Shrek, Donkey, and Puss in Boots (1,403 pieces)

$130 | Releases June 1

Preorder at Lego Store

Lego Shrek BrickHeadz: Shrek, Donkey, and Gingy (259 pieces)

$25 | Releases June 1

Preorder at Lego Store

Somebody once told us, the Lego world is going to troll us with a disturbing Shrek set. That prophecy has come true, as Lego has unveiled its new Shrek kit, capturing the Ogre and his pals in all their brick-built nightmare fuel glory. Available now to preorder ahead of its release on June 1, you can pick up this trio for $130, as well as a selection of Shrek BrickHeadz figures for $25.

Shrek, Donkey, and Puss in Boots (1,403 pieces)

$130 | Releases June 1

Gallery

While Shrek looks marginally terrifying with his strangely shaped head, it's Donkey who steals the show. The fast-talking mule has been appropriately recreated in Lego, his face locked in an eternal rictus gaze that reminds you how the character doesn't have an off-switch. Puss in Boots is the cutest of the bunch, taking the form of a Lego minifigure that comes equipped with a stylish hat, sword, and rapier. The rest of the set includes a few nods to Shrek's swamp, including a keep out sign and a tile with a bog fly on it.

Microsoft might be dropping new Call of Duty games from Xbox Game Pass, but that reportedly won't stop older entries in the FPS franchise from arriving on the service sooner than later. According to PC Gamer, Activision is looking at bringing legacy Call of Duty games to subscribers sometime this year.

There are tons of options, considering there are only six Call of Duty titles on Game Pass currently. The oldest is 2017's Call of Duty: WWII, while weirdly, 2020's Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War isn't included. In fact, it was only last week that 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare joined the subscription catalog. That leaves a huge chunk of the series to pick and choose from, such as: 2007's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Black Ops, or even going back to the beginning with the original Call of Duty from 2003.

Microsoft has owned Activision Blizzard for years at this point, so it's a bit odd so many Call of Duty games are MIA on Game Pass. On the flip side, removing new, day-one entries in the franchise isn't too surprising considering it's been speculated that doing so lost the Xbox company hundreds of millions of dollars. Additionally, Black Ops 7 landed with a thud last year when stacked up against past Call of Duty games.

Peter Molyneux--creator of Fable and various popular "god" games like Black & White--has released what he says is his final game, the "culmination of [his] life's work," and proof that he's done over-promising and under-delivering: Masters of Albion, a "god game" that launched in early access yesterday. But rather than feeling like an omnipotent god, players say the game makes them feel like they're trapped in a medieval version of Cooking Mama.

"The main gameplay loop seems to center more or less around a Cooking Mama style mini-game," one player wrote on Steam, where the game's user reviews are currently "mixed."

Masters of Albion's Steam page describes it as "A bold reimagining of the god game genre from the creator who defined it," and explains that players can "shape a living world as a god--or step into it and experience it through [its] people." The game includes building, town defense, and other typical life-sim-meets-strategy-game genre staples. But it also includes a whole lot of painstaking Cooking Mama-esque sandwich-making, apparently.

A new firmware update has begun rolling out for PS5 consoles, and the big surprise is that it doesn't add more system stability. Version 26.03-13.20.00 brings more of your mom's favorite WhatsApp language to the console, as you can now use an expanded selection of emojis as message reactions. On top of that, Sony says it also added improvements to messages on "some" screens.

PS5 Version 26.03-13.20.00 Update Notes

• We've added more emojis that you can use for message reactions
• We've improved the messages and usability on some screens

And that's it--no system stability notes or any other significant updates, just more emojis and better messages. Previous firmware updates introduced more substantial upgrades to PS5 consoles, like an enhanced version of PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution for the PS5 Pro, a new Showcase Mode, and improved system software performance.

Back in January, the Version 26.01-12.60.00 update also introduced the usual round of stability enhancements alongside a few extra improvements to friend widgets, general usability, and messages.

Orbitals, an endeavor several years in the making for developer Shapefarm and publisher Kepler Interactive, bills itself as an anime you can play. Set 15 years after a storm shut off their settlement from the world, the co-op only adventure follows Maki and Omura--who have been best friends since childhood--as they set off into space on a journey to save their people.

When game director Jakob Lundgren first joined forces with creative director Marcos Ramos on Orbitals, their team consisted of just six people. Now, that number has grown to about 50, and the game looks much different from how it originally began.

"It was top-down, and it had these little robots running around doing menial tasks around the ship," Ramos explains. "Then, at some point, I said, 'This is cool, but what if anime?' And that little robot became Maki." Everyone on the team connected with her right away, which showed they were heading in the right direction.

PlayStation icon Shuhei Yoshida estimates that each year, he plays at least 250 games, if not more. For him, it's a bit of a double-edged sword. According to Yoshida, the best part about playing that many games is that he gets to see a slew of different titles evolve over the course of their development. The downside, however, is that playing that many games in a year means very few of them can be AAA games. "I no longer play AAA games because they take too much time," he says.

Indie Gaming Versus AAA

One of the last AAA games Yoshida played was Ghost of Yotei, spurred by his previous involvement with Ghost of Tsushima, but he wasn't able to finish it. He's since moved on to Nioh 3 after loving the previous two installments, but it's simply hard to find the time.

Though he makes occasional time-consuming exceptions for AAA titles, Yoshida is a strong believer in indie game superiority because of their firmer creative resolve. "You can feel the game developer's vision in indie games because indie game developers don't have to ask for approvals," Yoshida says. "I used to work at a large company at PlayStation, and even though we are allowed to have the developer and studio propose what games to make, there are many people involved."

With its anime art style and high-energy soundtrack, Orbitals immediately made a splash when it was announced during last year's Game Awards. Developed by Shapefarm and published by Kepler Interactive--the publisher behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33--the co-op platformer adventure game aims to authentically capture the anime feeling via a collaboration with Studio Massket. The Japanese animation studio, known for its work on shows like Attack on Titan, has partnered with developers to craft all of Orbitals' cutscenes, and, after spending about an hour with the title, I can confirm it very much feels like an anime you can play.

After the team's work on Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker and Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time, Orbitals was born out of a desire to continue crafting games with anime characters in amazing worlds, but with an original intellectual property. The co-op-only gameplay style has become an increasingly prominent genre following the success of games like Hazelight Studios' It Takes Two and Split Fiction--a fact that Orbitals game director Jakob Lungdren, a former level designer for Hazelight Studios, is keenly aware of. With this combined history as a development team, the path to Orbitals was inevitable.

Orbitals is driven by two pillars: retro anime and co-op play. Ahead of our hands-on session, creative director Marcos Ramos joked, "Other games have three pillars, we have two--more efficient." There are many facets that make up both pillars, however. Orbitals aims to encapsulate not just the look and storytelling of retro anime, but also the feeling of sitting at home watching it as a child. And its co-op gameplay is designed to test communication and coordination while creating fun, emergent moments with asymmetrical game design.

Content creator CDawgVA has completed his fifth annual Cyclethon event, raising almost $1.5 million for the Immune Deficiency Foundation. Somehow, beyond comprehension, people have still found a way to complain about this achievement.

The Cyclethon is a charity streaming event which CDawgVA began in 2022 to support VTuber, and close friend, Ironmouse. Ironmouse has made public her struggles and experiences of living with Common Variable Immune Deficiency (CVID), and often works with CDawg, also known as Connor, to raise money for the Immune Deficiency Foundation so that the charity can support others with the condition.

Cyclethon 5 started in Ōma Town in Aomori Prefecture, the northernmost point of Honshu, and finished in Osaka, with Connor and friends cycling 1,300 kilometers over two weeks. Connor was joined by friends and fellow content creators including Abroad in Japan, PewDiePie, Robcdee, Gigguk, PremierTwo, and Ironmouse herself.

One of the "worst-kept secrets" in gaming--Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced--is finally about to be officially revealed. Earlier this week, Ubisoft announced an official showcase for the game, and here's when you can see the grand reveal for yourself.

How to watch the Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced livestream

Ubisoft will host the first look at the game on its YouTube and Twitch channels today.

• YouTube
• Twitch

When to watch Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced livestream

You can catch the livestream at the following times today:

Viture Beast XR/AR Glasses

$549 | Includes free 8Bitdo Controller

See at Amazon See at Best Buy

Preorders have opened up for Viture's new flagship Beast XR glasses at Amazon, and grabbing a set will also get you a free 8BitDo controller valued at $40. Billed as Viture's new premium-display glasses, these are designed as an all-in-one solution for gaming, streaming, and productivity. Priced at $549, they'll start shipping out on April 27. One thing to note is that the current site listing for the glasses has a $689 price tag, but you can drop it to its MSRP of $549 by clicking the coupon box.

Viture Beast XR/AR Glasses

$549 | Includes free 8Bitdo Controller

XR glasses are essentially portable screens, allowing you to get a full-screen experience without needing to lug a monitor or a TV around with you. Viture's new glasses step things up with a display that makes you feel like you're sitting in front of an IMAX screen--imagine having a 174-inch TV in front of you--as each lens is powered by Sony's latest-generation Micro-OLED panel, allowing for a 58-degree field of view with a 120Hz refresh rate and 1200p resolution per eye. These are also the brightest screens that Viture has made to date, with each one offering up to 1,250 nits of brightness.

A new Crimson Desert update has gone live, with patch 1.04 revealing some major additions to the game. Overall, players can expect new game difficulty settings, new pets and storage items, new skills, and much more. Developer Pearl Abyss had previously released a patch that added summonable mounts to the game, but this update is the largest one to date and introduces some sweeping changes to the Crimson Desert experience.

Difficulty options have been one of the biggest requests from the Crimson Desert community, and when players log in, they'll have the option to choose from the typical Easy/Normal/Hard modes found in most games. On Easy difficulty, damage to players is reduced, enemies have reduced health and aggression, timing windows for parrying and dodging have been increased, the frequency of bosses attempting to counterattack or escape when hit has also been lowered.

Normal difficulty is the baseline mode that players have been experiencing to date, while the Hard difficulty setting ramps up the challenge considerably. Players looking to test their skills will find that they take more damage, enemies hit harder, and certain bosses benefit from having new combat patterns. Another notable addition in the update is the Sturdy Gatherables Chest, which has 1,000 slots and can be set up with the housing system. A boss rematch mode is also in the works, and it'll be introduced in a later update.

World of Warcraft: Midnight's major 12.0.5 update recently launched in a dire state, leading for many in the MMORPG's community to actually agree on something for once--Blizzard's process needs to change.

Patch 12.0.5 should have been a homerun. The game's Midnight expansion has been well received by players and critics, and the 12.0.5 update looked like it would continue to build on that success with new solo activities, a fun prop hunt mode, bonus loot rolls with bad luck protection baked in, and more.

Unfortunately, after the update went live on April 21 following an extended server maintenance period, it quickly became clear all was not well. Blizzard swiftly notified players that they may experience lag or lose connection to the game's servers due to "technical issues." Housing, WoW's biggest new feature introduced as part of Midnight, was disabled entirely due to a "critical bug" that would cause "unacceptable errors for some players."

Beast of Reincarnation is shaping up to deliver one of the most intriguing premises in games in 2026. As the Beast of Reincarnation release date steadily draws near, it's important to learn everything there is to know about Game Freak's upcoming action RPG.

The main developer of Pokemon is mixing real-time with turn-based combat, in a similar fashion to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. This isn't the first time that Game Freak has worked on other IPs, of course. But it definitely feels like a more ambitious leap than previous projects, aiming for cinematic flair and big-budget presentation to tell the story of a woman warrior and her companion dog on a mission to rescue their land.

It's been some time since the first Beast of Reincarnation announcement, and Game Freak has shared updates and insights about the development since. From the latest Beast of Reincarnation news to information on its story, gameplay, and more, here's everything you need to know about the promising RPG. In the meantime, don't forget to visit our list with the best games of 2026 so far.

Twitch has proven to be a very popular destination for gaming fans who want to watch other players take on their favorite games. But a new feature currently in testing may open up Twitch as a gaming platform of its own.

The feature is called Game Lift, and there's only a single title currently available for the test. But Twitch's Reanimal demo works, and it could lead to something transformative for the platform if it catches on.

As noted by game journalist Zach Bussey, Reanimal's demo is 20 minutes long through Twitch, and it's currently playable in the United States and Canada. Bussey suggests that the demo is using "cloud-based access" in order to function. He went on to note that the feature was "developed by Amazon" specifically as an "ad product."

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie isn't exactly getting stellar reviews, and while franchise creator Shigeru Miyamoto finds the film's poor critical reception "truly baffling," he's committed to bringing the film's lore into the game franchise upon which it is based. Specifically, Miyamoto has confirmed that Peach's family origins--which are revealed in the film--are considered canon in the Mario universe, games included.

Ed. note: The following article contains major spoilers for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie confirms a decades-old fan theory regarding Princess Peach's family. In the first film, we learn that she stumbled into the Mushroom Kingdom after wandering into a Warp Pipe as a young child. The Mushroom Kingdom's inhabitants raised Peach, and eventually made her their princess. But she's not the only blonde-haired, blue-eyed royal in the galaxy, and as many players have suspected for years, Peach is actually the older sister of Princess Rosalina.

Circana's latest monthly sales report revealed that not only was spending on software up year-over-year, but spending on hardware grew as well.

Sales of gaming hardware in the US during March 2026 rose by 69% compared to March 2025, reaching $500 million. Circana said the Switch 2 "drove the overall gain" for March 2026, with spending on PlayStation 5 increasing by 3% compared to March 2025. The report had no data about Xbox.

The Switch 2 was the best-selling console platform in the US for units sold and dollars for March 2026 and the year so far, with the PS5 coming in second for March 2026 and year-to-date.

The big Xbox Game Pass announcement this week was a price cut for the subscription and a major shakeup that sees new Call of Duty games no longer coming to the service at launch.

Curiously, Microsoft's blog post announcing the changes did not say all of Xbox's other first-party games will launch on day one into Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. The blog post said only that Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers will get "major day-one releases."

Given that language, many are wondering if other games beyond new Call of Duty releases could be stripped out of Game Pass for day-one launches, or "windowed," to use an industry term. That remains to be seen, but it's a possibility that analyst Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis believes could happen.

A sequel to the 2008 MMORPG Aion will release globally later this year, 17 years after the original.

Aion 2 will see a global release via Steam, developer NCSoft announced, with servers for North America, South America, Japan, and Europe. The news comes after Aion 2's launch in South Korea and Taiwan last November to less-than-stellar reviews, with the game's microtransactions being a major point of criticism. While the game is technically free-to-play, it does feature optional subscriptions and pay-to-win mechanics. NCSoft apologized for the game's monetization shortly after launch and vowed to make changes.

What changes NCSoft may make to Aion 2 for its global release are still unclear, though the developer stated in its announcement that more news would be coming in May and it looked forward to answering questions from the game's community.

From Charles Barkley to the Justice League, Godzilla has let loose his atomic flames in many comic books over the years. But for his next crossover, the King of the Monsters is headed to Moebius for a showdown with none other than Sonic the Hedgehog. GameSpot can exclusively reveal the first look at Sonic the Hedgehog X Godzilla, a new five-issue mini-series pitting Sega's speedster against the apex titan. The images below also tease the arrival of the ultimate lifeform, Shadow the Hedgehog, who'll appear from the second issue onwards.

Sonic x Godzilla #1

$5

Preorder at a comic book store near you

"When the King of the Monsters and other iconic kaiju mysteriously arrive in the Blue Blur's world, the brilliant and evil Dr. Eggman will try to harness the power of the kaiju for his own nefarious goals. Only Sonic and his amazing allies--including Amy, Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow--will be able to stand in the villain's way and try to send the giant monsters back to their own world," the official synopsis for the series reads.

Gallery

Written by Nick Marino, illustrated by Jack Lawrence, and colored by Reggie Graham, Sonic the Hedgehog X Godzilla will also see several other kaiju appear, including icons like Mothra and MechaGodzilla. The first issue doesn't waste any time in revealing the titans, as an ordinary day thwarting Dr. Eggman's latest scheme is quickly upended by the arrival of the skyscraper-sized threats.

Prolific and veteran gaming voice actor Troy Baker has teased that fans have not "seen the last of Joel," the popular character from Naughty Dog's The Last of Us series, and a character who is dead.

Baker said in an interview with Eurogamer, "I definitely know we've not seen the last of Joel, whether that be Naughty Dog or somebody else."

Baker did not elaborate on this intriguing comment, but some are taking it to mean Joel could show up in a future game or other project in the future.