Quick Hits

• The Pokémon Company is ending service for Pokémon Bank on February 27, 2027, leaving you fewer than 200 days to migrate old monsters to Pokémon HOME or lose them forever. The sting is softened slightly: Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen are being linked to Pokémon HOME this October, and a Premium Plan update will expand storage to 9,000 Pokémon.
• Pokémon Pokopia has sold more than five million units globally in just over four months — a huge debut for the Switch 2-exclusive life sim, which received its first DLC update just last week.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's final Zombies map arrives August 20, bringing what Destructoid describes as "big-ass spiders" — and it lands one day before the Modern Warfare 4 beta kicks off.
• Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is nearing 500,000 sales in its first week, per Alinea Analytics estimates — a strong start for a fighting game in a famously niche genre.
• Sonic Frontiers has officially crossed five million copies sold, and Sega is celebrating with a free Sonic Adventure 2 gift.

Pokémon & Nintendo

The big one first: Pokémon Bank, the 3DS storage app that's been running since 2013, is shutting down on February 27, 2027 — and once it's gone, Eurogamer warns that any Pokémon left inside are gone forever. Kotaku frames it as the series "burning the bridge" between old and new generations after a decade of support, and helpfully published a guide to rescuing all the Pokémon you forgot about (GameCube owners, apparently, are on their own). On the bright side, FireRed and LeafGreen support arrives on Pokémon HOME in October alongside the storage bump to 9,000 for Premium subscribers — a proper send-off for the transfer pipeline.

Elsewhere in Pokémon, the Pokopia train keeps rolling: alongside that five-million sales milestone, Destructoid has guides for the ongoing Fetching Scales for Feebas event, including how to build an Exciting Beach Habitat for the famously picky fish. And for TCG hunters, IGN reports restocked Pitch Black Elite Trainer Boxes at Amazon — welcome news if you refused to pay an arm and a leg for Mega Evolution pulls.

On the Nintendo front, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is shaping up nicely ahead of its September launch on Switch 2 — Nintendo Life's hands-on preview says it dials the "Three Houses formula" up to 11, and the final round of previews is now in. This week's Nintendo Download (August 13, North America) delivered Duskfade, Moonlighter, and Future Knight to the eShop. Sega confirmed Sonic Frontiers' five-million milestone (boosted by June's shadow-dropped Definitive Edition on Switch 2 for the blue blur's 35th anniversary), and Disney has declared Kingdom Hearts one of its nine "billion-dollar" franchises — a fitting flex while Square Enix works on the fourth mainline game.

Call of Duty

Activision has detailed Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Warzone's Season 5 Reloaded, arriving later this month with a new weapon and the usual midseason bundle of content. The real headline, though, is the Zombies finale: starting August 20 at 11am CT, the final round-based map brings Black Ops 7's Zombies arc to a close — giant spiders included — landing with almost comedic timing exactly one day before the Modern Warfare 4 beta begins. The yearly handoff is officially upon us.

Indie Games

Fields of Mistria has hit 1.0, and GameSpot has a full gift guide to help you navigate every NPC's picky preferences — gifts fall into six categories, and getting them right is the key to fast friendships.

Steam & PC

Fighting game fans, take note: Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is reportedly nearing 500,000 sales in its first week on PC and PS5 according to Alinea Analytics — a genuinely strong number for the genre. In indie-AAA limbo news, Compulsion Games is now listed as the publisher of South of Midnight on Steam, seemingly completing its separation from Xbox in the wake of the recent "reset," and GameSpot says it's the perfect time to finally play the Deep South love letter. Finally, in the day's most delightfully absurd hardware story: a Redditor is crafting marble Steam Machine faceplates allegedly sourced from the same quarry as Michelangelo — because your PC deserves Renaissance-grade stone.

Gaming Roundup

• Upcoming hardcore FPS Wardogs — a large-scale Arma-inspired shooter currently climbing the Steam charts — is marketing itself by listing 10 reasons not to buy it, per GameSpot. Bold strategy; let's see if it pays off.
• NetEase has responded to community racism accusations regarding its treatment of Storm in Marvel Rivals, saying "We hear your passion" — a response Destructoid characterizes as only "kind of" a response.
• Satechi's new ChargeView 240W Desktop Charger offers six USB-C ports — enough to feed a power-hungry handheld gaming PC and then some.
• In non-gaming-but-adjacent news, Spider-Man: Brand New Day just became the fastest film ever to hit $700 million at the domestic box office.