A New Tomb Raider Game is Coming

Nintendo

• The Nintendo Labo Customization Set is now available for pre-order from Best Buy and Amazon for $9.99. The kit includes a bunch of Nintendo and Mario themed stickers to place on your Labo peripherals.

• Splatoon 2 received a new update to version 2.3.2 which adds Arowana Mall back in the rotation as well as a few minor bug fixes.

Xbox

• David “The Bullet” Smith launched from a 34 ft cannon called the Xbox Pirate Blaster at Raymond James Stadium to help promote Microsoft’s upcoming Sea of Thieves. He broke his previous Guinness World Record of 193.8 ft by traveling 195 ft the air for about five seconds before an impact stop on the landing airbag. Sea of Thieves launches for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox One X March 20

• Major Nelson announced on his blog that Xbox is going big at E3 this year. Here’s some of the details:

  “….in collaboration with the Entertainment Software Association, the organizers of E3, we’re excited to announce that Xbox will be taking over the Microsoft Theater, a perfectly situated space located in the heart of L.A. Live and across the street from the Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC). The Microsoft Theater will be home to official E3 events like the Xbox E3 2018 Briefing on June 10, 2018 at 1PM PT, various Xbox FanFest activities, hands-on gameplay and demos for all E3 attendees and more.  Not only does the Microsoft Theater allow us to centralize our Xbox presence at E3, but it’s size enables us to include even more fans and partners in the Xbox E3 2018 Briefing than ever before.”

You can read the full announcement here.

• Microsoft’s more inclusive avatars options are set to release in April. Fist revealed at E3 last year, the avatars missed their target release of 2017. The updates include additions like options for amputees, wheelchairs, skateboards, motorbikes, fun clothing, and more.

Industry News

• Twitch is expanding the number of freebies it’s giving to Twitch Prime subscribers every month with a new initiative called Free Games with Prime. The initiative kicks off March 15 and does exactly what it says: It gives members free games as part of their Prime subscription. (Source)

• Jeff Goldblum is bringing back Dr. Ian Malcolm for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and now also Jurassic World Evolution. Evolution is the spiritual successor to Jurassic Park Operation Genesis more than a decade later. For those who don’t know, it’s a park based sim where you build a park and manage the attractions and dinos. It’s great and looks beautiful on current gen consoles. You can watch Jeff’s announcement trailer – here.

• Stardew Valley dev Eric Barone announced that the game’s upcoming multiplayer update is now in the final QA process, so if all goes well we’ll hopefully see it in the coming weeks. Oh, and horses can wear hats now. Neat! (Source)

• The Sega Genesis collection is coming out for PS4, Xbox One, and PC with over 50 classic games. The crime? Why the hell isn’ this on Switch?! A nostalgic collection makes the most sense here, especially with multiplayer anywhere and a lot of people on Twitter agree. The thread is full of questions as to why it isn’t; on Switch and why it doesn’t includes Sonic 3 or Sonic and Knuckles. The collection is set to release May 29.

• Tomb Raider’s official website has been updated with a teaser for an announcement that’s set to take place tomorrow. The blank page shows a solar eclipse, but internet sleuths have done some digging into the website’s HTML and discovered a tagline that reads

  “Shadow of The Tomb Raider is the climatic finale of Lara’s origin story. Available September 14 2018.”

• Noctis from Final Fantasy XV is coming to Tekken 7 next Tuesday, March 20, publisher Bandai Namco confirmed today. Tekken 7’s third round of downloadable content will include Noctis and a variety of outfits.

• Game Dev Tycoon, the video game developer sim, made headlines at launch when it included a pirate mode which rendered the game unplayable for people who pirated the game in real life. Those who stole the game had the games they created in Game Dev Tycoon pirated which resulted in the player’s studio succumbing to bankruptcy every time. Now, the studio has added an ultra-hard mode which ads the grief of piracy for everyone, but players can fight back by adding DRM to the games they make. It’s very meta. Oh, and players can also receive ‘fan mail’ which I’m sure is hate mail.

• Google announced they’re opening up their maps platform to game devs As well as releasing an official SDK for Unity. Future mobile games Jurassic World Alive, The Walking Dead: Our World, and Ghostbusters World will be the first to utilize Google’s new API.

•  YoYo Games, the studio behind leading 2D game development engine GameMaker Studio 2, today announced it will provide full, unrestricted licenses of its software to attendees at GDC. The company is also providing free 2 week licences to Game Jam’s, including Train Jam, The Heart Jam and the Not Going To GDC Game Jam.

• Bethesda is bringing Skyrim VR to Steam on April 3, 2018 with support for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. Just as on PSVR, the game will retail for $59.99.

Word on the Street

• The Witcher’s official Twitter account has fans freaking out. If you don’t know, The Witcher protagonist, Geralt, has been heavily rumoured to be a guest character in SoulCalibur VI. Could it be made official tomorrow?
  (Source)

• While Super Bomberman R was originally a Switch launch title it seems to have had a year and change of exclusivity, as Konami has all but confirmed its existence on other platforms. Just recently a Korean rating was spotted for a PS4 edition, and now there’s a very official looking listing for R on Microsoft’s website, plain as day. It seems like Microsoft has it slated for June 12 but no price is set yet (it originally went for $40).