Nintendo's 135-year history will soon be brought to life inside the walls of a new purpose-built Nintendo Museum in Kyoto, Japan - and ahead of its opening on 2nd October, legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto has revealed some of its intriguing exhibits in a new video tour.

The Nintendo Museum has been built on the site of the factory where Nintendo originally made its Hanafuda cards, and which was later used for quality checks during the Famicom era. That building and its unremarkable carpark are no longer standing, however, now replaced by a shiny two-floor monument to Nintendo's history and a Mario-themed plaza.

Miyamoto's 13-minute tour begins on the second floor of the museum, where several huge curved glass displays - containing many of the products Nintendo has released since its founding in 1889 - can be found. This whole area is intended to chart the evolution of Nintendo's approach to entertainment, from its earlier non-video game products - including copy machines, baby strollers, RC cars, and pitching machines - into more familiar territory, beginning with 1977's early video game forays, the Color TV-Game 6 and Color TV-Game 15.

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Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've been playing over the past few days. This week we enjoy poking around spooky oil rigs, we object in dramatic court cases, and we discover what we love about a game series through a TV adaptation of it.

What have you been playing?

Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We've Been Playing archive.

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The Switch is in its eighth year. That’s longer than any Nintendo system has gone without getting a successor. But the company is still bullish on the hybrid console’s future even as fans wait to hear about a Switch 2 as soon as this September. Nintendo is planning to sell over 12 million new Switches this year and…

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Microsoft has announced the next wave of games arriving on Xbox and PC Game Pass this June.

EA Sports FC 24 is the headline game, which arrives on 25th June as football fans enjoy the UEFA Euro 2024 tournament.

Before that, out today, is The Chinese Room's oil rig horror Still Wakes the Deep - a day one release across Xbox Series X/S, PC, and cloud.

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Well, shovel me timbers! Shovel Knight, the retro platformer that started it all (it all being everything from a roguelike spin-off to a Dead Cells cameo) turns 10 this month, and Yacht Club Games are releasing a ultimate edition to celebrate. Entitled the ‘Shovel Of Hope DX’, this definitive-me-doo bundles in the original game with old and new features like saving and rewinding, over 20 playable characters, local and online co-op, and new modes. Grab your shovel and prepare to dig for the trailer, then look foolish as you realise it’s directly below this paragraph.

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Well, shovel me timbers! Shovel Knight, the retro platformer that started it all (it all being everything from a roguelike spin-off to a Dead Cells cameo) turns 10 this month, and Yacht Club Games are releasing a ultimate edition to celebrate. Entitled the ‘Shovel Of Hope DX’, this definitive-me-doo bundles in the original game with old and new features like saving and rewinding, over 20 playable characters, local and online co-op, and new modes. Grab your shovel and prepare to dig for the trailer, then look foolish as you realise it’s directly below this paragraph.

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Five of the Best is a weekly series for supporters of Eurogamer. It's a series that highlights some of the features in games that are often overlooked. It's also about having your say, so don't be shy, use the comments below and join in!

Oh and if you want to read more, you can - you can find our entire Five of the Best archive elsewhere on the site.

We're well aware of our human capabilities, so games often deliver fantasies about going beyond them. We play characters with extraordinary acrobatic abilities, or with incredible strength or martial prowess, and sometimes, we play as characters who have powers we could never have. Mixed within this is the fantasy of becoming something completely different and changing entirely from a human into something else, and that's what I want to get at here. Ever since Altered Beast, and probably for far longer, we've had games that allowed us to change shapes and access new abilities as we play. We've even had games take us to inorganic places, with mech suits and more. Shape changes can be the ultimate power-up. The question is, which are the best?

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Nintendo has added more Game Boy classics to the Nintendo Switch Online subscription catalogue today, including the legendary Super Mario Land.

The new arrivals come as Game Boy passes its 35th birthday, and all date back to the handheld system's first year.

Accompanying Mario's first Game Boy adventure are Breakout puzzle clone Alleyway - which does also briefly feature the plumber mascot - and Baseball.

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Deep in my heart I know that Hall of Fame-type accolades are largely just a way of dressing up a way of marketing your awards show/museum/whatever, but I also like to occasionally cast away the cynic in me and imagine a world in which this industry’s most important games and creators are rightly recognised, celebrated and preserved rather than being locked away in the vault of billion-dollar companies and left to rot. Imagine!

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I was stunned this morning to read about the sudden closure of award-winning British studio Roll7 by parent company Take-Two, as I'm sure so many of you were. It hasn't been officially confirmed by either company yet but there are reports out there and people talking in all-but-confirmation tones on social media. It seems beyond doubt.

But it was barely a blink of an eye ago - November 2023 - when I was sitting with studio co-founder John Ribbins, and creative director Andreas Yiannikaris, to talk about 15 years of Roll7 and what was coming next. They were each excited about new games they were directing there, with Ribbins hopeful we'd learn more about his one this year. But those games, I expect, are now cancelled. To me at the time they looked as comfortable and content as anyone in game development could be. Belonging to a big company like Take-Two, via its publishing label Private Division, looked good on them.

It makes me cringe to think we even talked about the layoffs ravaging the games industry, which have evidently continued well into this year. I didn't put this quote in my piece but it's pertinent now: when asked about layoffs and whether they'd affected Roll7, Ribbins said, "I don't think anyone feels safe, but I feel very fortunate that we became part of the Take-Two family when we did, and also very fortunate that they still back what we want to do. Obviously there's stuff we're doing we can't really talk about at the moment, because it's early, but to be in a position where that is happening when lots of places around us are struggling - in a position to keep doing what we're doing with the people that were doing it with: we're really lucky to be in that position."

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The CEO of Level-5 - the studio behind the family-friendly Professor Layton series, Snack World and Ni no Kuni - has said he hopes to one day make a darker game with more violence and eroticism.

Speaking with Denfaminicogamer in a joint interview with Grasshopper Manufacture's Goichi Suda, Level-5's Akihiro Hino said he admired "creators who can release such edgy titles into the world", calling them "amazing" (translated by automaton).

This is, of course, the kind of game Suda's studio is known for, with titles such as No More Heroes and Lollipop Chainsaw to its name.

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I briefly posted about this in The Maw, but was unsure at that point if SteamWorld Heist 2 was coming to PC day and date with the launch on Switch. That date is August 8th, by the way, and the answer is: yes it is! Though it was revealed at Nintendo's Indie World Showcase earlier this afternoon, strategy action-adventure-with-robots sequel SteamWorld Heist 2 isn't a timed platform exclusive, so that's fun!

SteamWorld Heist 2 is, if you hadn't guessed, a sequel to SteamWorld Heist, which came to PC in 2016. The first was a side-on tactics game where you, leading a team of robots, shot teams of other (bad) robots in turn-based skill-heavy tactical battles. While that all took place in space, the sequel has achieved splashdown, and you'll be chuntering about the seas with a new lead character (Captain Leeway) and a new bunch of crewmates. It's a robot pirate game, in other words.

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Five of the Best is a weekly series for supporters of Eurogamer. It's a series that highlights some of the features in games that are often overlooked. It's also about having your say, so don't be shy, use the comments below and join in!

Oh and if you want to read more, you can - you can find our entire Five of the Best archive elsewhere on the site.

I've always thought it strange that games should include fishing - games that aren't about fishing, that is. Take World of Warcraft as an example, a game that's included below: it's already a game that sucks away your time, so why would you want to do something even more time-consuming like fishing within it? Yet, fishing has definitely become a thing. There isn't a crafting game or an online game that goes by without fishing included. It's become a must-have. I only wish I had the patience for it. Do you?

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Capcom has announced two showcases over the next week detailing its upcoming games.

Capcom Highlights, as they're known, will begin on Thursday 7th March at 11pm UK time with a look at Dragon's Dogma 2 and Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess.

Then, on Monday 11th March at 10pm UK time, we'll get a look at Street Fighter 6, Exoprimal, Monster Hunter Stories and Monster Hunter Now.

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Breakout hit Balatro—a poker-themed roguelike deck builder—has run into some ratings trouble that’s led to the game being suddenly removed from the Nintendo eShop in many European countries. This removal has surprised both the developer and publisher, who now have to work to get the game back up on the shop for sale.

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Nintendo's February Direct Partner Showcase has come and gone. This presentation was focused around third-party games so, as expected, there was no news on any homegrown Nintendo titles or the Switch 2's expected arrival in early 2025. However, the broadcast was still full of annoucements for games headed to Nintendo Switch from other publishers over the coming six months. Here's a roundup of everything which appeared during the 25-minute show.

Fresh from Microsoft's confirmation it was bringing more of its Xbox console exclusives to other platforms, the show began with a look at Obsidian's Grounded - where you have to explore a massive garden as a tiny human. Grounded will support online cross-platform multiplayer on Switch when it's released on 16th April.

After this, we entered the dying world of Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist. You take on the role of Lilac as she explores the landscape alongside a homunculus (Fullmetal Alchemist vibes anyone?). Ender Magnolia Bloom will be released on the Nintendo Switch later this year.

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Monster Hunter Stories, Capcom's first - and wonderfully successful - stab at adapting the series' classic monster battling action into a family friendly turn-based RPG, is, as per today's Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase, getting a Switch remaster sometime this "summer". Seperately, Capcom has confirmed it's coming to PS4 and PC too.

Switch owners have, of course, already had a chance to sample the Monster Hunter Stories series when its acclaimed second outing launched on Nintendo's platform in 2021. However, Nintendo's latest Direct has revealed the original game - first released for 3DS back in 2016 - is getting a thorough spruce-up for modern audiences.

Monster Hunter Stories 1 casts players as a Monster Rider, setting them loose in a colourful, cartoony rendition of the series' universe to indulge in some classic RPG-style questing and Pokémon-esque monster collecting, battling, and rearing - and very good it is too.

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Yesterday's Nintendo Direct got rather overshadowed by a certain trailer for Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree, but there were still plenty of good news nuggets to be had in there for us PC folks - which I've summarised for you below. The long and short of it is: more release dates! Loads of 'em! And they're all coming in the first half of 2024 as well. I love it when a schedule comes together.

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The original Monster Hunter Stories, the turn-based take on the long-running hack-and-craft series, will finally see a release on PC this summer in the form of an upcoming remaster.

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Sony has unveiled its PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium game catalogue additions for February, which this month include Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Need for Speed Unbound, The Outer Worlds, Tales of Arise, and more.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla is arguably the biggest biggie in there, whisking players away for a Viking adventure set against an open-world backdrop of Anglo-Saxon England at the end of the ninth century. A lavishly designed "saga for the ages", is what Eurogamer called it back in 2020.

Valhalla is joined by the developer Criterion's equally recommended arcade racer Need for Speed Unbound - the "best Need for Speed in a generation" we said when it released in 2022 - as well as Obsidian Entertainment's slightly less gripping 2019 satirical adventure The Outer Worlds, a "conventional, easygoing scifi RPG...that fades very quickly from the mind." And here's the full list of February's PlayStation Plus Extra games.

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