based RPG with randomly generated dungeons and a buddy system that allows players to bring other creatures or characters along for the dungeon-crawling chaos.

Collection of Mana (2019)

This collection of three Mana games is on this list due to its inclusion of the 1991 Game Boy game Final Fantasy Adventure. Despite beginning as a Final Fantasy spinoff, the Mana series dropped those ties with the release of its second game, Secret of Mana, and has since remained an independent franchise.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition (2020)

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition is an enhanced version of the 2004 RPG/dungeon crawler originally released for GameCube. Crystal Chronicles for Switch features a cute aesthetic, online co-op, and the addition of English voiceover for the first time. It’s a graphical improvement upon the original that also added new areas, monsters, weapons, and a higher-difficulty option.

Collection of SaGa Final Fantasy Legend (2020)

Collection of SaGa Final Fantasy Legend compiles three Game Boy games: Final Fantasy Legend I–III. We’ve included these games in service to creating a comprehensive list, though these are only Final Fantasy games in name; the SaGa games belong to an independent franchise of RPGs inspired by but not necessarily connected to Final Fantasy. The first three SaGa games were given the Final Fantasy name to capitalize on the brand recognition with western audiences.

The collection adds a high-speed mode and Switch-specific enhancements like adjustable screen magnification and the ability to play with your Switch oriented vertically (when in handheld mode, with Joy-Cons detached).

Crisis Core –Final Fantasy VII– Reunion (2022)

A prequel to Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core –Final Fantasy VII– Reunion is a remastered version of the 2007 PSP RPG. The game stars a young warrior named Zack Fair, whose connection to Cloud and FFVII is revealed throughout the story. Reunion features remastered graphics, new character and background models, fully voiced dialogue, a newly arranged soundtrack, and a refined battle system.

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line (2023)

A rhythm game that celebrates the music of Final Fantasy, Theatrhythm Final Bar Line launched with 385 tracks from across the Final Fantasy series, though that has since grown to include music from other Square franchises for a total of 505 tracks. The Final Fantasy music pulls from 46 games, according to Squre, including FFI–XV. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line features over 100 characters and online multiplayer support for up to 8 players.

Chocobo GP (2023)

Chocobo GP is a Final Fantasy-themed kart racer developed by Arika (Tetris 99). While there are better kart racers available on Switch, Chocobo GP is a fun respite from the more involved RPGs that make up the majority of the Final Fantasy franchise. Like other kart racers, it features time challenges, tournament-style races, and options for multiplayer racing.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles (2025)

A remake of Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles recently came to PS5 and Switch with enhanced graphics, voiced dialogue, and various quality of life improvements over the original PS1 game. Ronny Barrier's review for IGN says the remake of the tactical RPG removes "the cruft of Final Fantasy Tactics while surfacing what made it special through smart UI tweaks, convenience features, and excellent new voice acting."

Upcoming Final Fantasy Games on Nintendo Switch

Square Enix has confirmed that all of the Final Fantasy VII remakes will be making their way to the Nintendo Switch 2 over time. Final Fantasy 7 Remake Integrade released on the Switch on January 22, 2026, and will be followed by the Switch 2 release of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on June 3.

Unfortunately, we still have no word on a release date for the third and final part of the remake, but with ongoing trends, there's a chance it comes to Switch 2 at launch.

The newly-rebranded Overwatch just benefited from its best weekend player count "in over a year" across all platforms, developer Blizzard has said, as the game's new Season 1 officially goes live today.

Players have flocked back to Overwatch following last week's big Spotlight reveal event that confirmed the sequel was ditching its "2", adding a host of new heroes, and telling a fresh interconnected narrative over the next year.

An early access launch for new hero Anran also helped draw players in, while the company has quickly addressed calls from fans and the game's English-language voice actress for tweaks to the character's design.

As reported earlier this week, Overwatch had a particularly strong weekend on Steam — where the game recorded its best player count since launch. Last week's announcements continued with confirmation of an upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 port of the game, scheduled for release sometime within its new Season 2.

Here's everything that's live today, alongside the launch of Season 1:

Overwatch Season 1 — February 10

● Five New Heroes at Launch: Jump in to experience five new heroes right now, with five more coming throughout 2026 (one per season).

○ Domina (Tank), a long-range, zone-control Stalwart Tank hero and vice president of the Vishkar Corporation.

○ Emre (Damage), a fast-paced, run-and-gun Specialist Damage hero with cybernetic upgrades.

○ Mizuki (Support), a versatile Survivor Support hero aligned with the Hashimoto clan.

○ Anran (Damage), a fire-wielding Flanker Damage hero, Overwatch recruit, and Wuyang’s older sister.

○ Jetpack Cat (Support), a permanently flying feline, acting as a Tactician Support hero with quick reflexes and Hero towing abilities

● The Reign of Talon: For the first time, Overwatch is telling a fully connected narrative across an entire year, following Talon’s rise under new leadership. Follow along on this new story with our latest cinematic, as well as ongoing motion comics, animated Hero trailers, short stories, and more.

● Conquest Meta Event: Conquest is a five-week faction-based event where players align with Overwatch or Talon, completing missions and earning rewards along the way.

● Gameplay, Competitive, and Systems Updates: Season 1 includes new role sub-roles and passives for all Heroes, a competitive year reset with rewards and rarity titles, Stadium updates, a full UI/UX refresh, and new systems like Praise.

● The Overwatch x Hello Kitty and Friends collaboration is available now, introducing colorful, Hello Kitty and Friends-inspired skins plus themed extras like name cards, sprays, emotes, and more. Available now through February 24, the crossover introduces skins for…

○ Juno as Hello Kitty

○ Widowmaker as Kuromi

○ Mercy as Pompompurrin

○ Lucio as Keroppi

○ D.Va as My Melody

○ Kiriko as Cinnamoroll

● Skins and Cosmetics: Season 1 includes faction-themed skins, new themed bundles, a Mercy Celestial Guardian Mythic, Juno’s Star Shooter Mythic Weapon, and a Lootbox pool refresh including skins from the past six seasons.

After all that, Overwatch's new Season 2 will introduce a fresh hero, mythics and a celebration of the game's 10-year anniversary later this spring. Another hero joins in Season 3, due this summer, alongside the Japan Night map and more mythics. Later this summer, Season 4 drops yet another new hero and includes activity tied to BlizzCon and the Overwatch World Cup.

Catch up with everything else announced last week at Blizzard's Overwatch Spotlight event right here.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Games are often at their funniest when they’re not trying to be. It’s the Skyrim NPC who’s determined to deliver their stock line, apparently totally unperturbed by the dragon attack happening just behind him. It’s watching your custom character enter a sombre cutscene, standing eight feet tall and wearing a banana outfit. There’s something about the way games stoically keep up the pretense that this is all real, no matter how broken things have become in the moment, that’s sheer comedy gold.

What about the games who dare to be funny on purpose, though? That’s a rarer collective. If comedy’s all about timing, and games are all about giving you the agency to go and do what you like, when you like – well, you can see the problem. But some brave pieces of software still manage to pull it off in the face of that adversity, and we’ve corralled ten of the best ever to do so, from vintage point-and-clicks to more recent hits, from indies to blockbusters.

Trying to to decide a ranked list or order of funniness seemed like too serious a task for the subject matter – comedy is, of course, completely subjective, so your mileage may vary – but with that in mind, here are IGN’s picks for the ten funniest games of all time. Settle in, and be ready to wishlist a few titles to counteract that Last Of Us Part 2 playthrough.

Promise Mascot Agency

You could be forgiven for thinking at first glance that Promise Mascot Agency was yet another run-of-the-mill open-world mascot management simulator. It is not. Made by Paradise Killer developer Kaizen Game Works, what we have here is a town full of oddities, a van full of gas, and a story so convoluted and absurd that to describe it is to stare into the eye of madness.

There are kittens in railway administration roles. There are weeping mascots doing their level best to cheer up the patrons of a bookstore. There’s the constant threat of organized crime, looming in the background while you hit a dirt ramp in your van, which then sprouts wings to catch some sick air.

In simple terms, you’re a former Yakuza trying to lay low by operating a mascot business in the suburbs, managing the constant time and financial pressures that such a business must withstand. It’s narrative-led, but also totally freewheeling and nonsensical, and that gives Promise Mascot Agency the feeling that you’re playing one big elaborate, open-world improv. Yes, and... play it.

Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery

A small sloth is experiencing a haunting. A welcome sign for an invisible wizard has been vandalized, and corruption runs rife in Cowboy County. Grave, deeply serious matters, all of them, which, as a frog with a magnifying glass, you must address.

And yet here Frog Detective is on this list of funny games. Granted, you don’t often see detectives holding their sides and trying to contain their laughter on the job, but there’s just something about peering at a crime suspect through a giant magnifying glass and seeing only a sheep in a short-sleeved shirt giving you a benign and unwavering smile. It’s irrepressibly funny.

The mysteries are brief affairs, and exceptionally easy to solve. Instead of challenges for the grey matter, Grace Bruxner and Thomas Bowker’s trio of Frog Detective mysteries are just setups for wholesome farces, soundtracked by surprisingly catching low-fi jazz, and set in a universe of unwavering positivity and can-do attitudes. You might only be the second-best detective around, but you’re having the best time.

South Park: The Stick Of Truth

To say South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker like pushing the boundaries of taste and decency is a bit like saying Nathan Drake’s got decent grip strength, or that Blizzard’s quite fond of a loot box here and there. As such, there are entire sequences in the wondrous South Park: The Stick of Truth that we couldn’t possibly describe – nor remain straight faced at.

Stone and Parker were deeply involved as collaborators with the role-playing masters at developer Obsidian for this razor-sharp 2014 RPG. A story about a new kid trying to befriend his peers during an elaborate game of fantasy LARPing, the duo’s involvement lends it the same quality of observational humour about gaming that made Make Love, Not Warcraft an all-timer of an episode

Why does it work? Well, let’s take farting as an example. If you’re older than seven, you’re probably not in a fit of hysterics when you first learn that farts can be used as an attack in combat. But The Stick of Truth commits to the bit and makes passing gas more than a passing gag, turning it into a shockingly detailed and nuanced mechanic, to the point that you’re learning new fart moves from NPCs like unlocking new dragon shouts in Skyrim. Considering all that, it’s hard not to submit to South Park’s confrontationally juvenile gag.

Octodad: Dadliest Catch

“Nobody suspects a thing.” That’s what the wonderful soundtrack for Octodad: Dadliest Catch keeps telling you as you do your best to maintain the facade that you’re just a normal, everyday human husband and father and not – and I’m not sure why you’d ever even think this – an octopus wearing a suit.

As core premises go, they don’t get much better than that. There’s a whole subgenre of physics-based slapstick to address when you’re talking about funny games, and the likes of Baby Steps, Goat Simulator and Surgeon Simulator deserve their dues. But nobody’s married the physical comedy of an obtuse control set to an genuinely emotional premise quite as well as Young Horses did in 2017. As you lollop around quaint suburban locations like grocery stores, offices and your own beautifully decorated home, trying to avoid suspicion by moving in as human a manner possible and knocking the bare minimum of objects over with your flailing tentacles, the real hook is that you actually care about keeping Octodad’s secret.

The Stanley Parable

If it wasn’t handled so precisely, The Stanley Parable would be too meta, too confusing, and too pleased with itself to enjoy. But somehow it avoids such a fate, instead making walking along the same corridor over and over again feel like a delight, and hearing a new line of Kevan Brighting’s silky voiceover akin to finding a super-secret armor set in Dark Souls.

Precisely what the eponymous parable is depends on your particular playthrough. Stanley’s experiencing a kind of Groundhog Day in which the only constants are that he wakes up at his desk in an office, and that all his coworkers have disappeared.

You’ll live for centuries in some playthroughs, depending on what seem at the time like arbitrary choices like going through one door or another. In other playthroughs, it’ll all be over in a few minutes and you’ll barely have left your desk before you reach an ending. The writing is playfully self-aware throughout as it deconstructs this whole interactive media thing, but the biggest joke of all is the silliness of its premise. Quite simply, how much game can one make about a character walking through an empty world devoid of characters, and whose only interactions come down to choosing between forks in the road? Enough to warrant an expanded Ultra Deluxe Edition almost a decade later, clearly.

West of Loathing

There probably wasn’t much worth laughing about for those living in the wild West, what with all the spoiled meat and dysentery (cards on the table, much of our historical knowledge comes from The Oregon Trail). But it’s certainly been a rich vein of comedy for everyone from Blazing Saddles, The Three Amiigos and City Slickers, all the way to West of Loathing, a black and white, 2D side-scrolling adventure RPG with an incredible gag rate.

Every book title, every item description, every NPC interaction, they’re all just jam-packed with warm, clever jokes. So much so that as you play, you find yourself turning into one of those completionist maniacs that read every book in Skyrim or piece together Dark Souls lore, just to ensure you soak up every last drop of the good stuff. The game’s smart about training you to play that way, too: in your home during the opening, if you look at enough books on the shelf you’ll eventually find one that grants you the ‘perk’ of having a silly walk. From that point on you know you’ve got to get your nose into every monochrome corner of this old West caper.

Portal 2

Feel free to swap in the first game here, if you’re particularly into the cake and the musical finale. Portal certainly set a high bar for humour in and around the Aperture Science test chambers and established an unforgettably menacing foil in GLaDOS. The only way to top it? Portal 2: the sequel featuring Stephen Merchant, a potato, and a double-cross that nobody saw coming.

Wheatley is comedy gold throughout the, er – ambitious AI’s character arc. At first it’s his simple ineptitude that tugs at the corners of your mouth. Then it’s hearing that friendly British regional accent spit absolute malice at you. Finally, the absolute absurdity of a final showdown between one sadistic rogue AI trapped in a potato and another who’s rapidly discovering their hunger for power is not matched by their problem-solving skills. Oh, and there’s another song.

Imagine how punishing all those puzzles would be if they weren’t punctuated by such immaculately delivered comedic beats. Would you have tried so hard to figure out exactly where to place all that colored goo? No, exactly. Nobody would.

Time Gentlemen, Please!

Ben and Dan have a humble ambition: they want to watch a Magnum PI marathon on TV. Quite how this turns into a cataclysmic event that accidentally enslaves all of humanity is not easy to piece together, but it is enjoyable.

It’s also the kind of setup that an early ‘90s point-and-click would have been proud of, and developer Zombie Cow Studios is ready to give a reverential nod to many of those classic titles. There are posters for Sam & Max and Full Throttle dotted around on walls in the background. There’s an undead kid called Gilbert, along with quoted lines from Ron Gilbert’s Monkey Island series. But rather than retread that old ground for nostalgia’s sake, Time Gentlemen, Please! Has its fun by poking fun at the old genre conventions, pointing out the inherent absurdity of carrying around massive inventories of random items in the hope they’ll be useful later. Not that making a TV aerial out of a coat hanger and accidentally time-travelling is any less absurd, of course.

The Secret of Monkey Island

LucasArts ruled the ‘90s when it came to point-and-clicks, but it’s 1990’s Secret of Monkey Island where the most precious comedy gold is buried. Guybrush Threepwood might walk around telling everyone he’s a mighty pirate, but his immutable golden retriever energy makes it difficult to believe that he’s the one who’ll pass the Three Trials required for full pirate status, take on the Dread Pirate LeChuck and win Governor Elaine’s heart. Not to mention his proclivity for stuffing random objects into his pants. Not your typical swashbuckler, this guy(brush).

This was the game that gave us insult sword-fighting, a verbal disagreement turned into a tense combat system that only Ron Gilbert’s LucasArts team could pull off. It’s also a game that manages to make (very) early nineties pop culture references sit flush with age-old pirate fantasy. Thus, we have a tropical island where a fast-talking used boat salesman in a bad tweed blazer is waiting to accost you, and where vending machines line the streets. The puzzle logic might be up for debate, but its ear for funny can’t be called into question, even three decades on.

Disco Elysium

Your first clue that this isometric RPG might not be entirely straight-faced comes in Disco Elysium’s very opening scene, in which your hungover protagonist can over-exert himself reaching for his necktie and simply die. Game over, try again. That’s a heck of a way to set a tone.

There are also frequent moments of real pathos, horror, and tragedy in ZA/UM’s 2019 RPG masterclass, and they’re so well written that it never feels dissonant that five minutes later when you’re smashing a lorry window, one of the options is to “smash it, apologetically.”

Pleasingly, the funniest character in the game is you, the player, in control of an alcoholic cop who can’t remember where he parked his car (it's in the ocean) and who, after asking his partner to borrow their gun, puts it straight in their mouth in front of the armed wing of a dockworker’s union. No matter how unseriously you take your role, Disco Elysium has a way of simply rolling with it without ever undermining the darker narrative beats when they arrive.

And that concludes today’s listing of IGN’s pick of the funniest games of all time. We hope you agree with our choices, or at the very least are not angry at us for telling you about them in an effort to inform you about something that might make you laugh. What are your favorite comedy video games? Let us know in the comments below.

Phil Iwaniuk is a veteran hardware smasher and game botherer who has written for the likes of PC Format, Official PlayStation Magazine, PCGamesN, The Guardian, Eurogamer, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and IGN. He won an award once, but he doesn't like to go on about it.

Fans of Stardew Valley are eager to get married... again. To whom? They don't know. But they're hoping their bride/groom will be a couple of individuals in particular.

To understand why, take a look back at our own interview with ConcernedApe, where he exclusively revealed to us that the next update, 1.7, would include two new marriageable characters. He wouldn't say who they were, and we don't even know if these will be brand new characters or existing characters that suddenly become available. While ConcernedApe will let us know later this month on the game's 10th anniversary, that hasn't stopped people from wildly speculating who it'll be, and there are a few theories reigning supreme right now.

Logically, we can put together that we will likely get both a man and a woman, as all the other candidates have opposite-gender pairings for events like the Flower Dance. To find out who the most popular people in the game for romance were, Reddit user JeffTheKillerFa put together a poll for fans to see who came out on top. They've since posted the results, showing Sandy coming out waaay ahead of the other single women (Marnie was in second place), and the Wizard winning the vote for single men.

But interestingly, fans have latched onto another possibility that we could see in 1.7: breaking up an existing couple. The poll also asked fans who of the currently married individuals in the valley they wanted to steal. Robin was the clear winner, with players clearly not losing any sleep over breaking her up with Demetrius. That's even something ConcernedApe has discussed as a possibility before! But Caroline (currently married to general store owner Pierre) was also a favorite.

As a bit of a gag, the poll also included a section for "non-giftable" characters, or individuals who you can't currently form even a friendship with due to a lack of ability to give gifts and limited dialogue options. Marlon of the Adventurer's Guild was a pretty obvious winner here, followed by Gunther from the museum. And in a final poll, it seems like people don't necessarily want to marry the Dwarf, but like Krobus, they wish she would move in as a roommate.

These poll results do seem to line up roughly with comments posted all over the community since our interview about who people want to see. However, there's one character that got some attention on socials who wasn't in the poll at all:

Yes, the Hat Mouse! I too would love to marry the Hat Mouse! We could run a little hat store together! Of course that's realistic!

Again, it's possible we're going to get two brand new characters in the valley, and all of this speculation will have been just silly wishcasting. But until ConcernedApe says otherwise, I will be eagerly awaiting the addition of my preferred combo of Hat Mouse and the Wizard, the most obviously romantic individuals in the game.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

February's line-up of games for the PlayStation Plus catalog have leaked online, and include a major PS5 blockbuster.

According to the ever-reliable dealabs leaker billbil-kun, Sony is set to confirm Marvel's Spider-Man 2 as this month's headline game for PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium subscribers.

Insomniac's well-received web-slinging sequel will be joined by PS5 online racer Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, plus arty indie Neva for both PS4 and PS5, all available to claim from February 17.

Originally released in October 2023, Spider-Man 2 is Insomniac Games' third major Marvel blockbuster, following its original Spider-Man game and follow-up Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Both Spidey men appear in the sequel, as the pair work together to defeat Kraven the Hunter and tackle the Venom symbiote.

The appearance of Spider-Man 2 in Sony's catalog comes at an interesting time. Just over a year on from the game's January 2025 launch for PC, Insomniac's adventure also arrives as hype mounts for its next game, Marvel's Wolverine, which we may well see more of later this week in PlayStation's big State of Play broadcast. Indeed, we may even see these games announced officially during the show.

"Marvel's Spider-Man 2 delivers Insomniac's best tale yet, and despite its open world falling short, is a reliably fun superhero power trip," IGN wrote in our Spider-Man 2 review, awarding it 8/10.

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown launched in 2024 to mixed reviews. "Forced online requirements, inconsistent AI difficulty, a stale car list, and chore-like progression all undermine Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown's otherwise robust driving and eye-catching open world," IGN's 5/10 review noted.

Neva arrived in October 2024 to a positive response for its arty side-scrolling puzzle-platforming, meanwhile — catch gameplay of it just above.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Enjoy this exclusive new boss battle gameplay from Mouse: P.I. for Hire, the upcoming rubber hose-animated first-person shooter starring Troy Baker as Detective Jack Pepper. In this video you'll see Jack taking on the Third Wife in the Spooky Village.

In the four-minute gameplay video (which you can watch below), you'll see Jack's flashlight coming in handy as he attempts to take down the Third Wife. You also get a look at multiple weapons in action – all animated as if they came straight out of a 1930's Steamboat Willie cartoon.

Check out the original reveal trailer and our first preview if you haven't seen them already. Even more recently than those, though, don't miss our exclusive early-campaign gameplay and our overview of Mouse's wild arsenal.

Mouse: P.I. for Hire will be released on March 19 for PC, PlayStation platforms, Xbox platforms, and Nintendo Switch platforms. Wishlist it on Steam if you're interested.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

Amazon's sale on select PS5 games has been filled with great offers. If you're a Sonic fan, we've spotted some especially nice discounts for PlayStation 5 that are worth taking advantage of while they're still available.

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, Sonic X Shadow Generations, Sonic Superstars, and Sonic Frontiers have all dropped to excellent low prices at the retailer, offering up to 67% off in savings. If you've had your eye on one of them (or all of them), now's a great time to pick them up.

We found a lot to enjoy in all of the above games. Both Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and Sonic x Shadow Generations earned 9s in their respective reviews from IGN's Jada Griffin. So what makes CrossWorlds stand out? It "fires on all cylinders with a fantastic roster, excellent courses, and lengthy list of customization options." And as for Sonic X Shadow Generations, it "takes an already excellent game and spring jumps it to new heights with a creative Shadow campaign and an appreciable graphical upgrade."

On the other hand, Sonic Superstars and Sonic Frontiers each earned a 7 in their respective reviews. Griffin found that Sonic Superstars "has a mix of both interesting and ill-advised new ideas, making it an enjoyable Sonic game but not exactly a Super one." Sonic Frontiers was reviewed by writer Travis Northup, who said it's "an ambitious open-world adventure that mostly succeeds at mixing up the Sonic formula, even when some of its ideas fall flat."

No matter what kind of Sonic adventure you're looking to drop into, these offers seem well worth taking advantage of before they're gone. Amazon has plenty more worth checking out in its sale on select PS5 games right now as well, including discounts on Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Silent Hill f, and more.

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

It Takes Two and Split Fiction director Josef Fares has posted the first photo from the set of developer Hazelight Studios' next project.

The image shows Fares, dressed in a cosy-looking sweater, in front of three actors in performance capture suits. Clearly, work has now begun on Fares' next game — and intriguingly, he seems to be doing his best to disguise who the actors are.

With his arm outstretched and thumb raised, Fares is successfully blocking most of all three actors' faces — and this appears to be by design. "Next game in the making," Fares captioned the post, with a thumbs up emoji. "We're back in the kitchen, cookin' up something really delicious," the official Hazelight Studios social media account responded, adding: "Now with Strategic Arm Placement Tech."

✌️We’re back in the kitchen, cookin’ up something really delicious! 🥘

Now with Strategic Arm Placement Tech®️

— Hazelight Studios (@HazelightGames) February 10, 2026

Fans of Fares' games have commented on the post to say they are suitably uncertain who the actors involved might be — though many more have noted the fact that Fares is using this first sneak peek to showcase three actors being visible. Could this signify a three-player game, after the studio's recent focus on titles featuring a pair of prominent characters?

"Three-player Hazelight Game?" wondered one fan, Spenny99. "It Takes Three?????" questioned Jcbartlett25. "It Takes Three lookin great Mr. Fares," added hotpicklepizza.

Co-op adventure Split Fiction launched last year to rave reviews, and went on to sell more than 4 million copies. Its story focuses on a pair of writers, Zoe and Mio, who become trapped in their interweaving sci-fi and fantasy narratives.

"An expertly crafted co-op adventure that pinballs from one genre extreme to another, Split Fiction is a rollercoaster of constantly refreshed gameplay ideas and styles – and one that’s very hard to walk away from," IGN wrote in our Split Fiction review, awarding the game 9/10.

Fares' previous game It Takes Two also proved popular, with its story focused on a husband and wife who plan to get a divorce. We called it "a beautiful, breakneck-paced, co-op adventure that’s bubbling over with creativity," in IGN's It Takes Two review, which also returned a 9/10.

Before that, Fares previously released prison escape adventure A Way Out, starring two convicts, and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, starring... two sons. Should Fares actually be making a three-player game, it would indeed be a break from the norm.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Take one look at Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, the upcoming RPG from ZA/UM, and you can immediately see the similarities between it and the studio’s previous game, Disco Elysium. It’s an isometric game with a striking art style, featuring dialogue-heavy gameplay where conversations are displayed vertically on the right-hand side of the screen.

Take a closer look and there are even more similarities. There’s a “Conditioning” system that replicates many of the functions of Disco Elysium’s unique Thought Cabinet. Its story aims to be deeply political and introspective. And then there’s the skills system, which manifests as a sentient inner monologue, commenting on your choices and the world around you.

For some Disco Elysium fans, this overlap may feel uneasy. In 2022, game director Robert Kurvitz and art director Aleksander Rostov – creatives key to the look, feel, and vision of the celebrated RPG – were among a number of staff who left the studio in an "involuntary" manner. ZA/UM claimed they were fired for misconduct, while Kurvitz and Rostov accused the company’s majority shareholders of fraud. Many fans believe those fired to be victims of corporate conspiracy. Those same fans may now be concerned to see the studio building a Disco Elysium successor based on such similar design foundations without the involvement of those original creatives.

In a recent interview, IGN discussed these concerns with Jim Ashilevi, writer and VO director at ZA/UM, and asked why the studio didn’t consider finding a new direction for Zero Parades.

“I think it would have made sense for us to go in a completely different direction if the entire team was comprised of new talent,” Ashilevi said. “But since such a large number of the key players that built Disco Elysium are here to build Zero Parades, it just didn't make sense for us to just disregard that part of our experience as amateur game makers and start learning new ways of telling stories.”

ZA/UM’s head of studio, Allen Murray, estimates that around 35% of the studio’s current staff roster is made up of people who worked on either the original version of Disco Elysium or the expanded “Final Cut” release. The studio’s total staff numbers around 90.

“We're still the same people,” Ashilevi continued. “We still have the same interests. The stuff that interests us in the world of video games, but also in other media – in film and literature and theater – that hasn't changed. Hopefully it has evolved, but I think we're still basically the same people.

“We're just going by our gut, basically, and we're following our own obsessions,” he said. “And a lot of that was present in Disco Elysium. It will be present in Zero Parades as well, largely due to the fact that those are the same people who were there to build that cool world.”

In a previous interview with members of ZA/UM, which took place just prior to Gamescom 2025, IGN asked Ashilevi and lead technical artist Nicolas Pirot how they felt about fans who may be feeling cautious about a new ZA/UM RPG following the departures of Kurvitz, Rostov, and others.

“I understand why some people might have reservations,” said Pirot. “It's not up to me to tell them what to think or what to experience. I think what we are trying to do is tell an incredible story. And I think all we can do is hope that, when Zero Parades is ready, that people like it enough to participate and to see who we are as a group.”

“We are here to write more stories,” Ashilevi added. “That's all we're here for. And if that upsets people or makes them feel cautious, fair. But there is a new game coming out soon and I hope you check it out. And if you don't like it, that's fine. That's completely fine.”

ZA/UM intends to launch Zero Parades this year. An espionage RPG themed around power struggles and failure, the team hopes it will stand distinct from Disco Elysium without “fully re-inventing the wheel.”

Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.

Overwatch's game director has responded to calls for the appearance of new hero Anran to be changed, following fan criticism and a public declaration of support by the character's English-language voice actress.

Over the weekend, Anran voice actress Fareeha took to social media to address "the elephant in the room" surrounding her character's in-game appearance — which she and many other fans have called out as being a victim of the so-called "Same Face Syndrome", and different to her earlier appearances in a comic and cinematic. Those appearances set a "precedent" for Anran, Fareeha said, leaving her to now "mourn" the final in-game design made available to play in early access at the weekend.

"There was an unspoken promise that said 'we're going to challenge the beauty standards that are plaguing and ransacking media these days'," Fareeha stated. "The Ozempic chic, the 'contour your nose,' 'you have no nose,' 'the tiniest nose.' And I think because of that precedent, people feel understandably let down."

Now, Overwatch game director Aaron Keller has released his own statement, and said that Blizzard hoped to make changes to Anran's in-game design to make her "look and feel more like the fierce older sister" she was originally shown to be.

Without showing a new look for the character or providing any further specifics, Keller suggested Blizzard was working actively on the change, which would be seen by players later in the game's new Season 1.

"Thank you all for the incredible reception to last week's Spotlight event," Keller said in a video posted to game's official social media account. "We're sorting through all the questions, comments, excitement and feedback that you guys shared, and I wanted to take a moment to address one thing in particular.

"The team is currently discussing what it will take to make Anran look and feel more like the fierce older sister that we all envision her to be. We're so proud of the work that our team has put into Anran and the rest of the five heroes launching in Season 1, and we agree that she can be even better if we get this aspect of her right in-game.

Overwatch Spotlight reception and an Anran update from Game Director Aaron Keller pic.twitter.com/mxh0C0IpIj

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) February 10, 2026

"We discussed sharing this with all of you last week but wanted to wait until we had confirmation of exactly what we can do. We're hoping to make this update in Season 1 but I don't have specifics to share just yet. Our hero models are incredibly complicated and we really need to test out what we can do.

"We're always striving to make Overwatch better and I think Season 1 is a great example of the dedication and tireless work that our team puts into this game, its universe and ultimately, our players. We're so excited to share it with all of you when Season 1 launches tomorrow. Thanks for the feedback and support, we couldn't do it without all of you. Please keep it coming."

Thousands of players flocked back to Overwatch over the weekend following the announcement that the game was dropping its "2" and adding 10 new heroes in future. This year will see Overwatch enter a "new, story-driven era" with a year-long narrative and a major overhaul — beginning with the launch of Season 1 later today, February 10.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

If there is a theme running through my game deals of today, it's confidence without chaos. Games that know exactly what they are, respect your time, and quietly reward commitment rather than demanding obsession. I've played almost all of these, and in every case the discounts meaningfully shift the value conversation. So get amongst 'em before they're gone.

Contents

• Retro
• Nintendo
• Xbox
• PlayStation
• PC
• LEGO

This Day in Gaming 🎂

In crusty gamer news, I’m summoning sweary imps to bake a 14-shaped cake for The Darkness II. Though I didn't adore this as much as the non-cel-shaded, Starbreeze Studios original at launch, how could I not greedily devour any game starring Jackie Estacado, the best “dark hero” this side of Spawn. Basically, this was a power fantasy of an FPS where akimbo pistoles held as much importance as your heart-eating demon tentacles and black hole conjurations. Also, the idea of having Jackie tell us gruesome mobster factoids during loading screens? Absolute chef’s kiss.

Aussie birthdays for notable games.

- Psychonauts (PC,XB) 2006. Get

- Rugby 06 (PC,PS2,XB) 2006. eBay

- The Darkness II (PC,PS3,X360) 2012. Get

Nice Savings for Nintendo Switch

• Pokemon Pokopia (-23%) - A$85 Similar to Animal Crossing, Pokopia looks set to offer a chill experience where you gradually learn and utilise Pokémon abilities to create a Xanadu for yourself and your fellow Pokemans.
• Donkey Kong Bananza (-19%) - A$89 Classic platforming confidence with just enough modern polish. Still built around timing and momentum, and still happiest when you stop overthinking jumps.
• Dragon Quest Treasures (-53%) - A$40.20 A lighter, loop driven take on the series that trades epic scale for constant forward motion. Charming, repetitive, and best enjoyed in short, deliberate sessions.
• Celeste (-75%) - A$7.50 Still the gold standard for fair difficulty. Every death teaches something, every retry feels earned, and the emotional beats land without ever slowing the climb.
• Crysis Rem. Trilogy (-60%) - A$30 A technical flex turned historical artefact. The ideas still hold up, even if the shooting occasionally reminds you how far design has moved on.

Or gift a Nintendo eShop Card.

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Exciting Bargains for Xbox

• Crash Bandicoot 4 It’s About Time (-45%) - A$55 Tighter and more demanding than nostalgia suggests. Brilliant level design, but it expects precision and will happily punish sloppy muscle memory.
• Like a Dragon Ishin! (-69%) - A$30.80 Familiar systems in historical dress, delivered with confidence. The combat is serviceable, but the real joy is watching the studio indulge itself without apology.
• Borderlands Leg. Col. (-80%) - A$17.90 An absurd amount of shooting for the money. The humour is uneven, but the loot loop remains dangerously effective if you enjoy numbers going up.
• Atomic Heart (-70%) - A$32.30 Visually striking and mechanically inconsistent. Worth seeing for the world alone, even if the moment to moment play never fully settles.
• Streets of Rage 4 (-65%) - A$13.10 Still one of the cleanest modern beat em ups. Tight inputs, readable chaos, and a soundtrack that does more work than it needs to.

Xbox One

• Digimon Survive (-72%) - A$20.60 More visual novel than tactics game. Slow, wordy, and occasionally brilliant if you are here for tone rather than constant interaction.
• Shovel Knight Treasure Trove (-60%) - A$22.90 A masterclass in restraint. Tight controls, smart callbacks, and expansions that respect the original without diluting it.
• Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater I + II (-56%) - A$30.80 Muscle memory comes roaring back. The remake understands exactly what to modernise and what to leave untouched.

Or just invest in an Xbox Card.

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Pure Scores for PlayStation

• Gran Turismo 7 (-41%) - A$73.30 Still meticulous to a fault. The experience on PS VR2 is peerless, but progression systems remain oddly hostile to anyone without endless patience.
• Tekken 8 (-48%) - A$44 Aggressive, readable, and finally welcoming without dumbing down. A rare fighter that rewards newcomers without losing its edge.
• No Man’s Sky (-29%) - A$49.30 The redemption arc is real. Systems now stack cleanly, exploration feels purposeful, and the sense of scale still quietly impresses.
• Visions of Mana (-45%) - A$54.40 Colourful and earnest, sometimes to a fault. Combat shines when it flows, but the pacing assumes you are happy to linger.
• Death’s Door (-75%) - A$7.40 A compact action adventure with real bite. Simple on the surface, quietly emotional underneath, and respectful of your time.

PS4

• Two Point Hospital Jumbo Ed. (-48%) - A$28.40 Management chaos with a dry sense of humour. Systems stack fast, and it shines once you stop trying to play efficiently.
• Trials of Mana (-44%) - A$43.20 A faithful remake that values vibe over reinvention. Combat is breezy, story is earnest, and expectations should be calibrated accordingly.
• Sonic Superstars (-70%) - A$28.40 Fast when it works, frustrating when it does not. Momentum is king, and patience is required when physics disagree with intent.

Or purchase a PS Store Card.

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Purchase Cheap for PC

• Metal Gear Solid Delta Snake Eater (-50%) - A$58.40 A respectful rework of a classic that still feels wonderfully strange. The pacing is deliberate, and that is part of the appeal.
• Stellar Blade (-45%) - A$76.90 Slick combat and immaculate animation carry it far. The challenge curve is honest, but the tone will not be for everyone.
• Doom The Dark Ages (-71%) - A$35.30 Familiar aggression with heavier armour. It rewards confidence, punishes hesitation, and never pretends subtlety is the goal.
• Death Stranding Dir. Cut (-75%) - A$13.70 Finally feels complete. Meditative, occasionally obtuse, and deeply committed to its own rhythm.
• Dredge (-65%) - A$12.70 Cozy fishing with a creeping sense of dread. The loop is simple, the atmosphere does the heavy lifting, and it lingers longer than expected.

Or just get a Steam Wallet Card

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PlayStation users can stock up and save on some new games for their library through Amazon right now. The retailer is offering some excellent deals on a selection of PS5 games, including Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater (down to $30), Silent Hill f (down to $40), Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds (which is down to $25.24 after clipping a coupon), and more.

These are just the start of what's available. Have a look through more of our favorite PS5 games that are currently on sale at Amazon below.

Select PS5 Games on Sale at Amazon

What makes these deals even better is that some of the games above have hit their lowest prices yet at the retailer. Price tracker camelcamelcamel shows that this is the lowest price Silent Hill f, Civ VII, Double Dragon Revive, and Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds (with its coupon) have all hit at Amazon so far. Similar to Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, with the help of the coupon on its store page, this also marks a new low price for Space Marine 2 at the retailer.

And while it's not the lowest price point it has ever hit at Amazon, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater has matched its Black Friday price, which is certainly still a deal to celebrate. If you haven't added it to your library yet, now is a great time while it's still on sale for $30.

That applies to all of the available games: This is a great opportunity to scoop them up and save while they're still on sale. They're not the only game deals worth taking advantage of right now, though. If you're looking for more outside of PlayStation, February’s Humble Choice lineup has dropped for PC players as well, offering the chance to add 8 games to your digital library for just $15 when you sign up for a Humble Choice membership. This month leads with Resident Evil Village, which is definitely worth grabbing ahead of Resident Evil: Requiem.

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

Sports are foundational to gaming as a medium. From Pong to NES Baseball, the infancy of the medium was littered with just-about-recognisable renditions of real-life sports in an attempt to conjure a degree of familiarity to this fledgling form of entertainment. But in the mid ‘90s, the developers at Nintendo collectively had a light bulb appear above their head housing an idea that would change gaming forever – what if Mario and his friends played tennis?

The greatest Mario sports games are a perfect blend of those two words: Mario and sports. It has to be a simulation worth its salt, giving you a reasonable adaptation of what it’s truly like to play the sport in question. However, just as vital is the Mario part, splicing the sport with the Mushroom Kingdom’s trademark personality. In the decades following 1995’s Mario’s Tennis, Nintendo’s sports games evolved from simple sims to wacky adventures, before retreating back to a steady, if uninspiring, run of titles. The early days of Camelot Software’s handheld RPGs and chaos-inducing console sims are seemingly long gone, and today many of Mario’s sporting outings are greeted with more of a shrug than with anticipation.

But with Mario Tennis Fever releasing this month on Nintendo Switch 2, we could be about to enter a new era. So in celebration of a joyful future (or just a magical past) here’s the top 10 Mario sports games, ranked.

10. Mario Hoops 3-on-3

If many modern Mario sports games are poisoned by a lack of personality, games like Mario Hoops are the antidote. 3-on-3’s unique presentation blends 3D models with excellent sprite work, a striking approach that bridges the graphical styles of the GameBoy Advance and Nintendo’s then-new DS handheld. Nothing represents this mix better than the character select screen, the single greatest in all of Mario history, which lays the groundwork for a charming basketball romp.

Hoops could easily claim to be the best use of the DS’ touch screen. Tapping in different areas sees Mario and his friends dribble around the court, keeping the ball away from opponents and collecting coins and items. It’s an intuitive motion, and that use of the stylus extends to all the basics of basketball, like shooting and passing. Regrettably, Nintendo has rarely returned to the idea of basketball in the Mushroom Kingdom, but even if it did try again, few consoles would execute the idea better than the DS… well, as long as you’re not left-handed, that is.

9. Mario Tennis (Game Boy Color)

The early days of handheld Mario sports games produced some of the most unusual oddities in Nintendo’s history, and their lack of Mushroom Kingdom whimsey and focus on regular human characters is often looked back upon with a raised eyebrow. However, actually dive into the Game Boy Color’s Mario Tennis and you’ll find that eyebrow is put firmly back in place.

Mario Tennis features a wonderful RPG “Tour” mode that nails the genre’s basics. Being locked into three-set matches with a far more powerful opponent is akin to boss battles in a more traditional RPG. They become challenges that you relish, always pushing you to move more quickly after a serve or time your smashes to perfection. Working through the tour sees you levelling up your original character via a very satisfying process, with the grind required to improve specific skills never feeling like a chore. The graphics and controls are inherently limited by the console, but that simplicity lends Mario Tennis a lovely rhythmic quality that encourages repeat replays even a quarter of a century later.

8. Mario Golf: World Tour

For as slow and ponderous as the sport of golf can be, it’s a miracle that it consistently dovetails so beautifully with the chaotic and colorful world of Mario. World Tour nails the balance between both sides of the Nintendo sports coin, offering a quick and snappy way to execute precise and considered rounds of golf. With no need for complicated button schemes or deep systems, World Tour gives you a great sense of control that allows you to cut through the fiddly stuff and get to work on the eternal quest of improving your swing, just like a real casual golfer.

The 3DS and Wii U era was a difficult one for Mario sports titles, but World Tour stands out from a lacklustre crowd thanks to its personality-packed game modes like Point Tourney, Star Coin challenges and Speed Golf. Castle Club also adds a story mode centred on your Mii, complete with a fun upgrade system with stat-boosting cosmetics like clothes and clubs, which is reminiscent of Camelot’s handheld glory days.

7. Mario Superstar Baseball

Much like basketball, Nintendo has barely paid any attention to baseball across the past couple decades, despite knocking it out of the park on the first try back in 2005. Mario Superstar Baseball is a wonderful marriage of addictive baseball mechanics and Mushroom Kingdom chaos, played out in iconic Mario locations that have been contorted into baseball fields. Only in Wario Palace could a barrage of environmental hazards turn a home run into a devastating out.

Superstar Baseball boasts one of the Mario sports series’ most engaging story modes thanks to its “chemistry engine”. The relationships between your teammates dictates the speed and accuracy of their passes, meaning you won’t want to pair Mario with Wario and Bowser, but he’ll combine beautifully with Luigi and Peach. It’s a simple and effective way to bring depth to an already smooth experience that belongs in the Nintendo big leagues.

6. Super Mario Strikers

It’s amazing what a little pop of 2D animation and a few guitar riffs can do to make a subset of Mario sports games feel completely unique. Super Mario Strikers, the jumping plumber’s first foray into the world of soccer, has always had a rebellious edge. Anyone who was glued to their GameCube in the mid-2000s will look back on it with a special kind of fondness, especially in the light of its disappointing revival on Switch.

The nostalgia for Strikers isn’t just due to its bold presentation, though: its gameplay is perfectly calibrated. Each character controls just loosely enough to invite exactly the right amount of chaos into each and every match. If the dial was turned too far towards clean passing and shooting, Mario Strikers would be nowhere near as fun. Instead, developer Next Level Games created something aggressively competitive, wholly chaotic, and vibrantly unique – everything a Mario sports game should be.

5. Mario Golf: Advance Tour

Mario Golf: Advance Tour is one of the Game Boy Advance’s true gems, launched during a time when developer Camelot was proving itself as a Nintendo sports powerhouse. Compared to its predecessors it is genuinely beautiful; the GBA was an absolute haven for bright and colorful adventures and Advance Tour benefits greatly from the system’s then-advanced capabilities.

Those vibrant visuals are just the face of a game that takes the proven and perfected RPG structure from Camelot’s previous sports games and introduces even more Mario characters and locations to the mix. On the gameplay front, despite only having two face buttons available, Camelot designed a great-feeling, tight control scheme that ensured each shot you took felt measured and clean. That sharpness became a design philosophy that continues to stick around throughout every installment in the Mario Golf series. Advance Tour remains special to this day, though, thanks to its unique pixel art rendering of otherworldly courses, and the GBA’s form factor making it the perfect game to pack for on-the-go strolls through the Mushroom Kingdom’s premier golf courses.

4. Mario Tennis (Nintendo 64)

The moment you play your first shot in the Nintendo 64 version of Mario Tennis, something just clicks. The responsive gameplay, smooth animations, and freeing analog control creates an indescribable sense of elegance. Long rallies become like trances in which you find yourself less determined to win the point and instead simply addicted to the sensation of knocking the ball back and forth. Well, until you completely mistime a shot, Toad falls flat on his face, and you’re suddenly a couple sets down, that is.

Released in the year 2000, Mario Tennis is another example of deep gameplay that requires just two face buttons and directional controls, representing Nintendo at its most simple and effective. Subsequent tennis games went on to add ideas, gimmicks and modes that undeniably helped them surpass the offerings of this N64 title. But the bones of modern Mario Tennis are all here, a timeless gameplay loop perfected 26 years ago that endures throughout Nintendo’s history.

3. Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour

So much of what we expect from modern Mario sports games originated back on the GameCube, and the brilliant Mario Golf formula established by Toadstool Tour is one that Nintendo has defaulted to over the last couple decades. Its use of normal and power shots, manual or automatic swinging, and approach to camera control are all now staples of 3D Mario Golf titles for good reason: the simplicity just works.

That simplicity gives Toadstool Tour plenty of space to carry out an overwhelming charm offensive. There are so many different ways to play, especially in multiplayer, from the conventional Doubles and Tournament modes to the more eccentric Coin and Ring attacks, giving Toadstool Tour a shot at being the best party game on this list. It’s also the Mario Golf game that does the sport itself the most justice while still feeling quintessentially Mario. It’s simply a great bit of goofy, golfy goodness.

2. Mario Power Tennis

Everything that made Mario Tennis on the N64 so brilliant is preserved and built upon with the GameCube’s Mario Power Tennis. The console’s extra horsepower is used to add wild flourishes to the courts and characters, allowing the established, excellent 3D tennis formula to thrive alongside a deep collection of crazy Mario-isms. Smartly, developer Camelot decided against making full use of the GameCube’s iconic multi-button controller, understanding the enduring appeal of a simple control scheme, while still finding a way to add deeper mechanics, such as offensive and defensive skill shots.

Along with fun challenge courts that test specific tennis skills and Item Battles which create chaos over the net, Mario Power Tennis boasts feats of creative genius like Artist on the Court, a mode in which you use your tennis skills to paint a mural.These may not be flagship modes, but they add the kind of personality and flavour that you can’t get from anyone else but Nintendo in today’s gaming landscape.

1. Super Mario Strikers Charged

Much like how Power Tennis and Toadstool Tour benefited from the excellent foundations of their predecessors, Super Mario Strikers Charged takes every beloved detail from the original Strikers and advances them several steps further. Its refined design places increased emphasis on tactics; each character now has stats and special abilities, which makes playstyles and team composition as vital to victory as actually kicking the ball.

What makes Strikers Charged the very best game in this list, though, is how that tactical play is enhanced through Super Abilities and Mega Strikes, AKA the greatest gimmicks ever introduced to a Mario sports game. Abilities like Yoshi turning into a giant egg and flattening people across the pitch, or Bowser setting players on fire, or Petey Piranha spraying mud in every direction provides a variety of incredibly silly, yet highly tactical opportunities. The Mega Strikes, meanwhile, increase the level of hype around the proceedings, triggering a cut scene and allowing you to score up to six goals in one go. This is a great arcade soccer game, but Super Mario Strikers Charged is also completely out of its mind, and it’s that wonderful blend that makes a Mario sports game truly great.

And those are our picks for the very best Mario sports games. Did we get a hole in one, or have we suffered a triple bagel? Let us know your thoughts and favourites in the comments.