To celebrate the announcement, Mega Cat Studios and Exquisite Laundry Pet have unwrapped a sugary-sweet announcement trailer, just in time for Halloween! The trailer takes a closer look at what’s in store, introducing the Shrink Squad players will assemble from more than 70 helpful partners, while offering a taste of the new areas they’ll explore, the whimsical characters they’ll meet, the game’s overhauled, mood-based combat, and the new shrinking mechanic that lets Gumball explore otherwise inaccessible areas.

The follow-up to Exquisite Laundry Pet and Mega Cat Studios’ Halloween-themed adventure, Gumball in Trick-or-Treat Land, this new quest takes place five years after the events of the previous game. Following Gumball’s Departure from Trick-or-Treat Land, Cornando is invited to Mushroom Labs in Fungal Creek to witness the unveiling of a groundbreaking shrinking technology, and is soon recruited alongside Dr. Batz and newcomer Prof. Marshmallow to turn it into a marketable product. After years of work at the newly built Shrink HQ in Northern Trick-or-Treat Land, tightening security drives Dr. Batz and Prof.Marshmallow to walk away from the project, leaving Cornando to finish it alone. Then comes an emergency transmission: Cornando has been imprisoned inside Shrink HQ, at the mercy of its sinister Board of Directors, Horrible Hank, Dr. Boysen, and Mussty.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5442260/Gumball_and_the_Shrink_Ray/utm_source=MCS&utm_campaign=wishlist&utm_medium=pressblast

Will Gumball and his friends manage to save Trick-or-Treat Land from being plunged into eternal darkness? Who knows…but with the power of shrinking, anything is possible!

Key Features:

• An expansive new overworld with 12 distinct and immersive areas to explore

• 70+ playable partners, who can be assembled into squads of 3

• A complete day/night cycle with both aesthetic and mechanical effects on the overworld

• A darkly whimsical story that leans into further developing the unique cast of characters

• A revamped battle system that introduces new angles to combat and new solutions through team customizability

• Vibrant pixel art that evokes end-of-life cycle Game Boy Color titles that pushed the limits of what is possible on the platform

• https://www.facebook.com/megacatstudios

The post Gumball and the Shrink Ray Zaps Steam & Game Boy Color in 2027 appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

To Order Book, Click here.  Limited QTY left 

For generations of gamers, classic arcade games seemed to arrive almost magically. One day there was an empty corner of an arcade, pizza parlor, bowling alley or convenience store, and the next there was a colorful new cabinet demanding a quarter.

But every one of those games had a story.

That idea lies at the heart of The Arcade 1971–1999: The Stories Behind Classic Coin-Ops, Told by Their Creators, written by longtime video game journalist Paul Drury and published by Bitmap Books.

Paul Drury has been a freelance video games journalist for more than 20 years. A regular contributor to Retro Gamer since its launch in 2004, he has also written extensively for Edge and the Nottingham Post. He is the author of The Arcade 1971–1999: The Stories Behind Classic Coin-Ops, Told by Their Creators. Over his career he has interviewed hundreds of game developers, artists and musicians. Away from games journalism, he is a Senior Lecturer at Nottingham Trent University.

I recently sat down with Drury to discuss the book, his favorite discoveries, Eugene Jarvis, Defender, Moon Patrol, I, Robot, Spy Hunter, Street Fighter II, Dragon’s Lair and why preserving the stories of the people behind these games is becoming increasingly important.

THE INTERVIEW 

What originally inspired you to create this book about arcade games?

I’ve been writing about video games since 2002, so it’s been over two decades. Arcade games were what introduced me to video games. I was born in 1970, so I literally grew up as the arcades grew up.

I’ve got vague memories of Pong, but the first game I remember playing was Boot Hill. Then I remember Galaxian absolutely blowing me away. I’ve always had a real fondness for arcade games.

The real story behind the book goes back to 2021, when my dad died. It was quite a shock, and I had some time off work. I saw that a book about arcade games had just come out and thought I’d look at it because, when you’re sad, you look for a happy place. The arcades were always a happy place for me.

The book was full of nostalgia—pictures, screenshots and memories of playing games in arcades and chip shops—and that’s absolutely fine. But what struck me was that there wasn’t much input from the people who actually made the games.

Over the previous 20 years, I’d spoken to many of those people.

When we first encountered arcade games, they seemed to just arrive fully formed in the arcade, café or 7-Eleven. But after talking to the creators, I knew that wasn’t what happened at all.

They began as vague ideas in someone’s head. Something would go wrong. Someone would make a mistake. There would be a technological breakthrough or a eureka moment.

I wanted to show that these games were made by real people—people who were fallible, who had breakthroughs and disappointments, and who often remain intensely connected to what they created.

That’s why I would ask questions like: How did you feel when management told you the game wasn’t good enough? How did you feel when a project was cancelled? How did you feel when you finally saw people lining up in an arcade to play something you’d created?

Every one of the 120 entries in the book includes the voice of at least one person—and sometimes two or three people—who actually worked on the game.

Was there an interview where you learned something about arcade development that really surprised you?

There are so many!

One example demonstrates how sometimes technology created the game rather than the other way around.

At Atari, there was technology that allowed the screen to scroll multidirectionally. The question became: “What can we do with this?”

Driving games were popular, so they started thinking about creating something around driving. A city environment would have been difficult to produce with the technology of the time, so they moved toward the countryside.

That became Super Bug.

I remember seeing that game at a swimming pool when I was young. The scrolling seemed magical. As a child, I almost imagined the road physically coming out of the back of the machine and continuing behind the cabinet.

It showed how a technological breakthrough could fire the developers’ imaginations—and then fire the player’s imagination too.

Was there a game you already loved, but talking to its creator completely changed the way you looked at it?

Talking to Eugene Jarvis about Defender.

When you look at Defender now, it’s such an extraordinary game that you assume it was always destined to exist.

But when Eugene described its development, you realize how many times that game could have died.

He began with essentially a blank screen and the question of what to make. He experimented with ideas inspired by games such as Spacewar! and Asteroids. Things didn’t work. Ideas were boring. He created the landscape and spent ages getting the little humanoids moving—and still wasn’t convinced.

At so many points, the project could have stopped.

Just imagine if Eugene had simply walked away. We might not have had Defender, and that could have changed the path leading to games such as Robotron: 2084 and much of his later career.

Eugene actually wrote the afterword for the book, and he has six games represented, more than any other creator.

There’s another wonderful Defender story. Eugene was so nervous about the game’s first location test that he didn’t even go initially. His colleagues went and told him, essentially, “It’s okay. They get it.”

When he eventually went, there were people gathered around watching the game. Someone had even pulled up a sofa.

Imagine seeing that and realizing:I made this.

You also mentioned Moon Patrol, which is one of my favorites.

Mine too.

I spoke with Scott Tsumura, who was a producer at Irem, and it was fascinating because I’d always loved Moon Patrol. I knew it had been developed in Japan and released by Williams in America.

Look at the parallax scrolling. Technically, the game could work without it. You could still drive, jump holes and shoot enemies.

The wheels didn’t necessarily need to move independently either.

But those details were about immersion.

They wanted you to feel as though you were traveling across this rough lunar surface. The moving wheels helped sell that sensation, while the layers of parallax scrolling made you feel as though you were traveling through an alien world.

And then there’s the music.

None of those elements were strictly necessary for the basic mechanics, but together they created an emotional experience.

That’s what I loved discovering.

Your book begins in 1971. Which period was the hardest when it came to finding developers and preserving their stories?

The 1970s, definitely.

When we talk about preservation, we tend to focus on hardware, cabinets, PCBs and dumping ROMs. All of that is incredibly important.

But we also need to preserve the people.

Many of the people who made these games in the 1970s are now in their seventies or eighties, and some are unfortunately no longer with us.

I was very pleased to include Warrior, created by Tim Skelly. It’s a beautiful vector game and an important early one-on-one fighting game using weapons. Tim died several years ago. I’d interviewed him previously, so I could return to that material.

There are already several people represented in the book who are no longer with us.

That’s another reason I wanted to make this book now.

These stories can disappear.

To Order Book, Click here.  Limited QTY left 

Let’s move into the 1980s. What’s one story from that era that stands out?

I was very proud that I got to speak to Dave Theurer about I, Robot.

I sat down with him at his local bar in California. At first, he gave me that response you sometimes get: “It was such a long time ago. I’m not sure I remember.”

Half an hour later, everything was flooding back.

The hardware technology was capable of producing polygonal graphics, and suddenly the question became: What can we do with this?

Dave described going to Yosemite and looking around at the landscape. He saw the waterfalls and mountains and realized, with this technology, they could create these kinds of things.

You could see the excitement in his eyes decades later.

That’s the sort of moment I wanted the book to capture.

What about Spy Hunter?

Paul: That’s another wonderful example.

I spoke to George Gomez, who worked as an artist and hardware engineer and helped formulate the idea.

When he was planning the road, he drew it on an extremely long piece of paper or vellum. The programmer could stretch this road design around the office and refer to it while coding the game.

Of course, I immediately asked George, “Do you still have it?”

Unfortunately, he didn’t!

Those artifacts are fascinating, and we managed to include quite a few surviving examples in the book.

There are early materials from Star Wars, early Paperboy sketches and handwritten design material from games such as Sinistar.

These aren’t just finished games anymore. You can actually see part of the creative process that produced them.

Fighting games present a completely different challenge. What did you learn from researching games like Street Fighter II?

Japanese games presented a challenge because of the language barrier.

Of the 120 games, 65 are Western-developed, mostly American, along with three British-developed games. For some of the Japanese material, I had help from Martyn Carroll and John Szczepaniak.

With Street Fighter II, one thing that fascinated me was hearing Akira Nishitani discuss balancing the fighters.

Today we’ve played Street Fighter II for decades, so we know it works.

But imagine designing it.

You have all these different fighters and every possible matchup between them. You change a move because it works badly against one character, only to discover you’ve now created another problem when that fighter faces somebody else.

They played and tested it repeatedly. Players tested it in arcades, while the developers watched and took notes.

That constant process of balancing was fascinating to me.

Were there games or stories you wanted to include but couldn’t?

Absolutely.

There are more than 4,000 arcade games documented, so 120 entries is still only a fraction of arcade history.

There were games for which I had interviews but ultimately decided to hold them back.

One was Sega’s arcade version of Sonic the Hedgehog. We had material from one of the original developers, but it’s quite an obscure game and never came outside Japan.

Another was Gravitar, which I love. Mike Hally was very open about its development, but again, it didn’t have the recognition of something like Asteroids.

Those are the sorts of games I metaphorically put behind my ear for a possible Volume Two.

Speaking of Volume Two, would that move into arcade games from 2000 onward?

Not specifically.

Arcades obviously continued beyond 1999, and people like Eugene Jarvis and Raw Thrills have done a fantastic job keeping coin-operated video games alive.

But the golden age has passed.

A second volume would give us an opportunity to revisit games from 1971 onward that we couldn’t include this time—particularly games that are perhaps less famous but equally brilliant.

I wouldn’t rule out including games from the new millennium, but that wouldn’t be the primary focus.

To Order Book, Click here.  Limited QTY left 

Did you get Nolan Bushnell involved?

Paul: Yes. Nolan wrote the foreword.

I also spoke with him about Computer Space and Pong, and I’d previously interviewed Ted Dabney before he passed away.

With Breakout, Nolan was able to give me his perspective, and I also managed to speak to Steve Wozniak about creating the prototype.

That’s another example of why recording these interviews matters. You can return to the original conversation years later and find pieces that didn’t fit into an earlier article.

Chicago played such an important role in arcade history through Williams, Midway, Bally and others. Would you ever consider doing a book about pinball?

I love pinball, but I’m definitely a player rather than a historian.

One reason Chicago became so important to video games was its long history with pinball. Many of those companies began with pinball and then moved into video games.

What’s fascinating is seeing that crossover.

Look at Qbert*. When Q*bert falls from the pyramid, there’s that physical “knock” from inside the cabinet. That comes from the pinball world.

You can see and hear that influence throughout the games made by companies with pinball backgrounds.

Sound designer David Thiel, for example, was creating sounds algorithmically. They weren’t simply playing recordings. They were manipulating code and listening to the results until something suddenly sounded right.

That whole crossover between pinball and video games is fascinating.

What do you think about places like Galloping Ghost and other arcades that keep these games playable today?

It’s fantastic.

I’ve been to Galloping Ghost, and I’ll be returning to the American Classic Arcade Museum at Funspot.

Here in Britain, we also have Arcade Club locations, including Bury, Blackpool and Leeds.

Obviously, there’s a huge nostalgia rush when you walk into these places. The lights, sounds, cabinets and atmosphere immediately take you back.

But something else is happening too.

I was recently playing Donkey Kong at an arcade in Nottingham. Next to me was a university-age student playing Pac-Man.

That game was created decades before this person was born.

Yet they were playing it and enjoying it.

That’s what the best arcade games do.

They’re easy to learn and difficult to master—the mantra Nolan Bushnell talked about.

It means these games aren’t surviving solely because of nostalgia. There’s something timeless about their design.

Even the sounds of an arcade can instantly take you back.

Absolutely.

One developer described creating arcade audio as working in an “audio war zone.”

Think about it.

When you’re playing an arcade game, you’re looking directly at your game’s screen. The other screens around you don’t interfere with what you’re seeing.

Sound doesn’t work that way.

Every cabinet around you is making noise.

So designers had to create sounds that could stand out from that cacophony while also communicating useful information to the player.

In Qbert*, for example, sounds aren’t simply decoration. They tell you something is happening. They prepare you to react.

Try playing a classic arcade game with the sound turned off.

It’s not the same experience—and in some ways, it’s not even the same game.

To Order Book, Click here.  Limited QTY left 

Did you cover Dragon’s Lair?

Yes.

Dragon’s Lair is almost like the video game equivalent of asking someone, “Do you remember where you were when you heard President Kennedy was shot!?”

People remember the first time they saw Dragon’s Lair.

As hardened gamers, we can look back now and say the interaction was fairly minimal. It’s largely a reaction and memory game.

But that misses what it felt like in 1983.

We were absolutely transfixed because it looked like we were playing a cartoon.

People sometimes claim that older games were purely about gameplay and nobody cared about graphics.

That’s rubbish!

We were always looking for the next visual breakthrough.

When Galaxian gave us color, that mattered. When characters began looking more recognizably human, that mattered. Then Dragon’s Lair appeared and looked like an animated movie.

For the book, we spoke with Gary Goldman, who had worked with Don Bluth and had just finished The Secret of NIMH. A strike meant they couldn’t continue onto their next film project in the normal way, and the opportunity to work on Dragon’s Lair arrived at exactly the right time.

They knew animation. They hadn’t made a video game.

So they essentially figured it out.

And because you die so frequently in Dragon’s Lair, they made dying entertaining.

Think about that achievement: players kept failing, yet they remained completely transfixed by the experience.

That’s extraordinary.

Finally, what do you hope people take away from The Arcade 1971–1999?

It’s a coffee-table book. It’s big, colorful and beautifully produced by Bitmap Books.

I only pitched the idea to them. If Sam Dyer at Bitmap Books had said no, I wouldn’t have done it with anybody else.

And I’m not naïve. I know that a book about arcade games is partly about nostalgia.

Someone will open it, see Pole Position or another cabinet and immediately think, “Oh my God, I remember playing that!”

We’ve got wonderful cabinet artwork from Adam Rufino, so readers get that visual nostalgia.

But then I want them to turn the page.

They’ll find interviews with the people who actually created these games and discover that the game didn’t arrive fully formed.

It began in someone’s head.

Things went right. Things went wrong. Something couldn’t be included. Somebody wanted to try something else. Maybe the technology wasn’t ready. Maybe management didn’t like it. Maybe they barely got everything working in time.

There is a human story behind every one of these creative endeavors.

It’s like watching a movie you love and then listening to the director’s commentary. Suddenly you understand why certain decisions were made, what was changed and what nearly didn’t happen.

Hopefully people will come to the book because they remember these games.

But I hope they leave with a deeper appreciation for the people who made them.

More Than Nostalgia

That may ultimately be the most important message behind Drury’s project.

Classic arcade games are increasingly being preserved through restored cabinets, emulation, ROM preservation and institutions dedicated to keeping original machines operating. But the memories of the men and women who created those games are just as fragile as the hardware.

A circuit board can potentially be repaired. A ROM can be copied.

A story that was never recorded can simply disappear.

The Arcade 1971–1999 attempts to preserve both sides of arcade history: the games that millions of us remember and the people whose ideas, experiments, mistakes and breakthroughs put those games into our arcades in the first place.

For those of us who grew up surrounded by the glow of arcade monitors and the unmistakable chorus of attract modes, explosions, digital voices and quarters dropping into machines, these weren’t simply games.

They were experiences.

And, as Paul Drury’s book reminds us, somebody had to create every one of them.

To Order Book, Click here.  Limited QTY left

The post The Arcade 1971–1999: The Stories Behind Classic Coin-Ops, Told by Their Creators appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

SOLD OUT

• Over 200 NES & Famicom games
• Fan created maps from 15 artists
• Articles by Justin Andrew Mason, Ross Thorn, Jonathan Leung, and Brian Riggsbee
• Exclusive interviews with Peter Lerangis (author of numerous books in the Worlds of Power series) and Retrotainment Games
• Foreword by Konstantinos Dimopoulos
• Cover art by Matt Waggle. Poster and alt cover art by Philip Summers. Notebook art by Rusty Shackles. Sticker art by Brian Riggsbee. Pin art by Dennis Pulido. Edited by Justin Severson and Riley MacLeod.

• Book — 628 full-color pages, 8.5″x11″

The post Video Game Maps: NES & Famicom – Deluxe Edition appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Reopen the toy chest and saddle up as Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and Jessie in Toy Story 3 Complete Edition, a 3D adventure based on the hit 2010 animated film, Toy Story 3. Now available for modern systems, the updated game features improved graphics and a few new surprises in store. Play through authentic moments from the movie in Story Mode, or drop into the wild west sandbox of Woody’s Roundup in Toy Box Mode.

In Story Mode, swap between Woody, Buzz, and Jessie as you play through iconic scenes from the film, including the train rescue, Operation Playtime, surviving the junkyard, and more. Harness each character’s unique abilities, whether you need to swing on Woody’s pull string or use Buzz’s strength to throw the other toys long distances. You can even play in two-player co-op.

Step out of Story Mode and into the sandbox in Toy Box Mode. This fan-favorite, customizable mode drops you into the wild west of Woody’s Roundup. Like Story Mode, you play as Woody, Buzz, or Jessie, but in Toy Box Mode you can play however you want! Characters around town give you quests to complete, so you can earn gold and spend it on personalizing the town your way. Build, decorate and customize the buildings, dress up the townsfolk, and more.

The post Toy Story 3 Complete Edition appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Every session is saved to the player’s history with its statistics, screenshots and replays. Players can keep these on their own device or share them in a community feed, and can chase achievements, climb casual and ranked leaderboards, compete in tournaments, and open multiplayer rooms for up to 4 players in the Doom-engine games and up to 256 in the Quake series.

https://wadcmd.com/

The optional WADCMD+ membership, at $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year, adds private multiplayer rooms, custom private events and tournaments, private cloud sync and cloud saves. WAD Commander started in 2019 as a browser-based launcher and file manager for WAD files, the data format behind some of the most-modded games of the 1990s.

Version 2.0 grows that idea into a platform for more than 300 games on over 30 dedicated engines, and thousands more through emulators, with a local-first design in which game files stay on the player’s device. WAD Commander is developed by Level 0x40 Labs, founded by Viktor Lázár, an independent developer based in Budapest.

Real engines, right in the browser

Wherever possible WAD Commander avoids generic emulation: games run on their own engines, source ports and faithful reimplementations, made for the web.

WAD Commander and its custom game engines are developed by Level 0x40 Labs, founded by Viktor Lázár, an independent developer in Budapest. The platform builds on many open-source projects, credited with their licenses in the app’s About dialog.

The post WAD Commander: a new retro gaming platform launching November 2 appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Inspired by Contra, Metal Gear and Predator, Legionnaires combines run-and-gun action with environmental puzzles and two protagonists whose actions affect each other’s journey.

The project features exclusive box art by comic artist Romano Molenaar, known for his work with Marvel and DC, and is being developed for original NES hardware. The team also won the NESmaker Emissary Award at the 2026 Midwest Gaming Classic.

DEMO

KICKSTARTER

Two soldiers jump.

The mission quickly turns into something far darker.

The deeper you explore…

the more reality begins to fracture.

The island is alive.

Something is watching.

It has been waiting and it doesn’t want you to leave.

From Christmas Lights to Fractured Nightmares. We are a father-and-son team from Germany making games for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. When we released our first game, Christmas Crisis, my son was only 14. Now, at 16, he has grown as a developer and wanted to create something darker, more ambitious and more mature. Legionnaires is the result of that desire — our first step into a grittier, more personal direction. Together we combine:

• Military-inspired storytelling and atmosphere (inspired by films like Predator)
• Classic 80s run-and-gun action and military action  (Contra, Metal Gear)
• Modern puzzle design on real NES hardware

 FEATURES

• Authentic NES-style experience
• Brutal difficulty – no hand-holding
• Dark, oppressive atmosphere
• Puzzle mechanics integrated into gameplay

The post LEGIONNAIRES – A Brutal 8-Bit NES Game appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

INTERVIEW WITH Stephen Kick of Nightdive 

Q: What made now the right time to bring SiN back with SiN Reloaded, and how did the project first come together?

A: SiN has always felt like unfinished business for us. We originally re-released the game as SiN Gold back in 2014, and over the years our technology and experience have evolved to the point where we felt we could finally give it the treatment it deserved. It’s a game that has lived in the shadow of some of its contemporaries for far too long, and Reloaded is our opportunity to remind people just how ambitious SiN really was.

Q: How do you balance modernizing the graphics, controls, and overall presentation while preserving the feel of a late-1990s first-person shooter?

A: We want to remove the limitations of the era without removing its character. Higher resolutions, better controls, improved models and modern rendering can make the experience more accessible, but the movement, level design, combat and personality are what make SiN feel like SiN. Whenever we’re faced with a choice between changing something because it’s old and preserving something because it’s part of the game’s identity, we tend to err on the side of preservation.

Q: What were some of the biggest technical challenges involved in taking a game built around technology from the Quake II era and adapting it for modern hardware?

A: One misconception about this kind of work is that you simply drop an old game into KEX and everything starts working. Every title has its own assumptions, quirks and modifications to the original technology, and SiN pushed the Quake II engine particularly hard. A tremendous amount of work goes into understanding those systems, recreating their behavior accurately, and then getting them to operate reliably across modern PCs and consoles without losing the characteristics of the original game.

Q: The original SiN has developed a cult following since 1998. What elements of the original game were considered untouchable when developing Reloaded?

A: The personality of SiN was absolutely untouchable. The characters, humor, level design, interactivity, weapons and that slightly exaggerated late-’90s attitude are all fundamental to what makes the game memorable. We never wanted to sanitize those qualities or reinterpret SiN through a modern lens—we wanted to preserve what Ritual created and present it in the best possible way.

Q: For someone who has never played SiN, what do you think separates SiN Reloaded from both modern shooters and the growing number of other remastered 1990s FPS games?

A: SiN comes from this wonderful period where developers were discovering just how much more an FPS could be than running through corridors shooting enemies. There are interactive environments, alternate routes, objectives, consequences to your actions and an incredible amount of variety from one level to the next. It has this ambitious, experimental quality that can still surprise you today, even if you’ve played hundreds of shooters since.

Q: John Blade, Elexis Sinclaire, and JC are memorable characters from the original game. Did you make any changes to their presentation, dialogue, models, or characterization for SiN Reloaded?

A: One of the mandates I proposed to the team was bringing the in-game character models closer to their appearance in the cinematics. There was a dramatic difference between the two in the original game, largely because of the technical limitations of the time, so this felt like an area where we could make a meaningful improvement without changing the characters themselves. I think the new models make a huge difference to the overall presentation while still looking unmistakably like the characters people remember.

Q: How much attention has been given to the game’s AI, enemy behavior, weapon handling, and environmental interaction? Were these areas preserved closely or substantially improved?

A: Our starting point is always preservation, particularly with systems like enemy behavior and weapon handling where seemingly small changes can dramatically alter how a game feels. We’ve fixed issues and made improvements where appropriate, but we aren’t trying to redesign SiN’s combat to behave like a modern shooter. The environmental interaction in particular is one of the things that made SiN remarkable in 1998, so preserving all of those little details and making sure they work correctly was incredibly important to us.

Q: What is your favorite part of this game that you were involved with?

A: My favorite part was reaching out to the original developers and hearing their stories about making SiN—their inspirations, their ambitions, what went right, what went wrong, and everything in between. These people were trailblazers, and I don’t believe they’ve received enough credit for the artistry and influence they left behind. That’s become one of the most rewarding parts of what we do at Nightdive: not simply preserving the games, but shining a light on the people who created them during an extraordinary period of passion, experimentation and creativity in this industry.

The post appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

https://www.qubytegames.store/allgames/blades-%26-battles

Picture this: King Arthur meets the raw, visceral combat of Golden Axe and Knights of the Round.

That is the essence of Blades & Battles, the new flagship 2.5D arcade sword-brawler developed and published globally by QUByte Interactive. Set in an untamed mythic Britain before the Round Table was ever forged, you take up the mantle of a young, athletic Arthur or his swift companion Lancelot to carve through waves of undead beasts and mythical horrors summoned by Morgana le Fay.

Wouldst thou test thy mettle on the battlefield? We would gladly grant thee a review key.
Simply reply to this missive and let us know thy preferred realm: Steam (PC), PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series X|S, or Nintendo Switch (plus thy region), and our squires shall dispatch thy code right away.

Release Date: Blades & Battles officially launches on September 29, 2026 for PC (Steam & Epic), Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch.

The post Arthurian Golden Axe? Review key for Blades & Battles (Arcade Beat ’em Up) appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Now HAMSTER Corporation has brought ARKANOID: REVENGE OF DOH to Nintendo Switch 2 as part of its Arcade Archives 2 series. Rather than completely remake the game for modern audiences, HAMSTER takes a preservation-first approach, keeping the original arcade experience intact while adding modern features that make the game considerably more convenient to play today.

The result is one of those releases that understands exactly what makes an old arcade game special.

the ball, and advance through increasingly difficult stages.

The sequel adds considerably more variety to that formula. Blocks can move, regenerate, or behave differently, while enemies and obstacles make later stages much more challenging.

There is also a branching stage structure, allowing players to take different routes through the game.

Arcade Archives 2 Features

This is where HAMSTER’s Switch 2 release becomes more than simply playing an old game on new hardware.

The release includes several different ways to play, including Original Mode, Hi Score Mode, Caravan Mode, and Time Attack Mode.

Time Attack is particularly interesting because it changes the objective. Instead of concentrating exclusively on score, you’re trying to complete the game as quickly as possible.

There are also save features, online rankings, rewind functionality, and rapid-fire options.

These additions don’t fundamentally change REVENGE OF DOH. Instead, they give modern players different ways to enjoy the original game.

That is exactly the approach I want to see from a classic-game collection.

At around the $10 price point, this is an easy recommendation for classic arcade fans.

The value proposition is somewhat different for players who aren’t interested in arcade history.

You’re essentially buying a faithful recreation of a game that is nearly four decades old, rather than a brand-new Switch 2 production.

But for players who appreciate classic arcade gaming, that’s precisely the appeal.

HAMSTER has preserved the original game while adding features that make it considerably easier to enjoy on modern hardware.

The post HAMSTER Corporation | “Arcade Archives ARKANOID REVENGE OF DOH” Releases Sep 3 on Switch, Switch 2, PS4/5, Xbox Series X|S appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Remakes of Two Cyan Worlds’ Fan-Favorites Return Via Physical Release in Standard and Collector’s Editions

Myst & Riven

https://limitedrungames.com/collections/myst-riven

Limited Run Games, a premium publisher of physical games, in collaboration with Cyan Worlds, announced today that modern remakes of two beloved puzzle adventure titles are heading back to PC and Console later this year, as Myst and Riven receive all-new physical releases for a fresh generation of adventurers to experience.

A landmark game which quickly secured iconic status upon its initial release in 1993, Myst invites players to a starkly beautiful island, eerily tinged with mystery and shrouded in intrigue. Players journey to Myst Island and other stunning, long-dormant locations – called “Ages”- and begin to unravel the mystery they have been thrust into.

With each new puzzle solved, players reveal the engrossing backstory and find they’re playing a key role in an epic story whose ending has not yet been written.

One of the most influential video games ever made, Myst has already been enjoyed by more than six million gamers and its modern remake now arrives via a physical edition for gamers to treasure on PlayStation®5, XBOX One, XBOX Series and PC.

Arriving in two physical versions, gamers can choose between Standard or Collector’s Editions:

Myst Standard Edition – MSRP: $39.99 / €44.95 / £40.00 / $CAD 56.99  MSRP – PlayStation 5, XBOX One / XBOX Series X

• Game Case
• Game Disc
• 8 Page Booklet

Myst Big Box Edition – MSRP: $64.99 / €71.95 / £65.00 / $CAD 91.99  – PC, PlayStation 5, XBOX One / XBOX Series X

Myst & Riven

• Big Box PC Packaging
• Standard Edition of the Game*
• Soundtrack CD
• 12” x 16” Double Sided Poster

*PC version contains a digital Steam key in box in lieu of disc.

In Riven, players travel to a beautiful and mysterious world on the verge of collapse. Explore this mysterious place, solve its puzzles, reveal its mysteries, make a daring rescue, and escape. Riven takes players on a journey through dense jungles, awe-inspiring caverns, and monolithic structures, where they will explore a world bent to the whims of a man who sees himself as a god, and where every corner will immerse you in an otherworldly adventure.

With complex puzzles, incredible visuals and a gripping story, Riven is rightly hailed as a worthy sequel to the original masterpiece, and remains a firm favorite with adventure gamers to this day.

Once again, the modern remake of Riven arrives via two physical versions, with gamers having the option to choose between Standard and Collector’s Editions:

Riven Standard Edition – MSRP: $39.99 / €44.95 / £40.00 /  $CAD 56.99 – PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X

• Game Case
• Game Disc
• 8 Page Booklet

Myst & Riven

Riven Big Box Edition – MSRP: $64.99 / €71.95 / £65.00 / $CAD 91.99  –  PC, PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X, PC

Myst Standard Edition (PS5, Xbox)

• Big Box PC Packaging
• Standard Edition of the Game*
• Soundtrack CD
• 12” x 16” Double Sided Poster

Myst & Riven

*PC version contains a digital Steam key in box in lieu of disc.

Pre-orders for both Myst and Riven will go live on the Limited Run Games website beginning September 18, 2026, and will close on October 18, 2026. Make sure to secure your copy before you miss out on these two unrivalled adventures! If you’d like to add the games to your wishlist right now, you can do that right here.

The post Relive The Adventures of a Lifetime as Remakes of the Legendary Classics Myst and Riven Return to PC and Console Later This Year appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.