Gaming

The original collection featured buttons from the NES and Famicom’s gamepads, but it’s now expanding to include buttons and joysticks from the Super Nintendo, Super Famicom, N64, and GameCube.

The retro keychains don’t actually work as controllers, but could be excellent fidget toys. Unfortunately, they’ll only be randomly available in gashapon machines at Nintendo stores in Japan, as well as Tokyo’s Narita airport.

The deal will bring Player First Games, the developer of the free-to-play fighting game, under the WBD umbrella. According to Monday’s announcement, Player First Games will keep its current leadership while continuing to build upon MultiVersus, which officially launched in March.

Can a Windows handheld beat Valve’s Steam Deck OLED? This sequel to last year’s ROG Ally answers with more storage, faster RAM, double the battery, and USB4. We’ll need more time for benchmarking and battery testing before we can publish our review, but if you can’t wait, it is available now from Asus and Best Buy.

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Hardware hackers Wesk Mods and YveltalGriffin created the Nintendo Kawaii by trimming the console’s motherboard and adding custom PCBs.

Games are loaded on a microSD card, but the Kawaii is fully functional and includes video and GameCube controller connections though a dock. Its creators plan to sell copies of their custom shell, but warn this is a mod requiring very advanced skills.

I guess we’ll find out soon, as Tesla’s Cybertruck is being added to the battle royale game starting July 23rd. If nothing else, it’s nice to see Fortnite going old-school with low-poly graphics.

The game that helped launch the original Xbox has been reimagined for the 26-year-old 8-bit GBC.

You can play two completed levels of Halo: Combat Devolved in your browser, or by downloading a copy of the game for handhelds like the Analogue Pocket or emulators such as Delta on the iPhone. The game includes a drivable Warthog, weapons from the original, and the Covenant.

The FTC called Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass price hike “exactly the sort of consumer harm” it had predicted ahead of the company’s Activision-Blizzard buy.

Microsoft’s response (PDF) claims that with included multiplayer and the upcoming day-and-date release of Call of Duty, the offering isn’t degraded at all.

It’s a “global outage,” according to an Nvidia status message. “We are working on a fix to bring back the service as soon as possible.”

Nvidia’s other GeForce Now services appear to be operational, so perhaps this issue is tied to everything else going on.

Fortnite’s never-ending string of licensed characters now includes Captain Jack and the rest of the crew from Pirates of the Caribbean. The collab features some pirates to purchase, a mini battle pass, and a handful of limited time quests. Check the full details here.

Forestrike comes from the same studio behind the excellent indie title Olija, and it allows players to plan out how they approach battle before ever throwing a punch. Unfortunately you’ll have to wait some time to play it — the game launches in 2025.

Blizzard announced a bunch of details about Diablo IV’s upcoming Spiritborn class, and I think it looks awesome. You can call upon spirit animals to help destroy baddies!

The new class comes to the game with the Vessel of Hatred expansion, which launches on October 8th. I’ve linked a short trailer below, but you can also watch a replay of Blizzard’s full reveal livestream.

Dungeons and Dragon’s 2024 Player’s Handbook isn’t due out until mid-September, but 3,000 fellow nerds can buy the book early at GenCon instead of waiting for a preorder.

The commemorative edition sold exclusively to Indianapolis convention-goers in August will feature D&D’s 50th anniversary logo in gold foil and a GenCon bookplate insert.

Why pay for tools you don’t need when repairing or modding a console? iFixit has released four new kits for the Switch, Xbox, Steam Deck, and PlayStation featuring only device-specific tools.

The $12.95 kits include a screwdriver with a small selection of bits, tweezers, a brush, picks, a spudger for prying open housings, and an anti-static wrist strap so you don’t accidentally fry your hardware.