By Nelson Schneider - 03/28/26 at 02:56 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! The most foolish month of the year is almost upon us, once again. So I guess we shouldn’t expect the Games Industry to act in any other way as it continues to destroy itself through greed, overreach, and bandwagoning. Let’s look at the crap we are being so graciously offered for consideration.
At least there’s not a ton of shovelware coming in April. In Licensed Swill releases, there’s a new ‘Winx Club’ game for little girls, based on a a Nickelodeon TV show that started in 2004 (when today’s little girls’ moms were little girls) and ran until... wow! 2019? So maybe there are still a few little girls who are both old enough to remember this IP and young enough to want to buy this game... maybe. There’s also a 3v3 Fighting game based on the Amazon streaming superhero deconstruction show, ‘Invincible.’
The other April shovelware all comes in the form of Noteworthy Ports... and saying these compilations of old-ass Arcade games are “noteworthy” is really stretching it. The “Toplan Arcade Collection Vol. 1” and “Toplan Arcade Collection Vol. 2” are mostly filled with quarter-devouring crap, but the second one has the memetic “Zero Wing” included, so nya. There’s also a non-Arcade compilation of ‘Freddie Fish’ games that I think is noteworthy because ‘Freddie Fish’ was NEVER considered good, yet it’s getting a compilation that I can only imagine is being targeted at new Millennial parents who might want to introduce the IP to their toddlers.
In legit, new multi-platform releases, we’ve got... a few things not to get excited about. “Pragmata” is the first new IP out of Capcom since... ‘Dragon’s Dogma’ perhaps? It doesn’t look particularly exciting, though. “Rushing Beat X: Return of the Brawl Brothers” is the self-described return of the ‘legendary’ Beat ‘em Up from Jaleco... but I can’t recall ever hearing of it before, it’s not being made or published by Jaleco, and nobody missed it while it was gone. “Dragonkin: The Banished” is a new Eurojank ‘Diablo’-like from Nacon (formerly known as BigBen) that will probably be as bland and forgettable as the rest of its ilk. Then there’s a third entry in the ‘Gear.Club Unlimited’ racing IP... that I doubt even MJ’s resident Racing Fanatic has ever heard of.
Finally, in the realm of Exclusive “system sellers” (hahaha, no, not anymore), we’ve got one pathetic entry each from Sony and Nintendo (LOL, Xbox). Sony is getting “Saros” from their Housemarque development studio, which is another disgusting Cinematic Roguelike and the un-numbered sequel to “Returnal” (and has an unfortunate title that always makes me think of George Soros). I’m glad it’s being contained in the PlayStation ecosystem (and I would love it if PlayStation could become the only place to play Roguelikes and Soulslikes, so I could ignore it even harder). Then there’s Nintendo, pushing out the hits to make the flagging Switch 2 seem more appealing with... “Tomodatchi Life: Living the Dream,” a sequel to the F-tier 3DS non-game about ‘people watching.’
BLEEEEURRRGGHHHH! I’ve gotten used to the monthly gaming release schedule looking crappy, bland, and apathy-inducing, but this month brings it to a whole new level. April's releases aren’t just uninteresting, they’re actively OFFENSIVE.
Backlog Embiggened: +0
