Earlier today, Nintendo hosted another Nindies Showcase to announce some indie titles heading to the Switch soon. The presentation lasted around 30 minutes and covered a fair amount of ground, with a few very exciting announcements along the way. There's a lot to cover, so let's dive into all of the games that were revealed.
Crypt of the Necrodancer is one of the most beloved indie games around, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise to hear that a follow-up was announced during today's Nindies Showcase. The nature of that follow-up might surprise you, though, as this game is set to feature characters from The Legend of Zelda. Cadence of Hyrule is the name of this new game, and it'll be arriving later this year on Switch.
Nintendo kicked off its latest Nindies Showcase in a big way today. Right at the beginning of the show, Nintendo announced that Cuphead will be coming to the Switch. That's a surprising announcement in itself, as it seemed that Cuphead would remain a console exclusive on the Xbox One.
Apparently, launching one VR headset this spring isn't enough for the folks at Oculus. In addition to the standalone Oculus Quest, the company announced today that it'll also be launching the Oculus Rift S. The Rift S brings back the tether, meaning you'll need a relatively beefy gaming PC to use it, but in return Oculus promises "access to the most immersive content that VR has to offer."
Yesterday, Google made a pretty big splash by announcing an extensive cloud gaming initiative known as Google Stadia. It was an announcement we knew was coming thanks to last year's test of Project Stream, but the service that Google announced yesterday certainly seems to take things one step further by integrating YouTube and Google Assistant in clever ways. Microsoft, of course, has been working on a game streaming platform of its own for a number of years, and Xbox chief Phil Spencer seems to welcome having Google as a competitor in the space.
Apple is keeping its string of device reveals going, first revealing a pair of new iPads on Monday and then updating its line of iMacs yesterday. Though some rumors claimed that we'd see a new iPod Touch today, we're actually getting a new pair of AirPods. An AirPods follow-up has been rumored for quite some time, so the fact that we're seeing them now shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.
It's hard to believe that it's been more than 10 years since Castle Crashers first found its way to Xbox 360. In the time since then, it's found a lot of fans on a variety of different platforms, and developer The Behemoth announced today that it isn't quite done porting the game to new consoles yet. Castle Crashers Remastered, which launched for Xbox One and PC back in 2015, is heading to Switch and PS4, and it'll arrive later this year.
Season 1 has officially arrived in Apex Legends, and alongside it is a rather hefty patch. Not only does this patch add the season 1 Battle Pass to the game, but it also adds the new Octane Legend. Though a new playable Legend is always going to be one of the biggest parts - if not the biggest part - of an Apex Legends patch, there's plenty more to dig into.
Now that Google Stadia is out in the open, the question of control comes to mind. When you're playing on a PC, controlling games through Stadia should be pretty straightforward, as you'll simply use your computer's mouse and keyboard. What about when you want to play on a tablet, phone, or TV? For that, Google has created a controller specifically for Stadia.
GDC 2019 kicks off today, and one of the big announcements from the first day involves Angry Birds, which will soon be making the jump to augmented reality. Today, Rovio and Resolution Games announced Angry Birds AR: Isle of Pigs, which is something of a follow up to the virtual reality game of the same name. While Angry Birds is a franchise that's seen a ton of releases over the years, augmented reality could give us a fresh spin on its age-old gameplay.
By now, Nintendo's mobile ambitions are pretty clear. For the past few years, Nintendo has been bringing a number of its franchises to mobile devices, and it's been experimenting with monetization strategies along the way. Those mobile releases don't seem to be slowing down either, with new mobile games based on Mario Kart and Dr. Mario currently in the works.
It's been a busy couple of days for Apple. Yesterday, the company introduced a new iPad Air and a new iPad mini, opting to forgo the reveal event it typically hosts for product announcements and revealing them instead through a press release. Today, it's doing the same thing once again, but this time around, it's the iMac that's getting a refresh.