The first Switch was such a hit that Nintendo decided not to mess with a good thing. Instead of releasing a successor that feels like a generational leap or a pivot in a new direction, it's following up the hugely successful original with the Switch 2 - a welcome upgrade that largely sticks to the formula. It looks about the same, works about the same, and plays most of the same games. It's the Switch, just better.

Nintendo's bet is that it doesn't have to wow people all over again, and so it made a sequel that's only as good as it needs to be. After spending a week with the new console, I've realized that good enough is exactly what the Switch needed.

A refined (and bigger) Nintendo Switch

Fundamentally, the concept of the Switch hasn't changed. It's still a tablet with a split controller stuck on either side, with a dock that connects to your television.

But the idea has been refined. The Switch 2 is much bigger, for one thing. It now has a 7.9-inch LCD panel, up from the original's 6.2 inches, making it great for playing text-heavy games. It also means the entire device has become larger as a result, now weighing in at a comparatively hefty 1.18 pounds with the controllers …

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Capping off a very busy week in the world of gaming is Microsoft with its annual Xbox Games Showcase, providing “a look at brand-new games and updates from across our first-party studios and our incredible partners across the globe.” It was followed by a segment focused entirely on the sci-fi RPG The Outer Worlds 2.

The big reveal was portable gaming news, as Microsoft announced the Xbox app, Game Bar, and Windows OS updates that will arrive on two new ROG Xbox Ally handhelds. They’ll have a full-screen Xbox experience that’s supposed to make Windows more friendly to handhelds, and help them compete with the Steam Deck and other SteamOS-powered devices.

News for specific game titles included Gears of War: E-Day, Persona 4 Revival, and a surprise drop of Final Fantasy XVI on Xbox.

Read on below to find out about everything announced during the Xbox Games Showcase 2025.

• Final Fantasy XVI is out on Xbox right now, and FF7 Remake is coming too
• The Outer Worlds 2 will start at $79.99.
• Double Fine’s next game, Keeper, turns you into a walking lighthouse
• Did Microsoft just tease a Halo CE remaster?
• Blops is back.
• Gears of War: E-Day is coming in 2026
• Older Windows handhelds are getting Xbox full-screen upgrades too.
• Persona 4 is getting a remake
• Cowabunga.
• We’ve got Pokémon at home.
• Life is even stranger in space.
• Pokémon studio’s action RPG Beast of Reincarnation launches in 2026
• Grounded (again).
• Why did it have to be giants?
• Turn back the clock.
• Meaty.
• A bloody good time.
• Silksong spotted!
• Microsoft and Asus announce two Xbox Ally handhelds with new Xbox full-screen experience
• This is how Microsoft is combining Windows and Xbox for handheld PCs
• Higher on life.
• Outerworldly.
• And another one.
• Xbox’s next major games showcase streams in June

The Wholesome Direct is always full of cute and charming games to keep an eye on for the future. But it's also a great place to find things to play now - and that's especially true this year. The 2025 edition of the livestream showcase included a number of games that released during the show itself.

So if you like what you see, there's no wait at all.

Camper Van: Make it Home

Finally, a game that combines designing your own house with going on a road trip. Camper Van: Make it Home is exactly what it sounds like. On the design side, you're able to customize a tiny home camper and make it appropriately cozy, but the developers say it will also take you on "a journey of self-discovery."

Fireside Feelings

This game seems designed entirely around comfort. You play as a cute little animal and spend your time curled up around a fire, chatting with friends, and guiding the conversation as you get pulled into a bigger story.

Instants

Puzzle game meets scrapbooking. Here the goal is to organize a huge cache of family photos, and as you do, discover their history and story. "Inspired by the way elders pass down family history using pictures to support their storytelling," the develope …

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Arguably the highlight of Epic's State of Unreal keynote was the opening: a sprawling technical demo that showed just how good The Witcher 4 looks in Unreal Engine 5. It showcased a bustling market in a port city, a beautiful forest landscape, and a horse that looked and acted like, well, a horse. Even more impressive was the fact that the demo was running at 60 frames per second on a base model PlayStation 5. According to Julius Girbig, a senior technical animator at Witcher developer CD Projekt Red, the choice of hardware for the demo was very intentional.

"Everyone has the idea of how fast a PS5 is and what kinds of games it can run," he tells The Verge. "That's why we specifically wanted to go that route of: let's start with the consoles, let's show how much we can optimize this engine together with Epic and make it work on current gen, instead of running it on some high-end hardware."

Now, to be clear, the UE5 demo is not actually a slice of the final game. Girbig describes it as "a demonstration of the tools that we are currently building that will eventually power The Witcher 4," and something that "does show the style and direction that we're going for, and the fidelity …

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For a kid with an obsession, it's impossible to think about anything else. When I was really into skateboarding, every piece of architecture was filled with a potential for tricks that I could never actually pull off. When I was on a quest to complete Super Mario Bros. 3 on my own, any piece of paper became a sketch of a new level.

For eight-year-old Julián in the new game Despelote, that obsession is soccer, and it becomes the backdrop for a sweet, and short, slice-of-life drama about passion and memory.

Despelote is set in Quito in 2001, just as Ecuador is on the verge of qualifying for the men's World Cup for the first time in its history. The story follows Julián through the qualifying stages, as he goes about his life - or tries to, at least. There's a lot going on at the time, as the country is still dealing with the effects of an economic crisis. Soccer becomes something of a relief valve, a hopeful story to follow during difficult times.

The game plays out from a first-person perspective and takes place across several days, during each of which Ecuador has an important match. The scenes are small but surprisingly open, often forcing young Julián - and also the player - …

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Wandering through Bionic Bay's dark alien world is unsettling and awe-inspiring. There are massive structures with no clear purpose and autonomous factories filled with whirring saw blades and devastating lasers. It's grim and unforgiving, with little light and harsh shadows that give everything a sinister tone. But then you step on a bomb and your character bounces off of walls like a pinball, and you realize it's a game of contrasts.

Bionic Bay is a curious blend of two very different genres. On the one hand, it's an atmospheric side-scrolling adventure in the mold of Inside and Limbo, filled with disturbingly stunning environments to explore. At the same time, it's a hard-as-nails platformer like Super Meat Boy, with elaborate physics that will have you dying repeatedly while trying to find the best route through deadly obstacles. Somehow, the disparate vibes come together surprisingly well.

What first drew me to Bionic Bay was that dark world. It's mysterious to the point that I still don't actually know what it is you're doing or why. But that mystery is a large part of the appeal. As you make your way through its levels, you're subject to some incredible and intimidating e …

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We’re used to seeing Predators do the hunting — it’s in the name, after all. But it looks like the roles will be reversed somewhat in Predator: Badlands, at least according to this new teaser trailer.

Directed by Dan Trachtenberg — who also helmed the excellent Predator spinoff Prey — Badlands follows a young Predator (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) who becomes outcast from his people, is stuck on a dangerous planet where everything wants to kill him, and is forced to team up with a human (Elle Fanning) to survive. Of course, he also has to be a Predator as well, and it looks like there’s an especially dangerous creature that he wants or needs to defeat, in order to gain back some respect. Much like Prey, it sounds like a clever twist on the formula, as it makes a Predator a protagonist for once.

Badlands hit theaters on November 7th, but it isn’t the only expansion of the Predator universe in the works. The animated anthology Killer of Killers starts streaming on Hulu on June 6th.