Enlarge/ It's a good thing this kid is too young to bet on Skee-Ball, because his dad is getting beat. (credit: Getty Images)
Anyone who's been to a Dave & Buster's location in recent years knows the arcade's heavy reliance on so-called redemption games makes the experience more like an ersatz casino than the quarter-munching video game halls of the '70s and '80s. On the vast majority of D&B games, you end up wagering money (in the form of gameplay chips) to win virtual tickets that can be traded for trinkets at the rewards counter.
Now, the massive arcade chain has announced that players will soon be able to use the D&B app to directly wager on the results of arcade games through "real-money contests." The arcade giant, which has over 200 locations across North America, is partnering with "gamification layer" platform Lucra on a system that will let D&B Rewards members "digitally compete with each other, earn rewards, and unlock exclusive perks while competing with friends at Dave & Buster’s," according to Tuesday's announcement.
Neither Lucra nor Dave & Buster's has responded to a request for comment from Ars Technica, so we're still missing extremely basic information, like what games will support app-based wagering, minimum and maximum bet sizes, or what kinds of fees might be involved. CNBC's report on the announcement suggests the system will be launching "in the next few months" to players 18 and older across 44 states (and specifically mention Skee-Ball and Hot Shots Basketball competitions). Lucra's webpage simply says the integration will "provide... social connectivity and friendly competition," suggesting you'll probably face off against friends playing in the same location.
Enlarge/ New gods, same old drama. (credit: Supergiant)
Here at Ars, we were obviously excited by the late 2022 announcement of Hades II as a follow-up to our favorite game of 2020. But when early coverage of that sequel suggested major changes to the game's core combat, we were a bit worried that the developers at Supergiant risked messing up the core gameplay loop that made the original game so satisfying.
So far, it seems like those worries were unfounded. After spending a few hours playing through the game's recent technical test—which covers content up through the game's first major "boss" character—we found a confident sequel that keeps the original games familiar flow while adding just enough changes to avoid feeling like a rehash. If anything, the new systems in Hades II make the original game's positional combat more satisfying than ever.
Spoiler warning: The rest of this piece offers minor spoilers for the early parts of Hades II.
The Steam Deck is a Linux computer. There is, technically, very little you cannot get running on it, given enough knowledge, time, and patience. That said, it's never a bad thing when someone has done all the work for you, leaving you to focus on what matters: sneaking game time on the couch.
GeForce Now, Nvidia's game-streaming service that uses your own PC gaming libraries, has made it easier for Steam Deck owners to get its service set up on their Deck. On the service's Download page, there is now a section for Gaming Handheld Devices. Most of the device links provide the service's Windows installer, since devices like the ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go run Windows. Some note that GeForce Now is already installed on devices like the Razer Edge and Logitech G Cloud.
But Steam Deck types are special. We get a Unix-style executable script, a folder with all the necessary Steam icon image assets, and a README.md file.
In a wide-ranging interview with Chinese site Zhihu (machine translation), Elden Ring producer Hidetaka Miyazaki said "Shadow of the Erdtree" contains a lot of existing lore and content that was created for the original game but couldn't fit into the final package. Miyazaki said the team decided to release all of that unused content as one large DLC expansion, rather than multiple smaller bits, because "if they were sold separately, the freedom of exploration and sense of adventure would be reduced."
As for just how big the DLC will be, Miyazaki balked when the interviewer asked how long it would take players to complete. Miyazaki brought up memories of being called a liar after estimating in an earlier interview that the original game would only take about 30 hours of play to complete—crowdsourced game-length database HowLongToBeat puts the "main story" estimate closer to 60 hours.
Enlarge/ Are you enticed by this kind of orderly madness with a clean graphical layout? Then I suggest you… settle in. (credit: Goblinz Studio)
You can't buy Mini Settlers right now, but I think you should play the free "Prologue" demo and wishlist the full game if you dig it. It's not quite like any other city builder I've played.
Mini Settlers is "mini" like minimalism. It is in the same genre, but quite far from, games like Cities: Skylines 2 (a choice with some proven merit). Your buildings are not 3D-rendered with real-time lighting. Your buildings are colored squares, sometimes with a few disc tokens stacked on them, tabletop-style. Your roads don't have traffic, but they have drivers (tiny squares) that take resources between nodes. When things go wrong, you don't get depressing news about pollution and riots; some people just leave their homes, but they'll come back if you fix what's wrong.
Mini Settlers announcement video.
Mini Settlers is not the game to play to satisfy your long-running suspicion that urban planning was your missed calling. In the (non-progress-saving) Prologue-free demo out this week, the mines and quarries have infinite resources. There is no "money" to speak of, so far as I can tell. Apple farms must be placed near apple orchards and water pumps by water, and the rest is up to you. The interface looks like a thought experiment in how far you can get from traditional city sim HUDs, but then someone implemented it.
Enlarge/ This gear is from the upcoming "Polar Patriots" Premium Warbond in Helldivers 2. It's an upcoming change the developer and publisher likely wish was getting more attention of late. (credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment)
There's a lot of stories about the modern PC gaming industry balled up inside one recent "update" to Helldivers 2.
Sony Interactive Entertainment announced Thursday night that current players of the runaway hit co-op shooter will have to connect their Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network (PSN) account starting on May 30, with a hard deadline of June 4. New players will be required to connect the two starting Monday, May 6.
Officially, this is happening because of the "safety and security provided on PlayStation and PlayStation Studios games." Account linking allows Sony to ban abusive players, and also gives banned players the right to appeal. Sony writes that it would have done this at launch, but "Due to technical issues … we allowed the linking requirements for Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network account to be temporarily optional. That grace period will now expire."
Enlarge/ Aiming a single rifle sight into an earth-moving explosion feels like some kind of metaphor for the Helldivers 2 delayed PSN requirement saga. (credit: PlayStation/Arrowhead)
Helldivers 2 PC players can continue doing their part for Super Earth, sans Sony logins.
Sony's plan for its surprise hit co-op squad shooter—now the most successful launch in Sony's nascent PC catalog—Helldivers 2, was to make its players sign in with PlayStation Network (PSN) accounts before it launched in early February, even if they purchased the game through the Steam store.
Sony and developer Arrowhead didn't enforce PSN logins during its frenetic launch and then announced late last week that PSN accounts would soon be mandatory. Many players did not like that at all, seeing in it a sudden desire by Sony to capitalize on its unexpected smash hit. Some were not eager to engage with a network that had a notable hack in its history, others were concerned about countries where PSN was not offered, and many didn't take Sony at its word that this was about griefing, banning, and other moderation. Because of the uneven availability of Steam and PSN, Helldivers 2 was delisted in 177 countries on Steam over the weekend as Steam worked through refund requests.
Part of what keeps the game fresh is a continuous trickle of new Pokémon. The game began with just the original 151 monsters back in 2016 and has gradually caught up to the current generation of Switch games in bits and pieces over the last eight years. The game is currently in the process of adding monsters from Scarlet and Violet, and that's where this story begins.
Two of the latest additions to the Pokémon Go roster are Wiglett and Wugtrio, riffs on the designs of Diglett and Dugtrio, who live on beaches and look kind of like garden eels. Pokémon Gouses a biome system that restricts certain Pokémon to certain types of real-world terrain, like forests, mountains, and beaches. As aquatic Pokémon, Wiglett and Wugtrio show up in the beach biome.
Following fan backlash, Sony is canceling a planned update for the popular multiplayer game Helldivers 2 that would have required players who purchased the game on PC to link their copies to PSN accounts—which, if the name didn't clue you in, is generally something people only have if they game on a PlayStation console.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the company credited “feedback” for the change and said it is still “learning what is best for PC players.”
While PSN (short for PlayStation Network) accounts are free to create and do not require account holders to actually own a PlayStation console, the proposed update proved controversial among the Helldivers community, with user reviews on Steam dropping from “Mostly Positive” to “Overwhelmingly Negative” over the weekend. As of writing, the game currently holds a “Mixed” rating.
Were the update to go through, new players would have had to link their accounts by May 30, and existing players would have needed to do so by June 4.
Why are people mad at Helldivers 2?
Following news of the update, Steam pulled the PC version of Helldivers 2 from purchase in 177 countries, as PSN does not operate in those regions. If the update went live, players in those regions who had already bought the game would have needed to circumvent Sony’s terms of service to continue playing.
Affected areas include Jamaica, Bangladesh, Belarus, and almost the entirety of Africa. Even Sony’s home country of Japan was impacted–the game is available via a “separate package,” but users are not able to buy the “global version.”
“Ouch, right in the review score,” stated Johan Pilstedt, CEO of Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios. “Well, I guess it’s warranted.”
Pilstedt followed up his post with another saying that the Arrowhead was “talking solutions with PlayStation, especially for non-PSN countries”
What happens next for Helldivers 2?
Pilstedt followed today’s news that the Helldivers 2 update would not be going forward by first expressing how impressed he was with the community for its ability to collaborate, before thanking PlayStation for “quickly and effectively making the decision to leave PSN linking optional.”
According to Pilstedt, the team knew six months prior to launch that PSN linking would be required at some point, and that the decision to make it optional at launch would only be temporary.
Unfortunately, Helldivers 2 is still not available for purchase in the countries where it was pulled, but those who had already purchased the game will not lose access to it. "I'm speaking to our partners at Playstation and Valve and pushing for it [the delisting] to be undone," Pilstedt told a fan over Discord. "Getting the account linking [changed] took a herculean effort — but I won't rest in my desire to have it available everywhere."
Enlarge/ I can see the code that controls the Tetri-verse! (credit: Aurich Lawson)
Earlier this year, we shared the story of how a classic NES Tetris player hit the game's "kill screen" for the first time, activating a crash after an incredible 40-minute, 1,511-line performance. Now, some players are using that kill screen—and some complicated memory manipulation it enables—to code new behaviors into versions of Tetris running on unmodified hardware and cartridges.
Displaced Gamers explains how to reprogram NES Tetris within the game.
But a recent video from Displaced Gamers takes the idea from private theory to public execution, going into painstaking detail on how to get NES Tetris to start reading the game's high score tables as machine code instructions.
Enlarge/ Nintendo will eventually gift us Switch 2 information, hopefully in time for Christmas. (credit: Aurich Lawson)
While the past few months have included plenty of informed speculation about the so-calledSwitch 2, Nintendo hasn't given even a bare hint that the system is in the works. That changed at least somewhat last night, as Nintendo President Shinto Furukawa shared on social media that "we will make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year," which ends on March 31, 2025.
In his pre-announcement announcement, Furukawa warned that an upcoming Nintendo Direct presentation planned for June would include "no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor," suggesting more information may be coming closer to the end of the fiscal year than the beginning.
Enlarge/ Artist's conception of Microsoft telling Hi-Fi Rush maker Tango Gameworks they no longer exist as a studio. (credit: Tango Gameworks)
Microsoft is shutting down four studios within its Bethesda Softworks subsidiary, according to a staff email obtained by IGN. The closures include Redfall developer Arkane Austin and Hi-Fi Rush studio Tango Gameworks. While some team members will be reassigned to other parts of the company, head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty said in a letter to staffers "that some of our colleagues will be leaving us."
Tango Gameworks confirmed in a short social media message that "Hi-Fi Rush, along with Tango's previous titles [like The Evil Within], will remain available and playable everywhere they are today." But the closure of Arkane Austin means that "development will not continue on Redfall," the company wrote in its own social media update. "Arkane Lyon will continue their focus on immersive experiences where they are hard at work on their upcoming project [Marvel's Blade]."
In his note to staff, Booty said that [Redfall] “will remain online for players to enjoy and we will provide make-good offers to players who purchased the Hero DLC.”
Enlarge/ John? Is that you, John? John? Can't we discuss this like civilized men? (credit: Stern Pinball)
If you don’t follow the ins and outs of pinball, you might be surprised to find out there are more active companies making games in 2024 than ever before.
Stern Pinball is the 800-pound gorilla of the industry. It has been around the longest, has the largest factory, sells the most games, and releases more titles per year than anyone else. For years, it was the sole remaining pinball company in the world.
Now—despite the decline of arcades—pinball is seeing a second life. A passionate collector base dedicates entire game rooms in their homes to machines. Pinball and bars go together so well Stern has a whole video series on “brewcade hopping”. There are games in comics shops. One of my more amazing local spots is in the back of a Korean BBQ. All this interest has created a thriving pinball ecosystem of boutique makers, where success is often measured in sales of 1,000 machines or fewer. Other pinball companies might not compete with Stern directly by volume, but they do provide a level of competition for ideas that keeps the hobby strong.
Enlarge/ Line up those colors and close those gaps... for science!
In 2020, a new minigame appeared in the video game Borderlands 3, located in the resident scientist’s laboratory on the spaceship Sanctuary III. Although the arcade game may seem like just another way to pass in-game time, the tile-matching puzzle game—Borderlands Science—has allowed millions of players to help map the human gut microbiome.
Borderlands Science is one of the first examples of a citizen science game being embedded in a mainstream video game; it translates players’ tile matching into sequence alignment of microbial DNA strands that encode ribosomal RNA. Ultimately, this can help deduce the genetic relationships between different gut microbes—crucial information for demystifying the complex web of interactions among diet, disease, and microbiome.
Since launch, over 4 million gamers have played Borderlands Science, collectively solving over 100 million puzzles, making this one of the largest citizen science projects ever. Not only has the game generated huge player engagement, but the results have outperformed state-of-the-art computational methods, according to an analysis of the project published in Nature Biotechnology.
Enlarge/ Acceleration Bay says World of Warcraft's networking code infringes on a patent originally filed by Boeing. (credit: Activision Blizzard)
A jury has found Activision Blizzard liable for $23.4 million in damages in a patent infringement lawsuit first brought to court in 2015.
The case centers on patents first filed by Boeing in 2000, one that describes a "distributed game environment" across a host and multiple computers and another that describes a simple method for disconnecting from such a network. Those patents were acquired in 2015 by Acceleration Bay, which accused Activision Blizzard of using infringing technology to develop World of Warcraft and at least two Call of Duty titles.
Those accusations succeeded in court earlier this week, as a jury found a "preponderance of evidence" that the patents were infringed. The decision came following a one-week trial in which Activision Blizzard argued that its networking technology works differently from what is described in the patents, as reported by Reuters.
Enlarge/ In 1984, the year 2000 was so promising, students made entire games promising to take you there. (credit: Radio Student)
Software is almost impossibly easy to download, distribute, and access compared to 40 years ago. Everything is bigger, faster, and more flexible, but there's a certain charm to the ways of diskettes and cassettes that is hard to recapture. That doesn't mean we can't try.
By the time you read this, it's likely that Kontrabant 2 will have already hit the airwaves on Radio Študent in Slovenia. At 9:30 pm Slovenia time (UTC+2 in Daylight Savings Time), if you are tuned to 89.3 FM, hitting record on a cassette tape will capture a buzzing sound that will run until just over 50KB have been transmitted. If all went well, you can load the tape into your working ZX Spectrum or bring it to the Computer History Museum in Slovenia and use theirs to try it out.
Hades 2 is officially available for early access on Steam, giving gamers a sneak peak at the follow-up to the 2020 critical darling Hades. There's already plenty of decisions to make when starting up the game, like which weapons are best and which upgrades to go for early on, but that's just scratching the surface. Diving into the game's accessibility settings can really fine-tune how you play, plus offer a little extra assistance if needed. Here are three essential places to start.
God Mode is always there to fall back on
Hades 2, like other roguelikes, can be a difficult game. The genre is built on starting over from the beginning every time you die, after all. But if you find yourself struggling too much, you can actually turn on God Mode (invincibility) to give yourself an advantage.
To turn on God Mode, navigate to Options > Gameplay and toggle God Mode on. This will allow you to play through each level and experience Supergiant’s excellent storytelling without frustration.
Autofire will save your fingers
The controls in Hades 2 can take some getting used to. But one keybind that will come very naturally is left clicking the mouse button to attack (X on Xbox controller, square on PlayStation controller). While this is pretty standard, mouse buttons are actually only designed to withstand a certain number of clicks. So, if you want to prolong the life of your mouse a little bit, or if you just get tired of clicking so much, try turning on Autofire.
To turn on Autofire, navigate to Options > Accessibility > Autofire and toggle it on. Now, the game will automatically continue to fire your weapon when you hold down the fire button. You'll also still be able to click the button yourself for faster attacks.
Turn off screenshake for less jitter
There’s an argument that screenshake can make or break the impact that certain attacks in Hades 2 have. But for some players, screenshake just doesn’t sit well with their stomachs. So, if you find yourself struggling with nausea while playing, try turning it off. To get rid of screenshake, simply navigate to Options > Accessibility > Screenshake.
Enlarge/ This peaceful, pastoral scene actually represents a ton of hard work! (credit: Slavic Magic)
Do you ever look around at modern civilization and boggle at the sheer complexity of it all? Do you ever think about the generations of backbreaking labor needed to turn acres and acres of untamed wilderness into the layers of interconnected systems needed to provide basic necessities—much less luxuries—to both early settlers and their generations of descendants?
All that infrastructure work is much harder to take for granted after playing Manor Lords. The Early Access version of the game—which netted a million Steam sales in its first 24 hours last month—forces you to do a lot of the heavy lifting that many other city builders tend to gloss over. And while there are still a lot of Early Access rough spots, what's already there can make you appreciate just how hard it is to build a functioning society from nothing but raw materials and hard labor.
Let go of my hand
In many other city builders, you act as something of a detached, bureaucratic god. Lay down some roads, set aside some zoning, and watch as the microscopic masses automatically fill in the details of the housing, commerce, and industry needed to create a functional society.
Enlarge/ Sometimes you gotta get your nose in there to remember the distinct aroma of 1980s RPG classics. (credit: Akupara Games)
There are people who relish the feeling of finally nailing down a cryptic clue in a crossword. There are also people unduly aggravated by a puzzlemaster's puns and clever deceptions. I'm more the latter kind. I don't even play the crossword—or Wordle or Connections or Strands—but my wife does, and she'll feed me clues. Without fail, they leave me in some strange state of being relieved to finally get it, yet also keyed up and irritated.
Cryptmaster, out now on Steam, GOG, and Itch.io for Windows, seems like the worst possible game for people like me, and yet I dig it. It is many things at once: a word-guessing game, a battle typing (or shouting) challenge, a party-of-four first-person grid-based dungeon crawler, and a text-prompt adventure, complete with an extremely goofy sense of humor. It's also in stark black and white. You cannot fault this game for a lack of originality, even while it evokes Wizardry, Ultima Underground, and lots of other arrow-key-moving classics, albeit with an active tongue-in-cheek filter.
Cryptmaster announcement trailer.
The Cryptmaster in question has woken up four role-playing figures—fighter, rogue, bard, and wizard—to help him escape from his underground lair to the surface, for reasons that must be really keen and good. As corpses, you don't remember any of your old skills, but you can guess them. What's a four-letter action that a fighter might perform, or a three-letter wizard move? Every time you find a box or treasure, the Cryptmaster opens it, gives you a letter count, then lets you ask for clues. "SMELL," you type, and he says it has that wonderful old-paper smell. "LOOK," and he notes that there are writings and drawings on one side. Guess "SCROLL," and he adds those letters to your characters' next ability clues. Guess wrong, well, better luck next time.
Enlarge/ Artist's conception of NetEase using a legal contract to try to stop a wave of negative reviews of its closed alpha. (credit: NetEase)
The developers of team-based shooter Marvel Rivals have apologized for a contract clause that made creators promise not to provide "subjective negative reviews of the game" in exchange for early access to a closed alpha test.
The controversial early access contract gained widespread attention over the weekend when streamer Brandon Larned shared a portion on social media. In the "non-disparagement" clause shared by Larned, creators who are provided with an early download code are asked not to "make any public statements or engage in discussions that are detrimental to the reputation of the game." In addition to the "subjective negative review" example above, the clause also specifically prohibits "making disparaging or satirical comments about any game-related material" and "engaging in malicious comparisons with competitors or belittling the gameplay or differences of Marvel Rivals."
In a Discord post noticed by PCGamesN over the weekend, Chinese developer NetEase apologized for what it called "inappropriate and misleading terms" in the contract. "Our stand is absolutely open for both suggestions and criticisms to improve our games, and... our mission is to make Marvel Rivals better [and] satisfy players by those constructive suggestions."
Enlarge/ Timely art from the game Traverser, soon to be published by developer Gatling Goat Studios. (credit: Gatling Goat Studios/Adult Swim Games)
Warner Bros. Discovery has spent at least two months threatening more than a dozen indie games developers with the "retirement" of their games, with little to no response as to why they couldn't do something simple and much better for the games' players and creators.
Late last week, one of the Adult Swim Games creators impacted by Warner Bros. Discovery's (WBD) seeming shutdown posted on X (formerly Twitter) that he received an email from Warner Bros. indicating that his Duck Game was "safe." "[T]he game is being returned to corptron along with [its] store pages on all platforms," Landon wrote. The same went for Owen Deery, whose notice from WBD about his game Small Radios Big Televisions brought attention to the media conglomerate's actions and who posted that his game, too, will have its ownership and store listings returned to him.
Sony’s PC gaming woes aren’t over yet. Following a controversy that saw the PC port of the popular Sony-published Helldivers 2 game taken off Steam in over 170 countries, single-player samurai game Ghost of Tsushima is being hit with the same change, forcing players to log in to their PlayStation Network accounts to access the game—even if they aren't playing on a PlayStation console.
Even as Sony has backpedaled slightly on its Helldivers 2 stance, the studio seems adamant on restricting PC purchases to countries where its PSN service operates.
The problems started earlier this month, when Sony announced it would soon be mandatory for Helldivers 2 players on PC to link their game to a PSN (PlayStation Network) account. Though PSN accounts are free to set up, this caused the game to be taken down in over 150 countries, including the majority of Africa, as PSN does not operate in those regions.
Sony eventually walked back the decision to enforce the previously optional PSN linking, but Helldivers 2 is still not available for purchase in the countries where it was taken down, only netting a partial win for disgruntled players: Those who already purchased the game in those regions are still able to play, but new players are now barred from joining.
This move left Sony’s PC releases in a nebulous state, with everyone unsure what would happen next. Sony’s answer? Take a popular, primarily single-player game, one where online integration is left to a side mode, and block purchases in the same countries as Helldivers 2.
According to SteamDB (which acquires its information via the Steam API), the PC port of Ghost of Tsushima, set to launch on PC on May 16, will not be available in countries including Belize, Jamaica, and Bangladesh. Japan was also originally on this list, which is odd given that it is Sony's home country, as well as the setting of Ghost of Tsushima.
Japan was later removed from the blocklist, even as Sony has added additional countries, including those in the Baltics.
Ghost of Tsushima is a special case, in that Sony had previously said that PSN integration would only be required for the game’s optional multiplayer side mode, Ghost of Tsushima: Legends. Despite this, the game as a whole remains unavailable for purchase in affected regions, even though PSN offers no connectivity benefit for its majority single-player content.
Valve is now offering refunds for those in affected regions who had pre-purchased the game. It is unclear whether Sony will continue on this path with other single-player PC ports like Spider-Man Remastered and The Last of Us Part 1.
There are plenty of ways to play Nintendo 64 games in 2024. You can dig up an original console. You can subscribe to the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. You can download an unofficial emulator. And now, you can potentially play a recompiled PC port, starting with The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
For the technically-minded, this is a big deal. For everyone else, it can be a little confusing.
If you’ve already played a Nintendo 64 game on your PC, or even your phone or tablet, you were probably using an emulator. In essence, these programs work by using software to mimic the processes of the Nintendo 64 console itself, tricking games into thinking they’re running on real hardware. It’s a legally protected workaround—thanks to an old court case between Sony and a company called Bleem!—but it’s not without its faults.
Emulated games can take a hit to accuracy in areas like music and input lag, and because they expect to be running on their home console, they’re limited in their ability to take advantage of more powerful hardware on modern devices, meaning it’s difficult to add features like ray tracing or ultrawide support.
Enter decompliation, the holy grail of retro game preservation. Rather than running older games in software that mimics an older console, decompilation takes the original game’s source code, breaks it down, and remakes it from the ground up to run on home computers.
Decompliation drastically improves compatibility with anything from ray tracing to mods to higher frame rates, and just generally makes play feel smoother and less laggy. The process has previously been applied to a few N64 games, including Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, with a catch—you needed the game’s original source code (and a lot of development time) to make it work.
Play any N64 game with only the ROM file
While the source code behind certain high profile games has already been leaked, that’s not the case for the majority of titles. But with the new Nintendo 64: Recompiled tool by Wiseguy, the entire Nintendo 64 library could potentially make the leap to PC via another route—and one high profile game already has.
Wiseguy’s tool doesn’t technically decompile games, in that none of the data is readable. Instead, it takes an original game ROM and “recompiles” it, meaning it translates the code to C (the programming language) and runs graphics through modern APIs like Vulkan on launch. Think of it like Steam’s Proton translation layer, which allows games built for Windows to be played on Linux.
Certain things still need to be manually cleaned up afterwards—games designed in the ‘90s weren’t made to played at modern hardware speeds—but the process of going from recompilation to port is much faster than decompilation, and could be applied to the entire Nintendo 64 library in short term.
In a statement to YouTuber Nerrel, Wiseguy said that they started out with a recompiled port of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (other games were tested first, but Zelda is the first to release). The port was completed in just two days, as opposed to the two years that past decompilation projects had taken. And because code is translated directly rather than tweaked to work on modern devices, the results are more accurate to the original game.
This isn't to suggest that decompilation is obsolete—it is still helpful in allowing programmers to understand the original game’s code, aiding in mods, patches, and fixes. But in cases where decompilation is not possible, recompilation could present an improvement on either original hardware or emulation, as it does not require emulation and is more free to take advantage of modern upgrades like high frame rates.
Wiseguy’s Majora’s Mask port is now available for download via Github, paving the way for future projects. To protect the project’s legal status, the port doesn't include any assets (that is, the game's code, graphics, sound effects—basically anything owned by Nintendo), which must be provided by the user through a ROM file.
But once provided, the port will take those assets, turn them into a translated PC build, apply Wiseguy’s fixes, and then play the game on your computer as if it was built for them. You simply need to provide the ROM. The port will also enable support for higher frame rates, faster load times, gyroscopic aiming input, and ultrawide displays.
Additionally, advanced features including ray tracing are in the works, using the RT64 tool developed by fellow modder Dario.
It’s unlikely that we’ll ever get full decompilations for the entire Nintendo 64 library, but fans of more obscure games like Iggy’s Reckin’ Balls or Blast Corps may soon have a better way to play their favorites than emulation. Wiseguy’s porting process isn’t fully automatic, but with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time next on their docket, it’s clear we can expect more games from them soon. They also plan to provide the Nintendo 64: Recompiled tool to other modders, which means the future looks bright for the Nintendo 64 library.
Ars Technica AI Reporter and tech historian Benj Edwards has co-written a book on the Virtual Boy with Dr. Jose Zagal. In this exclusive excerpt, Benj and Jose take you back to Nintendo of the early '90s, where a unique 3D display technology captured the imagination of legendary designer Gunpei Yokoi and set the stage for a daring, if ultimately ill-fated, foray into the world of stereoscopic gaming.
A full list of references can be found in the book.
Nearly 30 years after the launch of the Virtual Boy, not much is publicly known about how, exactly, Nintendo came to be interested in developing what would ultimately become its ill-fated console. Was Nintendo committed to VR as a future for video games and looking for technological solutions that made business sense? Or was the Virtual Boy primarily the result of Nintendo going “off script” and seizing a unique, and possibly risky, opportunity that presented itself? The answer is probably a little bit of both.
As it turns out, the Virtual Boy was not an anomaly in Nintendo’s history with video game platforms. Rather, it was the result of a deliberate strategy that was consistent with Nintendo’s way of doing things and informed by its lead creator Gunpei Yokoi’s design philosophy.
So far, this is nothing out of the ordinary. But near the bottom of the boilerplate, the listing notes that "this title has been converted from the PlayStation 2 version to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles and provides newly added features [emphasis added]." That's a marked difference from earlier "PS2 on PS4" downloadable releases, which only say that they were "converted from the original PlayStation 2 version to the PS4 system."
The Nintendo Switch 2 rumor mill seems to have been churning almost since the Switch originally launched, yet for the last seven years, Nintendo has been mostly silent on the issue. The company did recently break its silence on its plan for its newest console, but, surprise: It still didn't reveal much.
With a lack of any official intel, it's easy to dismiss any new claims as mere speculation. Still, I think some Switch 2 rumors are more solid than others, and may actually give us a glimpse into what Nintendo has planned for what is possibly the most anticipated new console in years.
Nintendo confirms the Switch 2's existence
The best rumors aren't rumors at all: On Tuesday, May 7, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa posted on X (formerly Twitter), revealing the company would, "make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year."
That doesn't tell us much, but it is the first time the company has publicly acknowledged the existence of the Switch 2. Plus, we now have some timeline for some official Switch news: By the end of this fiscal year, we'll get at least a glimpse into what Nintendo is planning for its newest console.
If the original Switch is any indicator, we may get quite a bit of information on the initial announcement: The Switch's first reveal video showed off its now-famous ability to "switch" from TV to handheld mode, as well as its ease as a portable multiplayer machine. Hopefully, any Switch 2 news offers us at least the same level of insight.
Rumors with a bit of credibility
Last month, writer Ramón Varela dropped a breakout piece for Spanish outlet Vandal that included several claims that hadn't circulated before. Those claims were then corroborated and expanded upon by Mobapad, a company that makes Switch controllers and accessories.
While all rumors should be taken with a grain of salt (and a massive one at that), there is reason to put stock in Vandal's reporting. The outlet's piece on the "Switch Pro" in 2021 actually got many of the details correct, for what turned out to be the Switch OLED. While Vandal was incorrect in predicting the Switch OLED would output 4K when connected to a TV, it accurately reported Nintendo would increase the display size without increasing the size of the console, and that the company would use an OLED panel for the display rather than an LCD. It also correctly claimed the upgraded stand would resemble a Microsoft Surface's stand, and that the dock would have USB 3.0 ports, as well as an ethernet port.
That's not to say you can expect every claim in Vandal's latest report to be true. But it's good to know the rumors aren't coming from a source with zero credibility, and it certainly helps that a Switch accessory maker can back some of them up.
Old Joy-Cons, new connections
The rail design of the current Switch Joy-Cons is iconic: You align the Joy-Con's rail with the corresponding rail on the Switch, then slide and click it into place (hence, the Switch's famous "click" sound effect).
For the Switch 2, it seems likely Nintendo is sticking with a similar Joy-Con design, which makes sense: Detachable controllers are a fun way to make a portable console instantly multiplayer—although I hope they've figured out a way to prevent stick drift going forward. However, one big difference is the new Joy-Cons may connect with magnets, rather than by rail. Vandal doesn't share many details about how this magnetic tech actually works, but Mobapad says they're made with "magnetic suction" and use an electrical current. Perhaps there's some type of locking mechanism that clicks into place once the magnets do, similar to the locking system in the current Switch.
In any case, switching to a magnetic connection rather from a rails option would likely mean your old Joy-Cons wouldn't be fully compatible with the Switch 2, unless Nintendo or a third-party made magnetic rail attachments for them. That said, Mobapad believes the current Joy-Cons will be compatible at least via Bluetooth, and both outlets think the existing Pro Controller will be as well.
Mobapad also says the Joy-Con buttons are getting an upgrade. The SL and SR buttons are supposedly going to be metal, and Nintendo is adding a third button to each of the Joy-Cons. In addition, there will be a new function button below the HOME button on the right controller.
Vandal says that the latest rumors don't definitively say one way or another whether the Switch 2 will be backwards compatible with original Switch games, but report that manufacturers "believe and assume" that the console will be backwards compatible.
I'm with the manufacturers here: If Switch 2 isn't backwards compatible, that sounds like a disaster for Nintendo. The Switch was the first Nintendo console since the GameCube that wasn't backwards compatible with the generation before it. (It would've been difficult to fit a Wii U disc in the Switch's cartridge slot anyway.) But seeing as the Switch 2 is a likely spiritual successor to the OG Switch, it would be silly to expect customers to upgrade to the latest console generation without an option to play their existing Switch library.
Nintendo, you already made us buy all the best Wii U games as Switch ports. Please don't make us do it again.
Beefier hardware
Specifics on hardware specs are still pretty hard to come by in the Switch 2 rumor mill, but we do know the Nvidia is likely to be involved. An unnamed source told Reuters back in February that Nintendo was planning to use a custom Nvidia chip for the Switch 2, while a previous Vandal report indicates Nintendo is planning to use an Nvidia chip based on the GeForce RTX 30 series. If rumors are to be believed, this chip is known as the T239, a customized version of the existing T234 chip.
Vandal believes the hardware will support DLSS (deep learning super scaling), which uses AI to create upscaled frames, and that the Switch 2 will support ray tracing, a modern lighting technique that produces realistic lighting environments. These changes, plus a rumored 4K output, would definitely put the Switch 2 well above the original in the graphics department. And if outlet Centro LEAKS is to be believed, the Switch could also launch with 12GB of RAM. (Centro corroborates many of Vandal's leaks, as well.)
Even if we had the exact hardware specs in-hand, we wouldn't know for sure how powerful the Switch 2 really could be. That's because Nintendo will likely underclock the chip to balance the system's power with its portability, as it does the current Switch. If Nintendo allowed us to use the SoC's full potential, it would likely drain the battery too quickly and overheat the system. You can overclock your Switch, improving performance in demanding games like Tears of the Kingdom, but it isn't recommended.
All that to say, it's safe to assume the Switch 2 will increase the graphical performance of the current Switch, but the difference will not necessarily be seismic, especially if you're coming from a Sony or Microsoft console, or even the possible PS5 Pro. But Nintendo has never prioritized having the best quality graphics: As long as the next-generation of Nintendo's IP looks and plays great, and there continues to be support from third-party developers on the platform, the Switch 2 will do what it's supposed to.
Games should look good in handheld mode, too: Mobapad says the system will come with an 8-inch display, larger than even the 7-inch display on the Switch OLED. and 1080p resolution. All current Switches have a 720p display, so even though the Switch 2 won't run at 4K in handheld mode, it should look crisper than anything we've seen so far. That said, many outlets, including Centro, believe the Switch 2's display will be LCD, not OLED. That's a bit surprising:
The Switch 2 is likely not coming this year
If you're waiting to pick up an OLED Switch because you think the Switch 2 is right around the corner, you might be waiting a while longer. Vandal and other sources believe Nintendo is planning on a early 2025 launch, which would put the gap between console generations at eight years. That would track with Furukawa's promise of an announcement by end of this fiscal year.
Vandal says that accessory manufacturers believe Nintendo is waiting until they have a larger catalog of games for the Switch 2 before launch, which isn't a bad strategy: Nintendo launched the 3DS without enough killer games, and it tanked the handheld's first year. (It was also too expensive, but that's a story for another day.)
Whatever's Nintendo's reasoning for holding off on the Switch 2, it likely won't be on shelves in the immediate future, or in time for the holidays. If you've been holding out, you're missing out on a lot of great games, so unless you're OK waiting up to another year, you may want to pick up a Switch.
In recent years, we've reported on multiple efforts to reverse-engineer Nintendo 64 games into fully decompiled, human-readable C code that can then become the basis for full-fledged PC ports. While the results can be impressive, the decompilation process can take years of painstaking manual effort, meaning only the most popular N64 games are likely to get the requisite attention from reverse engineers.
Now, a newly released tool promises to vastly reduce the amount of human effort needed to get basic PC ports of most (if not all) N64 games. The N64 Recompiled project uses a process known as static recompilation to automate huge swaths of the labor-intensive process of drawing C code out of N64 binaries.
While human coding work is still needed to smooth out the edges, project lead Mr-Wiseguy told Ars that his recompilation tool is "the difference between weeks of work and years of work" when it comes to making a PC version of a classic N64 title. And parallel work on a powerful N64 graphic renderer means PC-enabled upgrades like smoother frame rates, resolution upscaling, and widescreen aspect ratios can be added with little effort.
Since the launch of Android in 2008, Apple’s iOS has lagged significantly behind its Google-powered competition in one respect: retro gaming. While some companies, particularly Final Fantasy creator Square Enix, regularly bring their older games to the App Store via official mobile ports, the best fans of Sonic or Mario used to be able to get through the App Store were freemium games like Sonic Dash or Super Mario Run.
Sometimes, you want something a little meatier. And Android fans would agree—since the platform’s launch, it’s been open to game emulators, which can mimic old consoles using software to play games from the ‘80s, ‘90s, and in some cases the ‘00s and beyond.
As Apple gears up the iPhone to be a modern gaming powerhouse with fully functional versions of games like Resident Evil Village, it seems like the company is finally ready to address this blind spot. Emulators can be tricky for relations with game publishers, even if they’re technically legal, but in an update on April 5, Apple finally changed its rules to allow them on the App Store, provided they don’t distribute copyright-infringing material.
Since then, a small but dedicated group of developers has stepped up to bring retro gaming to the most popular mobile platform in the US. Here are the best game emulators for iPhone—and best of all, they’re all free.
RetroArch is the most powerful emulation program on the App Store, but technically, it’s not an emulator at all. Instead, it’s a front end for running various emulation "cores" distributed by other developers. Think of RetroArch like a menu, where each core is a different console you can pick off the menu and then customize to your liking.
Because of all these options, it can be a little confusing to navigate. RetroArch’s interface is bare-bones, and while it can be dressed up with various themes, it will still sometimes dump dozens of concepts on a page at once while doing little to explain them.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt/Lifehacker
The upside is that, right from when you download it off the App Store, you’ll be able to play games from a list of 70+ consoles, including popular mainstays like the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation 1. Most will work out of the box, but some might require a BIOS (or operating system) file, or at least suggest adding one or two for added compatibility.
That’s the rub with emulators: They can’t distribute information protected by copyright, so you’ll need to provide it yourself. Emulation enthusiasts assure that making backup files of games you own is legal according to U.S. law, although the practice has yet to face much legal scrutiny.
But RetroArch makes it more difficult to load up your own files than most competing programs. Rather than picking from a list of games, all displayed with pretty box art, the general process is to Open RetroArch, select Load Core, pick the system you want to play (there might be multiple cores for each system, with varying levels of performance and accuracy to original hardware between them), click Load Content, then click Open and select your game from your file browser.
That’s a lot to do every time you want to play a game, and might require you to do some research beforehand about which core to use. And there’s more—once you get into a game, there’s dozens of settings to tweak, including “Frame Throttle” and “Latency.”
For the most part, you can ignore these, but while you can mitigate the pain with features like Favorites and Playlists, it can still be a little overwhelming.
Enthusiasts are sure to love the granular control, though, as setting can even be set on a per-core basis. Everyone else can at least be assured that there’s easy access to basics like touch controls and save states (which can save a game anywhere, separate from its in-game save function) while you’re playing, which you can do in either portrait or landscape mode.
RetroArch is the best choice to get the most tweaks and consoles at your fingertips, and is worth a download just as a backup, since it might be the only way to play certain games. But if you’re looking for something more user-friendly, there are other options.
Delta was the first emulator to really take off on the App Store, and functions like a stripped-down but more user-friendly version of RetroArch. It also supports a number of cores, but only one for each console, and for just a select number of mostly older systems.
These include the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo, the Nintendo 64, the Game Boy Color, the Game Boy Advance, and the Sega Genesis. Again, you’ll need to provide game files yourself, and in the case of the DS, BIOS files.
But once you’ve gone through those steps, setup is much simpler than in RetroArch. You simply need to add a game to Delta’s main menu once, through a + icon in the top-right corner that will let you browse either iTunes or your files, and Delta will add it to a menu for the appropriate console, complete with box art.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt/Lifehacker
From there, just click on the game’s icon and it’ll boot up. You’ll see touch controls that will work in both portrait and landscape mode, and have access to basic functions like save states and a “hold button,” which can keep a specific button continually held down when you play (useful for games like Super Mario World).
In the app’s settings menu, you’ll also be able to add cheat codes, change the opacity of the touch controls, and even connect to a DropBox or Google Drive folder to load games from there.
It’s generally a smoother experience, and frankly, it's also cuter. Delta has a very Gamecube-purple color across all its menus, and the touch controls for each system come with great theming, which you can also swap out for custom options if you want.
If all you want to do is play old Nintendo games, Delta might be your best bet, as it’s similar to Retroarch but doesn’t require a computer engineering degree to use.
PPSSPP is actually available in Retroarch as a core, but if all you want to do is play PSP games, it’s your best bet.
That’s because it’ll give you everything Retroarch does, but like Delta, comes with an interface that’s simpler to navigate.
The catch is that it only works in landscape mode, but since PSP games are widescreen anyway, that’s probably want you’ll want to use regardless.
The UI here isn’t as clean as Delta's, but it still offers a simpler basic process than RetroArch (and the menu is cute too, since it resembles an actual PSP menu). To play a game, just open the app, click Load, and browse your files for your game. PPSSPP will add it to the Games menu, and after playing it, it will show up in the Recent menu for later use.
Once in a game, click the ^ arrow at the top of the screen for save states as well as more advanced options that you can set per game. Like with RetroArch, there’s some real vocab here, like “Disable culling” and “Skip GPU Readbacks,” but you can generally ignore these, and experts will like the extra options.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt/Lifehacker
The only real flaw with the app is that it’s not as powerful as on other systems, since Apple’s coding restrictions have prevented developer Henrik Rydgård from adding in features like RetroAchievements and Vulkan graphics support. In a blog post, Rydgård said he was working on bringing these back, but that performance might always lag behind the version of the app on other systems, as Apple doesn’t allow the Just-in-Time recompilers that can help retranslate code for smoother play.
Still, given the power behind modern Apple devices, this shouldn’t be a problem for most. The biggest problem I had when playing Mega Man Maverick Hunter X was the touch controls, but as with all other emulators on this list, you can use an external controller instead if you wish.
Note that you will eventually see a paid version of PPSSPP on the App Store, but if it’s like past PPSSPP releases, it won’t come with any extra features. Instead, buying it is just a way to support Rydgård’s work.
Gamma is a hard sell, but if you really don’t want to deal with RetroArch, it might be a good choice for you. It’s another single purpose emulator, this time for PS1 games, and it generally works like Delta. In fact, while talking to The Verge, Delta developer Riley Testut said Gamma is based on his work, with permission.
It should be a slam dunk, with a similar easy setup process that just involves pressing a + in the top right corner, adding the game file, and automatically having it populate a list with included box art. There’s even a service for linking to a Dropbox or Google Drive folder, plus the ability to use various skins with the touch controller. Gamma can also play without a BIOS, though adding one can improve performance.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt/Lifehacker
The problem is the ads. When booting a game and while idling on the main menu, Gamma will play ads that can last up to a minute, and it just completely kills momentum. The app will also ask to track your activity when you first load it up, which can be a little frightening.
There’s a way around this, which requires turning off wifi and network data while using Gamma. But that’s a lot to do just to play games from the ‘90s.
What emulators aren’t on iOS?
Even with these four options, iOS still lags behind Android when it comes to emulation. RetroArch, as complicated as it may be, covers most bases, but systems like PS2, Gamecube, Wii and even Nintendo Switch are still unrepresented on the device, even as they’re playable elsewhere.
We might never see these systems come to iPhone, thanks to the limitations pointed out by Rydgård, but with general support up to PSP, alongside ports of modern AAA games like Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, the iPhone is in stronger contention to be the best gaming phone than ever before.
Enlarge/ Valve has its own canon of games full of artifacts and concepts worth emulating, as seen in a 2018 tour of its offices. (credit: Sam Machkovech)
"Basically, fast-paced interesting ADHD gameplay. Combination of Dota 2, Team Fortress 2, Overwatch, Valorant, Smite, Orcs Must Die."
That's how notable Valve leaker "Gabe Follower" describesDeadlock, a Valve game that is seemingly in playtesting at the moment, for which a few screenshots have leaked out.
The game has been known as "Neon Prime" and "Citadel" at prior points. It's a "Competitive third-person hero-based shooter," with six-on-six battles across a map with four "lanes." That allows for some of the "Tower defense mechanics" mentioned by Gabe Follower, along with "fast travel using floating rails, similar to Bioshock Infinite." The maps reference a "modern steampunk European city (little bit like Half-Life)," after "bad feedback" about a sci-fi theme pushed the development team toward fantasy.
Enlarge/ The RetroArch app installed in tvOS. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)
Apple’s initial pitch for the tvOS and the Apple TV as it currently exists was centered around apps. No longer a mere streaming box, the Apple TV would also be a destination for general-purpose software and games, piggybacking off of the iPhone's vibrant app and game library.
That never really panned out, and the Apple TV is still mostly a box for streaming TV shows and movies. But the same App Store rule change that recently allowed Delta, PPSSPP, and other retro console emulators onto the iPhone and iPad could also make the Apple TV appeal to people who want a small, efficient, no-fuss console emulator for their TVs.
So far, few of the emulators that have made it to the iPhone have been ported to the Apple TV. But earlier this week, the streaming box got an official port of RetroArch, the sprawling collection of emulators that runs on everything from the PlayStation Portable to the Raspberry Pi. RetroArch could be sideloaded onto iOS and tvOS before this, but only using awkward workarounds that took a lot more work and know-how than downloading an app from the App Store.
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