Fortnite and Rocket League have kicked off a small new crossover event, called Rivals & Rockets, and it's got unusually good rewards. With a fairly minimal amount of grinding, you can earn a free Fortnite skin and a free car body that works in both games. But you'll have to play Rocket League to get the skin. The Rockets & Rivals event runs until April 30.

To unlock the free skin--Dueling Dragons Jackie, which is a new version, with a much cooler jacket, of the free skin Jackie that was awarded for playing Rocket Racing two years ago--you'll need to complete five quests while playing online matches in Rocket League:

• Hit the ball 50 times
• Get 15 centers or clears
• Get 5 goals
• Play 5 matches
• Win 5 matches

While these quests may seem a little daunting for folks who don't play Rocket League, they're not very time consuming--I got through them in about 45 minutes by playing normally. If you're worried about scoring goals, try the Heatseeker modes in ranked or casual. In Heatseeker, the ball naturally drifts toward the goal at all times, making it much easier to get a shot on target.

007 First Light DualSense Wireless Controller

$85 | May 27

Preorder at PlayStation Direct

Everyone that's even seen a James Bond film wishes they could have even one iota of the man's coolness, whether it's the classic Sean Connery or the modern Daniel Craig. It's a hard vibe to capture--after all, not everyone can but you might feel a glimmer of it when you hold the new limited edition 007 First Light DualSense Wireless Controller, which opens up for preorder on April 17 at 10 am local time.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 has received two nominations for Gayming Magazine's 2026 Gayming Awards, and the game's director, Daniel Vávra, has responded to this with an X post in which he says he's "really proud" of the game's nominations. Vávra then goes on to imply the way other games depict LGBTQ+ characters is wrong, though he wasn't specific about which games he was referring to.

"TRIGGER WARNING," the post begins. "Among all the various awards and nominations we’ve received, we’ve also just been nominated for the @gaymingmag GAYMING AWARDS! I’m really proud of that, because I absolutely stand by the fact that the way we did it is exactly how something like this should be done. Non-coercively, naturally, and educationally (because we show how things really were in the Middle Ages without idealizing them)--and without shoving it down anyone’s throat or trying to re-educate them like so many titles that are rightfully called 'woke' these days. We made the gay community happy and gave them the CHOICE to be themselves, just like we did for others in other choices and quests, and anyone who isn’t interested probably didn’t even notice. Except, of course, for [a] very small and very loud minority."

He provided no specifics on which games were failing their LGBTQ+ audiences where Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 wasn't.

One of the best Call of Duty games in recent times, 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare from developer Infinity Ward, is out now on Xbox Game Pass. The game is available for the Premium and Ultimate tiers of Game Pass, as well as PC Game Pass.

Modern Warfare scored generally positive review scores upon release and was a blockbuster success in terms of sales. The campaign was a bright spot for many, telling another globe-trotting story and kicking off a new Modern Warfare series following the popular games earlier in the 2000s.

Modern Warfare's campaign brought back Captain John Price (with a new actor) and introduced Commander Farah Karim. She was played by Claudia Doumit, who starred on Prime Video's The Boys. Her missions were some of the best and most memorable from the campaign.

When Epic Games raised prices in Fortnite by reducing the amounts of V-Bucks players receive for purchases and on the battle pass, it represented a pretty dramatic reduction in value for Fortnite Crew. The $12 monthly subscription grants a skin and V-Bucks each month, along with access to the battle pass, OG pass, music pass, and Lego pass in Fortnite as long as you stay subscribed, and the Rocket Pass in Rocket League. But it may be that Epic is also using another, more subtle method to make Crew less cost-effective for consumers: by making those passes last longer.

Because so much of the value of Fortnite Crew these days is tied to the passes unlocked by the subscription, the value is higher if the passes cycle quickly. If you get through six Lego passes in a year, for example, that would obviously be better than only getting through three of them, because if you stay subscribed to Fortnite Crew, you're paying the same price each month no matter how many Lego passes Fortnite ends up having this year.

We've got bad news: These Fortnite passes are definitely trending toward being longer these days. Let's look at some numbers.

When Pokemon Champions was unveiled, my excitement gravitated towards one specific aspect: As cool as an official battle simulator sounded, support for Pokemon Home was the main selling point.

While people might get into Pokemon for the competitive aspect, I'm in it to catch 'em all. Collecting every single 'mon has been a longtime obsession, and I successfully built a "living dex" (a collection consisting of at least one of each Pokemon) over a couple of decades. After years of grinding, trading, egg-hatching, and transferring, I've gotten every one of my monsters starting from my Game Boy Advance through the Switch into the cloud via Pokemon Home.

But after all of that, my 1,000+ Pokemon are just happy-looking static sprites sitting in an app. Pokemon Home feels more like a retirement home. Maybe with Champions, I thought, I'd finally be able to let my pocket monster friends out to stretch their legs and have some fun.

Based on my experience, the Venn diagram of people who are currently playing Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream and people who poured countless hours into Animal Crossing: New Horizons is pretty much a circle. We life-sim fans, after all, have a type. However, don't expect all of the tricks you used to progress in Animal Crossing to work in Nintendo's most recent simulation game. In fact, one of the most popular methods of leveling up your island, time traveling, actually does more harm than good.

Time traveling, in this instance, refers to when players go into their Switch's system settings and adjust their clock forward (or backwards) in time. In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, this was a great way to refresh store offerings, skip construction times, or play the Stalk Market. Most recently, Switch players implemented this tactic in Pokemon Pokopia, using it to once again bypass construction or jump to a time of day in which a certain Pokemon is more likely to appear.

However, Nintendo has officially warned players this does not work in Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. Rather than reaping financial rewards or progressing relationships, players who time travel will face a bevy of annoying consequences. After changing your console's time, shops will stop refreshing for 24 hours. If you try to change your time back to remedy your mistake, that 24-hour time will restart. It's important to note that this freeze affects all shops and weekly offers. Time travel also has no impact on Mii hunger, meaning no extra feeding opportunities and no farming happiness/rewards.

Iron Galaxy Studios, the Illinois-based independent developer, has announced a round of layoffs that could affect as many as 90 people. It's the second round of layoffs in as many years, with Iron Galaxy cutting 66 staff in 2025.

The studio announced the news on LinkedIn, writing, "Iron Galaxy Studios regrets to announce that we are reducing our company size."

"We are terribly sorry to lose them as we take steps to adapt to the climate of the video game industry. It's time for us to evolve again," the studio said.

Diana Pragmata Series Amiibo

$30

See at GameStop See at Nintendo

Pragmata makes its big debut on April 17 for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, which is notable for a few reasons: it's a brand-new IP from Capcom, it's getting some pretty solid reviews, and it's a single player shooter, which feels unique in a sea of games designed for online play. Nintendo Switch 2 owners have to wait until April 24 for the game, which might be painful if you've been chomping at the bit to play it. But in the meantime, you can buy something that will make your Pragmata experience even better: the Diana Amiibo. Diana is already sold out via the Nintendo shop, but GameStop still has it in stock for now, so don't sleep on it if you want to add it to your collection.

Diana Pragmata Series Amiibo

$30

The Diana Amiibo shows off a cute pose, wearing her signature puffy blue coat. But other than being a cool addition to your Amiibo collection, Diana also comes with major perks. Scanning her will give you up to three weapon and recovery items for in-game use. Since all weapons in the game are temporary except for your Grip pistol, this could come in quite handy.

See at GameStop

See at Nintendo

For those of you unfamiliar with Pragmata, Diana is an android that looks like a seven-year-old girl and one of the two protagonists of the game alongside system auditor Hugh Williams. She helps him on his mission to explore an abandoned lunar research station by hacking security systems and using a scanning ability that helps them map their path. The duo must face off against IDUS, a hostile AI guarding the station, in order to be able to return to Earth.

The game was originally announced in June 2020 during the Sony Interactive Entertainment PlayStation 5 event, and suffered some development challenges and delays before finally being confirmed for an April 2026 release date. If you haven't picked up your copy yet, you can do so right here.

In the three weeks since I began playing Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, I have accumulated a frankly staggering amount of screenshots and clips. And when I say "frankly staggering," I don't mean a measly 100 or so. Oh no. As of today, my Tomodachi Life gallery consists of around 700 of my proudest and most depraved images and videos--and I don't intend to stop documenting my time at Anime Island anytime soon.

Yet despite Tomodachi Life being ripe with share-worthy moments and meme fodder, Nintendo has opted to block players from sharing their pictures and videos to smart devices. Why? According to Nintendo, it's because, "While these [humorous, surprising, or unpredictable] moments are often fun for players, we recognize that out-of-context scenes may be misunderstood or may not reflect the spirit in which the game is intended to be enjoyed." In other words, the company knows we're all a bunch of lil' freaks.

With most Switch titles, sharing an image or video is as easy as finding it in your gallery, selecting "Upload to Smart Device," and then sending it to your Switch online account. Once that's done, you can then download it directly onto your phone. However, if you try this with an image from Tomodachi Life, you'll be met with a message that says, "Can't upload screenshots or video from this software." Here's how you can get around that:

David Burke, who performs professionally under the moniker "D4vd," has been arrested for the murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose decomposed remains were found in the singer and once-upon-a-time Fortnite gamer's Tesla after she went missing last spring, according to multiple news reports.

According to NBC4 Los Angeles, Burke was arrested on April 16 at a Hollywood Hills home on Marmont Avenue. The Hollywood Reporter corroborated NBC4's reporting, sharing a statement from the LA Police Department explaining the nature of Burke's arrest.

"[The] Homicide Division [has] arrested David Burke, a 21-year-old resident of Los Angeles, for the murder of Celeste Rivas. Burke is being held without bail," the LAPD said. "The case will be presented to the District Attorney's office on Monday for filing consideration."

Actor Charlie Cox, who voices Gustave in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, has finally played the celebrated game, but he's admitted he's not very good at it.

Speaking to GamesRadar, Cox said he's played "a bit of it," but mostly just the beginning of the popular game. "I've played the opening bit for a while and kind of walked around and met the people and garnered the information and all that kind of stuff. Not very well. I'm not very good," he said.

The Daredevil actor also reflected on what it felt like to play a character he himself performed. "It didn't really feel like me ... I didn't really think of it as me, I thought of it as Gustave," he said.

Aside from Crimson Desert, one of the hottest games (on PC, anyway) is the pirate sandbox MMO Windrose, which is quickly sailing up the Steam charts with over 100,000 players swashbuckling three days after launch.

According to the player tracker SteamDB, Windrose has a concurrent player count of 102,999 players. That puts it at the No. 11 spot on the Most Played Games list, beating out the life sim Stardew Valley (~100,000) but trailing behind the action-adventure RPG Crimson Desert (~113,000). It's nowhere near the likes of Counter Strike 2 (~1.4 million) or Slay the Spire 2 (~286,000); however, for a game that hit early access on April 14, reaching an all-time peak of 113,930 and not just maintaining that but almost cresting that is an impressive feat to behold.

It makes sense, in a way. With over 4,500 reviews that amount to a "very positive" rating on Steam, Windrose harkens back to a game like Risen--if it were actually good--and proves gamers are desperate for more pirate adventures. Who doesn't like pillaging and plundering? And with the reports that the Black Flag remake, officially titled Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced, is launching on July 9, it appears now's the time for pirates to dominate just as ninja and samurai have.

It's been a rocky road for Netflix's gaming output thus far, as the streaming giant was once invested in big, AAA games, but made drastic cuts and has since shifted toward mobile and party games. The company has been invested in gaming for more than five years already, and while the company said it's inspired by the results so far, there is still "tons more work to do" before Netflix really shows up in gaming in a way that it set out to do years ago.

During Netflix's latest earning briefing (via Motley Fool), co-CEO Greg Peters started off by answering the question, "Why are we doing this?" in regards to getting into gaming in the first place. As some may recall, Netflix once wanted to rent you games via a service called Qwiskter, but that did not pan out.

Netflix tried again for an obvious reason: There is money to be made. "At the highest level, we really see this as a significant market opportunity," Peters said, mentioning that there is a $150 billion gaming market--that doesn't even include China or Russia--that Netflix wants to tap into.

Earlier this week, developer PocketGame announced that it was changing the name of its survival-crafting and creature-collecting game Pickmon to Pickmos. The game bears more than a passing resemblance to Palworld and Pokemon, and amidst heavy criticism of how flagrantly it appears to copy the homework of those games, its publisher, Networkgo, has decided to pull Pickmos from Steam.

In a Steam update, Networkgo explained that it'll be taking a more active hand in the development of Pickmos. "We've heard your feedback regarding the removal of our Steam store page and want to clear things up," the publisher wrote. "Networkgo has officially intervened in the development of Pickmos. We will be supervising the PocketGame team from a player's perspective to ensure the game keeps getting better."

Ever since it was first revealed last month, Pickmos has been accused of being an off-brand Pokemon clone. Claims of PocketGame stealing "Fakemon" designs from Pokemon fan artists to use in the game haven't helped its cause, and its reasoning for changing a single letter of the game title to "better align" with its brand identity has been met with skepticism.

Every so often, a new game takes the internet by storm, and this week, all eyes are on one testy ginger cat. Brush Jjaemu is the name of this new viral hit, and the task is deceptively simple--open up your browser, brush the mercurial orange cat on your screen, and don't die. If Jjaemu spots you while you're brushing him? That's it, game over, you're dead.

To give you a slim chance at survival, Jjaemu will occasionally turn his head and glare at you, warning you to desist from any further attempts to groom his luxurious ginger fur. The game also works on mobile, so whether you're flicking your finger or using a mouse on PC--which probably explains why the hunter instincts are kicking in--you can see just how many strokes you can land before you're subjected to a vicious mauling.

People are currently posting their best runs online, with some people managing to get hundreds of strokes in before Jjaemu goes on the offensive, and judging by the chatter around it, Brush Jjaemu is shaping up to be another online hit. It joins rare company, as over the years, there have been some terrific browser games to play when you're supposed to be getting work done.

Netflix has multiple upcoming video game adaptations in the works, one of which is a movie version of Gears of War. David Leitch, known for his work on the John Wick series, is directing the movie and has now said Netflix is "100% behind it" and the movie is likely to get made.

"Gears of War, I think, is going to happen. We have a great draft that's in progress that's in really great shape. The studio's more determined than ever to make it," he told Collider. "Netflix is 100% behind it."

Leitch said developer The Coalition is "fired up," too, mentioning that the studio's new game, E-Day, is coming this year. "So it's all lining up that the movie will happen," he said.

A quick run in World of Warcraft typically requires you to do a few finger gymnastics with a traditional mouse and keyboard setup, but it turns out there is another way to play the game. A meatier way, a method that involves slapping wieners and hoping for the best. We promise we're not making a double entendre joke right now.

Streamer Addison2K had originally experimented with the idea of a hot dog controller during one of their annual Tentathon 24-hour livestreams. The original setup used a controller for movement and a single sausage that could register flicks as inputs.

Best Buy's Ultimate Upgrade Sale kicked off earlier this week, bringing big discounts to hundreds of items through Sunday, April 19. Included in the sale are tons of great gaming and PC hardware, but also a nice collection video games at slashed prices. You can also save on prebuilt gaming PCs, monitors, TVs, headsets, controllers, and even some fun collectibles and trading card game packs. Even some first party Nintendo games are on sale, which is a rare occurrence on their physical media. Whatever you're into, the sale is packed with all kinds of tech deals, so be sure to give the whole catalogue a once-over to see if anything else strikes your fancy.

Video Games

Plenty of video games are part of this sale. For Switch owners, Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a few bucks off and a great duology of some of the best 3D platformers around. While you can purchase either title individually on the Nintendo eShop at half the price each, many physical collectors (myself included) much prefer having a box and home for their game, and they don't become obsolete like a digital download eventually would. For something with a bit more substance and longevity, Monster Hunter Wilds is a great new entry in Capcom's long-running RPG series, and with free content updates throughout its lifespan you'll get plenty of bang for your buck.

• Assassin's Creed Shadows Standard Edition for Xbox Series X|S -- $35 ($50)
• Bye Sweet Carole for PS5 -- $16 ($40)
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard for PS5 -- $8 ($20)
• EA Sports FC 26 for PS5 -- $35 ($70)
• Elden Ring Nightreign for Xbox Series X|S -- $12 ($30)
• Immortals Fenyx Rising for Xbox One/ XSX - $4 ($15)
• Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater Collector's Edition for PS5 -- $80 ($200)
• Monster Hunter Wilds for Xbox Series X|S -- $12.49 ($40)
• Pokemon Scarlet for Switch -- $48 ($60)
• Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 for Switch -- $60 ($70)
• Super Mario RPG for Switch - $42 ($60)

Prebuilt Gaming PCs

If you're like me and enjoy PC gaming but the thought of meticulously building your own rig part by part is a bit intimidating, the Ultimate Upgrade sale offers plenty of nice prebuilt battlestations to get you started. The HP Omen 35L prebuilt gaming PC is a powerful build that will be able to run games at pretty high visual quality, and taking $210 off the sticker price is not a bad deal, especially if you prefer to play your games this way.

If you've been meaning to catch up on Destiny 2 on PC, Humble's latest Bundle is worth checking out. The Humble Destiny 2 Expansion Bundle 2026 a great way to snag PC versions of all the major Destiny 2 expansions from the last few years without spending hundreds of dollars. This collection spans multiple eras of Destiny 2 and includes some of the most interesting and critically acclaimed additions to the base game. Like most Humble Bundles, the pricing here is variable. There are four tiers, starting at three items for $4, and topping at $28 for the full 11-item collection (a $354 value). A portion of all sale is donated to the Bungie Foundation, a nonprofit charity organization that provides pediatric patients with games and entertainment.

As mentioned above, the base tier gets you three pieces of premium Destiny 2 DLC, including Destiny 2: Forsaken, Beyond Light, and Shadowkeep. Beyond Light was the expansion that saw the introduction of the first Darkness subclass, Stasis, and put players on path toward a cosmos-shaking conflict with the Witness. However, if there was a tangible prologue to the current state of Destiny 2, it was Forsaken. This expansion sees you chasing down an outlaw on a quest for revenge and skirting perilously close to the Darkness. Shadowkeep takes players back to the moon, where the Hive have returned and are back to doing Hive shit--building cursed citadels, being spooky, trying to resurrect one of their many god-kings. The usual.