Nintendo thrilled Switch owners today with hard details about its new Switch Online service, which includes NES games that can be played for free and feature modern elements, such as online play and voice chat.

We’ve known that retro games would form some part of the mooted online package for a while, but many were hopeful that the Virtual Console service – which launched on the Wii over a decade ago – would be included somehow. Through the Virtual Console platform, players have been able to gain access to some of the greatest games ever made for a reasonable fee, some of which are either exclusive to Japan or incredibly hard to obtain in their original form these days.

Sadly, Nintendo has confirmed to Kotaku that the service will not be coming to Switch in the near future:

There are currently no plans to bring classic games together under the Virtual Console banner as has been done on other Nintendo systems.

It would therefore seem that the vast majority of the retro content supplied via the Switch Online service will be part of your yearly fee – which, if that ends up being the case, more than makes up for the fact that the Virtual Console is effectively no more. 

While we might not see all of the games that had previously launched across Wii, Wii U and 3DS under the Virtual Console banner, the notion of a flat yearly fee for online play and cloud saves which also gives access to some of Nintendo’s best titles from the past few decades as a bonus can’t be bad.

The Nintendo spokesperson added:

There are a variety of ways in which classic games from Nintendo and other publishers are made available on Nintendo Switch, such as through Nintendo Entertainment System – Nintendo Switch Online, Nintendo eShop or as packaged collections. Nintendo Entertainment System – Nintendo Switch Online will provide a fun new way to experience classic NES games that will be different from the Virtual Console service, thanks to enhancements such as added online play, voice chat via the Nintendo Switch Online app and the various play modes of Nintendo Switch.

They also refused to give any information regarding future platforms appearing on the Switch Online service, such as SNES and GameCube. However, we’d be amazed if Nintendo didn’t add more machines to the service in the future.

Juicy Realm is Now Available on Steam and is 10% off!*

Juicy Realm is a roguelike game in which players must square off against bizarre fruits all across the world. The line between the animal and the plant world has become blurred, and the food chain has been completely disrupted. Humans, upon making this incredible discovery, have set up outposts along the border of the aggressive plants’ habitat for investigations, defense, and in preparation for what may come. You take the role of a soldier on the front lines charged with confronting this strange new enemy.

*Offer ends May 10 at 10AM Pacific Time

We’re getting ready to do pre-releases soon and we’re working hard to fix bugs.

A full changelog for the Snapshot can be found on Minecraft.net.

Note from ProfMobius via reddit:

If you can hold until tomorrow, 18w19b will be able to open all the worlds without wiping them. Sorry for the stress generated.

• Due to changes in world generation, worlds from previous snapshots will no longer work
• All undead mobs now sink
• Skeleton Horses are rideable underwater
• Updated biomes to have new fancy names
• Seagrass now generates in underwater caves
• New sounds for Conduit and Beacon
• Phantoms are now extra flappy
• Improved the upgrade paths from old versions
• You can now copy the output of the /seed command
• Updated the credits list
• Maybe some other stuff?
• Fixed a couple of bugs

FIXED BUGS IN 18W19A

• MC-7908 – Spawning underwater / In the middle of an (lava) ocean
• MC-86016 – Some Mojang staff not mentioned in credits.txt
• MC-121285 – Crash on start when resolution is changed in profile
• MC-121636 – Server commands available in singleplayer with weird/bad effects
• MC-121661 – Typing /help + unavailable command returns “unexpected error” message
• [MC-……….] – 96 more bugs 

To get snapshots, open your launcher and go to the “launch options” tab. Check the box saying “Enable snapshots” and save. To switch between the snapshot and normal version, you can find a new dropdown menu next to the “Play” button. Back up your world first or run the game on in a different folder (In the “launch options” page).

Please report any and all bugs you find in Minecraft to bugs.mojang.com.

Snapshots can corrupt your world, please backup and/or run them in a different folder from your main worlds. 1.13 will have a lot of experimental snapshots that may break everything and smell funny. This may be one of those snapshots. This is what happens when Mojang are changing all the things! 

Share your thoughts on how 1.13 is shaping up in the comments below!

Warmind Launch

Player Character

General

Emotes

Sandbox

Exotic Weapons – General

Exotic Kinetic Weapons

Exotic Energy Weapons

Exotic Power Weapons

Weapon Perks

Activities

PvE

Strikes

Raid

Tower

Items and Economy

General

Character Inventory

Eververse

Clans

Progression

Clan Engrams 

Guided Games

Crucible

General

Maps

Game Modes

Audio

Settings

UI

General

“Our goal was to create a game that, first and foremost, feels sci-fi. Not just because it is set on another planet, but because it captures the tone, spirit, and optimism of the classics of the genre,” says Boian Spasov, lead designer of Surviving Mars, a game of colonizing the red planet. 

“Humanity has dreamed about colonizing Mars for quite a while and we did our best to capture the essence of this dream and to recreate it in our game. After all, Mars might be our next logical giant leap towards taming the final frontier.”

Designing a game about building a fine city is all well and good in Surviving Mars, but the game’s sci-fi setting means have to be concerned with more things than just their build order or whether they’re bringing in enough funds for the next thing they want to create. By creating a city builder set on a world hostile to human life, Spasov and the team at Haemimont Games had to add elements of danger and survival for players to navigate, creating a city builder with some challenging, different issues for players to deal with.

Survival doesn’t just mean ensuring everyone has food and water, though. With individualized colonists with various strengths and problems, keeping everyone happy is another element key to keeping a colony alive, giving players a very delicate balancing act in surviving their time on this planet.

A lethal home

“People come to a genre with certain expectations, both as developers and as players.” says Spasov. “When we started working, it immediately became obvious that we are not making a typical city-builder. Surviving Mars was initially our internal working title, but survival ended up being so fundamental for the game, that it became the official name.”

“Surviving Mars was initially our internal working title, but survival ended up being so fundamental for the game, that it became the official name.”

Mars, to the developers, seemed like a logical step in our space-faring future, but it’s not one that will come easy. As such, while creating the fiction of it within Surviving Mars, all of the things that would make the planet inhospitable right now became major concerns they wanted to convey in the game. 

“We wanted to focus on the real problems that a potential Mars colonization will face. Although there are certain fantastic elements in the mysteries, the core experience focuses on securing the necessities like oxygen, water, power and shelter. After these basic are secured, the focus shifts to building a self-sufficient and functional, perhaps utopian, society in the hostile alien environment,” says Spasov.

In short, having the right buildings to create a self-sustaining city were not the only things the developers thought should be major concerns. Keeping the people of a given settlement alive also needs to be a major concern at first, building from there onto different levels of problems as they moved along, then juggling all of them at the same time.

In the beginning, players must work to build up the materials and structures they need to sustain life in Surviving Mars, which means creating an infrastructure that would support life when it arrived. Using drones, players build an initial settlement which will draw enough water, air, food, and materials to keep things going before people get there. However, players also need to ensure these supplies will not be cut off in any way during a playthrough of the game. The challenge then becomes not just setting up the supply lines for these necessary elements, but also sustaining them at any cost.

A given settlement can fall apart should any one thing be cut off for even a short amount of time. A few dozen colonists can die in a short period should the air supply be affected by something as simple as a broken pipe. This might seem a little unfair in most city-builders – a single error causing complete destruction, especially an error the player has little control of – but Surviving Mars’ frontier themes makes that slightly more tolerable, if only from the angle of the game’s fiction.

“The frontier theme helped us very much to naturally merge these two elements. When you are constructing a human settlement on Mars, disasters and trouble are not just randomly thrown in, they are to be expected,” says Spasov.

Players in this setting expect monstrous consequences from something that would be merely annoying on Earth. A broken pipe would be a hindrance on a hospitable planet, but Surviving Mars’ inhospitable environment creates an expectation in the player that such a break will be disastrous — unless they have multiple backups and contingency plans in place. 

This element did provide some stress for the development team. “Merging the inherently creative aspect of the city builders with some inherently destructive survival threats was an interesting challenge,” says Spasov. “It was also a tough balancing act – how much challenge is too much and how much is not enough?” 

Finding the right balance of challenge in a game where things can go randomly wrong in disastrous ways can feel like it runs counter to the slow, methodical play inherent in the city-builder genre, but this is just another way of forcing the player to consider other aspects of the game in their planning. In utilizing Mars as the backdrop, Spasov sets the player up to expect danger from sources as simple as air and water supplies, and adjust their planning to accommodate those things. The consequences of failure, while worrying for the development team, push players to consider their plans in a new light, looking at city-building in a different way through the lens of the hostile planet.

With lethal inhabitants

In keeping with Spasov’s thoughts on what players would need to consider while realistically inhabiting a hostile world, there was also some consideration given to what the people inhabiting that world would need as well. A colony is not just a system of life-support systems, after all, but a place where people must emotionally thrive as well if it is to survive.

Surviving Mars’ colonists feature various backgrounds and personalities, requiring players use the right people in the right places to keep the machines and facilities running, but also having to set up certain facilities to keep them happy as well. If the colonists start to get annoyed or have no means to relax in the manner of their choosing, they start to lose effectiveness, or will develop quirks that can make life difficult in the colony. Like a broken pipe, a single broken person can also create disaster in an otherwise-functional city.

This not only added further challenge to the game and more to consider while thinking on survival, but it also gave its characters a personality that would make each city feel like a unique place.

“Besides additional mechanical depth, I think they grant a lot of personality and soul to the game. A generic random colonist is much less interesting than the colony’s sexy alcoholic nerd,” says Spasov. “After all, the goal of any game is to engage the players, and personalized colonists tend to be much more interesting than generic ones.”

This personality bleeds into the game world as well. Rather than have a single utopian city with facilities for all, players must consider the unique needs of their people when creating their city. They have to look at what most of them want and build to cater to that, imposing a need to interact with the city’s peoples with the way things are constructed. In this way, each city would be different on each playthrough, creating a shifting goal for what would help players survive in a given run at the game.

This personality aspect, while making a city feel vibrant and unique, would also impose new rules on each run through the game, tasking players with working towards new goals each time. This is compounded by the tech discovery system, which gives players new discoveries in unpredictable ways.

“We are very happy with the way the randomized tech tree turned out. It works very well both thematically – futuristic science should be anything but predictable; and mechanically – makes every playthrough unique and creates a different experience when replaying,”  says Spasov. “Getting certain key technologies early or late may change the course of your game and discovering a breakthrough technology that is unavailable otherwise is bound to make a session particularly memorable. It’s all about replayability – we want to surprise the players and freshen up their experience every time they return to the red planet.”

Players can’t rely on any single discovery for safety while playing through Surviving Mars. Like true survival, elements can be fickle, appearing or not due to simple, rotten luck.

Like the unexpected accidents and unpredictable people, unreliable science means that players have to plan for many different potential problems without coming up with a single, perfect method for making the perfect colony. The player always needs to be on their toes, looking out for the next problem and trying to anticipate it.

The shift from surviving to thriving is therefore intended to always be a challenging, difficult move, as it requires players to juggle the various needs of their colony and its people. They need to constantly keep an eye on their base physical needs and how they would be stored and cared for in a hostile environment, but also keep their people happy to prevent them from ruining everything in their own unexpected ways.

By blending unstable personalities with uncertain and hostile environments, Spasov and his team seem to have created a survival loop that demands constant vigilance from Surviving Mars players, in ways that feel true to the dream of colonizing Mars.

A report released by Newzoo breaks down where the firm believes the global game industry will fall revenue-wise by the end of 2018, noting that it expects mobile to account for 51 percent of the predicted $137.9 billion earned by games this year. 

This isn’t the first time mobile has brought in more revenue than consoles or PC by a longshot, but this is the first time the platform makes up over half of game revenue on a worldwide scale.

And while Newzoo’s numbers are just projections based on the current state of the game industry, the information in the company’s report can offer developers a straightforward look at how the industry is changing through the years.

Looking at revenue generated by mobile, PC, and console games, Newzoo is predicting a year-over-year increase of 13.3 percent from 2017’s numbers, with digital game revenue accounting for 91 percent of that overall, or $125.3 billion.

Mobile games, meanwhile, are expected to see at least a 25.5 year-over-year increase, generating $70.3 billion and accounting for just over half of the global market for the first time. By 2021, Newzoo expects mobile games to be a $100 billion market on their own and generate 59 percent of the overall worldwide video game market.

The full report on Newzoo has a fair amount of other predictions that game developers will likely find interesting. One particular section breaks down what game revenue looks like when broken down by region. Of that $137.9 billion expected to pour in this year, Newzoo believes $37.9 billion of it will come from China, while $30.4 billion is expected from the United States. 

Even so, the Asia-Pacific region is expected to make up a whopping 52 percent (or $71.4 billion) of global game spending this year, a 16.8 percent increase from 2017’s numbers. A closer look at this data can be found on Newzoo. 

We know you’re busy and might miss out on all the exciting things we’re talking about on Xbox Wire every week. If you’ve got a few minutes, we can help remedy that. We’ve pared down the past week’s news into one easy-to-digest article for all things Xbox! Or, if you’d rather watch than read, you can feast your eyes on our weekly video show above. Be sure to come back every Friday to find out what’s happening This Week on Xbox!

5 Ways Shadow of the Tomb Raider is Evolving the Series’ Formula
2013’s rebooted Tomb Raider not only introduced fans to a reimagined Lara Croft, but also offered amazing new gameplay mechanics, systems, and features. Its sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, built on its predecessor’s solid foundation, refining and polishing everything, from the combat and crafting to the very tombs Lara loves raiding so much. Shadow of the Tomb Raider looks to maintain this momentum, retaining the formula that’s made the previous pair of game’s such a relic-hunting blast, but also taking that tried-and-true template in exciting new directions. Based on our recent… Read more

Xbox and Real Madrid Create Custom Xbox One X for the Ultimate Soccer Fan
Today, Xbox announced the creation of its newest, custom console in partnership with the 12-time winning UEFA Champions League team, Real Madrid. The one-of-a-kind console features the Real Madrid logo and is personally autographed by each player in the squad. One very fortunate fan will have the chance to win the console by participating in the global giveaway opportunity on Xbox’s Twitter page from April 27 to May 4. Simply follow the official @Xbox Twitter account and retweet the promotional post including the hashtag #XboxSweepstakes (click here for official details). In addition, the entire Real Madrid squad was excited to receive their customized consoles during a training… Read more

Xbox Game Pass: State of Decay 2, Pro Evolution Soccer 2018, Overcooked, and More Coming in May
Hello, fellow gamers! Welcome to your May Xbox Game Pass update. We’re incredibly excited to bring State of Decay 2 to Xbox Game Pass members on May 22, the same day as its global release, as we continue to build our commitment to deliver the ultimate gaming membership for our fans. We’re also thrilled to announce the futuristic sports game Laser League will be making its debut on Xbox Game Pass the same day it launches in the Microsoft Store on May 10. But wait, there’s more! For soccer fans, we kick off May with Pro Evolution Soccer 2018 which joins Xbox Game Pass May 1 through August 31. Xbox Game Pass members can also look forward to playing Overcooked, The Escapists,… Read more

Microsoft and Discord Team Up to Connect Gamers Across Xbox Live and Discord
PC and console gamers, unite! Today we are excited to announce a new collaboration between Xbox and Discord. Connecting with friends is such a big part of why people game. Gamers all over the world use and love Discord to easily chat and connect with friends while they game. In the coming weeks, this collaboration will make it easier for gamers to choose to do just that – make it easier to connect and see what friends are playing across console and PC. It’s part of the work we are doing to provide gamers with more choice, allowing them to play how and where they want to. In response to your feedback, you will now have the option to link your Discord account to your Xbox account,… Read more

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Miramar Map Now Available on Test Server
One of the hottest games on Xbox One is about to get hotter as Miramar, the desert-themed map in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), is now available to play on a dedicated test server, ahead of its launch in the Xbox Game Preview version of the game in late May. To access the Miramar test server, download the standalone “PUBG Test Server” client directly from the Microsoft Store and prepare to experience the latest addition to the most intense battle royale game on Xbox One. Note, you must own PUBG on Xbox One to download and access the Miramar test server. The… Read more

The April Xbox Update Begins Rolling Out Today
April is here, and it comes with a feature-packed update to Xbox One. We unveiled some of these new features on the premiere episode of Inside Xbox last month. This month, we’re announcing that they’ll become available to Xbox One owners around the world over the next few days. Here’s a quick rundown of what to expect: Video & Display We’ve added a bunch of new video features we hope you’ll enjoy, starting with Auto Low-Latency Mode (or ALLM for short). Auto Low-Latency Mode enables the family of Xbox One devices to notify your display when you’re playing a game, so a TV that also supports ALLM will know to switch to its low latency video mode. Many displays refer to… Read more

New Games with Gold for May 2018
Welcome to another edition of Games with Gold for the Xbox One family of devices! This month Super Mega Baseball 2 makes its debut on May 1 and the critically acclaimed action stealth adventure Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain arrives on May 16. Then on Xbox 360 – and Xbox One via Backward Compatibility – we’ll have the Sega Vintage Collection: Streets of Rage and the cult-classic action game Vanquish! All games will be available exclusively for Xbox Live Gold members for a limited time as part of Games with Gold. With Xbox Live Gold, you get the most advanced multiplayer, free games, and exclusive member discounts on games in the Microsoft Store, so get Xbox Live Gold today to… Read more

Strange Brigade Coming to Xbox One August 28
We were last here with Strange Brigade in the Summer of 2017. We’d just released Sniper Elite 4 which we know lots of you loved on Xbox One, so it was exciting and daunting to show off something a little different. Namely, the reveal trailer for Strange Brigade – our brand-new co-op adventure, full of mythical monsters, perilous traps, and barrel-loads of derring-do! Like a well-preserved mummy we’ve kept things a little under wraps since then, but today it’s finally time to lift the lid off the tomb and show you a bit more of Strange Brigade. For starters, we’ve got a new trailer featuring some of the backstory behind the game (you can see that above). Strange Brigade is… Read more

Get Madden NFL 18 Free When You Purchase a New Xbox One
It’s NFL Draft season and we’ve got your football fix just in time! Starting today, when you purchase any new Xbox One console, you’ll get a digital copy of Madden NFL 18 as a bonus with your purchase. Immerse yourself in football with the most photorealistic Madden game to date, brought to you by the innovative Frostbite engine. Take the field as your favorite team, experience the journey from NFL prospect to the NFL Draft in the all-new Longshot story mode, and connect with friends for 3 vs. 3 online play in Madden Ultimate Team Squads with Xbox Live. Ready to feel true power? Own the Xbox One X, and experience football like never before. Madden NFL 18 is enhanced to take… Read more

Emily Wants to Play Too Available Now on Xbox One
Hello, everyone, I’m Shawn Hitchcock, the guy that made Emily Wants to Play. I am here with another game in an attempt to excite and scare the heck out of you: Emily Wants to Play Too. Inspired by fans and my own fears, this sequel is bigger, has more story, more games, more monsters, and new scares. I’m a big advocate of listening to fans. I watch videos, live streams, look at fan art, read the wikis, read reviews and comments about Emily Wants to Play all over the Internet. I don’t say much though; I just silently pay attention. Fans have mentioned how fun it would be if the first game was bigger, had more story, and more characters. I made sure Emily Wants to Play Too included all… Read more

Inside Xbox One X Enhanced: Fe
Many of gaming’s most compelling stories come from those who’ve helped to create our favorite Xbox One games. In our Inside Xbox One X Enhanced series, these creators will share the behind-the-scenes accounts of the work involved in enhancing these epic games for Xbox One X, how they’ve helped chart the course of the world’s most powerful console, and what that means for the future of gaming. Today, we’ll be chatting with Johan Fröhlander, Lead Programmer at Zoink about enhancing Fe for Xbox One X. What specifically is your development team doing to enhance Fe for Xbox One X? On Xbox One X, this is the first time we are able to create an experience that is running in a native… Read more

Uncover the Secrets of the Lost City Omu in Neverwinter on Xbox One
Greetings, adventurers! It’s time to delve deeper into the jungles of Chult and explore the decaying ruins of the long-forgotten city of Omu. Make your way through the labyrinthine tunnels of the Undercity, face new monsters in the hunt, and survive the new Epic Trial! In Neverwinter’s Lost City of Omu you will encounter old allies and potential news ones as you make your final attempt to overcome Acererak’s Death Curse. This adventure also comes with a new set of achievements for players to unlock, like exploring Omu and finding all the Scrying Stones. And as the number of creatures you hunt increases, so do volumes in Volothamp Geddarm’s Guide to Monsters — defeat all… Read more

Another month brings another collection of rewards for players to redeem on My Nintendo. We’ve already seen North America’s new selection, which is very heavily focused on Zelda goodies, but now it’s time for those of us in Europe to see what’s on offer.

This month sees a total of four discounts, with WarioWare: Smooth Moves appearing to build excitement for the upcoming 3DS title WarioWare Gold.

In addition to this, two Splatoon 2-themed wallpapers for computers and mobile devices have returned to the service.

• Wallpaper – Splatoon 2 – Inkling Girl and Boy: 50 Platinum Points
• Wallpaper – Splatoon 2 – Inkling Squids: 50 Platinum Points

Will you be using your points on any of these offers? Remember, your Gold Points can now also be spent on Nintendo Switch software from the eShop.

As you’ve no doubt noticed by the changing weather (touch wood) and the influx of NSYNC memes, May is upon us, and the fifth month of the year is bringing with it a slew of new titles for Nintendo Switch. So we’ve boiled all these lovely games down to tasty 10 for your visual delectation.

And there’s a wide breadth of titles here too, from the newly-released Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze to some of the wonders just waiting on the horizon, including Raging Justice and more. We won’t spoil the rest for you – you’ll have to watch the video to see the rest!

Let us know what you made of our lovely choices, and whether you’ll be adding them to your collection this May…