Pokémon & Nintendo

• The Mythical Jirachi has touched down in Pokémon Pokopia for the limited-time "Wish Upon a Jirachi" event, running from June 23rd to July 8th, 2026. To make this Steel- and Psychic-type legend stick around permanently, you'll need to gather Shining Wish Notes and craft the beautiful "Surrounded by Stars" habitat!
• It’s time to grab your Controller Pak because the Nintendo 64 is officially 30 years old today! 8BitDo is celebrating the legendary console's milestone in style by dropping a gorgeous new N64-themed controller and keyboard, while fans share their joyous, heartbreaking memories of the 64-bit era.
• Former LittleBigPlanet and Ratchet & Clank programmer Moo Yu is bringing their mythological match-three puzzler, Mythmatch, to the Nintendo Switch. If you've been looking for a fresh, charmingly designed puzzle game to keep you busy on the go, keep an eye out for this one!
• Nintendo's marketing machine is shifting into high gear for July's releases, as daily prologue comics for Splatoon Raiders have officially started rolling out today. It's the perfect way to catch up with Deep Cut's island misadventures before the game drops!
• If you're looking to relax, the tea shop exploration game Wanderstop is getting phenomenal reviews as the ultimate cozy experience for the Switch 2. On the topic of Switch 2 savings, Pokémon Legends: Z-A (Switch 2 Edition) just got its first major price cut over at Amazon for Prime Day!
• Shoutout to the incredible community artists out there drawing Pokémon like Groudon and Zebstrika based purely on text descriptions. The creativity in the Pokémon fandom never ceases to amaze me!

Call of Duty

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Warzone are dropping their mid-season update for Season 4 this Thursday, June 25th. The absolute highlight of this patch is the arrival of Nicolas Cage as a playable operator, which might be one of the most gloriously goofy collabs we've seen in a while!
• Speaking of wild crossovers, Call of Duty Mobile's new Persona 5 Royal skins are being called the stuff of crossover nightmares by fans. The anime-inspired outfits for Joker and the Phantom Thieves are lookin' a bit out of place on the modern battlefield, but you have to respect the absolute audacity of it!

Indie Games

• Steam's latest viral sensation is Meccha Chameleon, a $6 janky multiplayer game that feels like a brilliantly refined take on Prop Hunt. Whether you're painting up the map as a Painter or gunning down sneaky lizards as a Hunter, this absolute gem is a massively fun time if you can look past some rough edges.
• If you're diving into the harsh world of SAND: Raiders of Sophie, you absolutely need to be on the lookout for Red Boxes. These rare crates offer the absolute best loot in the game, helping you survive the brutal sandbox conditions!
• Patreon CEO Jack Conte recently shared his deep frustrations regarding the immense difficulties of getting adult and mature indie game content past payment processors like Stripe and Mastercard. It's a vital conversation about protecting free human expression and adult-oriented indie development in the gaming space.

Steam & PC

• Valve’s highly anticipated, custom-built Steam Machine is finally here, and while it walked a long, painful road to reach this launch, the hardware is pretty neat. Valve confirmed that price worries were never behind the machine's delays, even going as far as to call out RAM manufacturers for acting like a cartel when negotiating parts!
• Don't want to fork over the hefty $1,049 asking price for the official hardware? Valve has officially greenlit SteamOS installs on normal PCs equipped with AMD GPUs, meaning you can finally go build your own living-room powerhouse.
• If you do have the cash to burn, the official Steam Machine Companion Cube case is incredibly well-made, even if it's based on a 19-year-old Portal joke. Just make sure you do your research, because one brave reviewer at PC Gamer actually played a $1,000 Steam game and deeply regretted it!

Gaming Roundup

• Grand Theft Auto 6 pre-orders officially kick off at midnight local time on June 25! In a genuinely surprising move that might upset physical media collectors, Rockstar confirmed that physical copies of GTA 6 won't include a disc and will literally just be a code in a box.
• Fans of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader experienced a rollercoaster this week when a shiny new launcher was fitted to the game, only to be swiftly removed after a massive day of intense community backlash. Sometimes the community speaks, and the devs actually listen!
• If you love reading as much as gaming, Amazon's Prime Day is offering incredible deals on fantasy box sets, and you can read the entire legendary Dungeon Crawler Carl LitRPG series for free via Kindle Unlimited. With a TV adaptation and tabletop RPG on the way, now is the perfect time to dive into those books!