Quick Hits

• Pokémon Pokopia has officially sold more than 5 million copies. Nintendo and The Pokémon Company confirmed the milestone, and Eurogamer notes that works out to roughly one in four Switch 2 users owning the game. Another massive Pokémon-flavoured hit, indeed.
• Call of Duty is making franchise history: the Modern Warfare 4 beta will include a playable campaign mission — a first — plus Warzone content, when it runs across two weekends starting next week.
• Arc Raiders' next major update is going somewhere very cold. PC Gamer reports a frozen map framed as a "new high-level challenge," featuring arcs that will "challenge the ways you've learned to move."
• Saber Interactive finally added a generative AI disclosure to Rideshare Stimulator's Steam page after a public scrap with a former writer — and it turns out the tech is also used for the game's in-game music. The studio is doubling down: "AI can and should help shape gamer experiences."
• Thimbleweed Park 2 is being funded by a sole "wealthy outsider," per Jason Schreier at Bloomberg (via Nintendo Life) — a deal the report describes as "a lot more fair."

Pokémon & Nintendo

Pokopia's momentum is the story of the day. Beyond the 5 million sales figure, Destructoid has a handy guide for building an "Exciting Beach Habitat" for Feebas — one of the special event Pokémon you'll need to complete if you want a full Pokédex. Meanwhile, over in the legacy camp, Kotaku reports that the Pokémon Bank shutdown is erasing a lot of little things across the old games, with some cool elements from classic titles now being lost for good.

Nintendo Life is checking in on Drag x Drive one year after launch and asking whether anyone's still playing — while noting Nintendo's newer-IP push continues, including Pictonico!'s late-May mobile launch. In hardware-adjacent news, the Punk Workshop FightStick G01 arcade stick for Switch 1 & 2 earns a rave review as "quite simply one of the best," and Switch Online's DK Challenge is now offering a physical 39-card set as a limited-time reward until 1st September.

Two curiosities worth your click: Nintendo Life's review of Duskfade calls the Switch 2's Kingdom Hearts-inspired platformer "very likeable" but "not quite there," and Matt Groening himself says The Simpsons Hit & Run could be making a return "in some form." Community spotlight: a Pokémon fan on Reddit built a tool that ranks the top 10 EV training spots in every game, per stat.

Call of Duty

Activision is rolling out the beefiest beta in Call of Duty history. PC Gamer confirms Modern Warfare 4's beta will feature a campaign mission — a franchise first — alongside Warzone content, and Destructoid notes the test spans two weekends starting next week, though it still doesn't include what some players want most. Kotaku's read on the campaign-mission reveal: Activision really wants you to know Modern Warfare 4's campaign isn't a horrible mess like Black Ops 7's.

Arc Raiders

Embark's extraction shooter is getting a chilly shake-up. Per PC Gamer, the next major update adds a frozen map positioned as a "new high-level challenge," with arc behaviour designed to "challenge the ways you've learned to move." Time to unlearn your escape routes, raiders.

Indie Games

GameSpot makes a lovely case that if you want more story in your Stardew Valley-style farming life, Fields of Mistria is right up your valley — even a decade on, ConcernedApe's original remains the genre's king. Rock Paper Shotgun also previewed The Watcher, a creepy surveillance thriller with shiny Unreal Engine props; the writer's main hope is that the final game is less talkative than its trailer.

Steam & PC

The Rideshare Stimulator saga reached its resolution after plenty of "Saber-rattling": Rock Paper Shotgun reports the belated genAI disclosure also covers in-game music, and GameSpot recalls that former lead writer Stella Sacco had said she was replaced by ChatGPT during development — the flashpoint for the whole public exchange.

Elsewhere: Eurogamer spotted Compulsion Games now listed as publisher of South of Midnight on Steam, suggesting its departure from Xbox amid major restructuring is complete. The Epic Games Launcher is coming to Linux "soon," according to a dev via PC Gamer. High on Life is getting a VR port — and yes, you can stroke your weird talking guns. And in the charts, Destructoid reports Marvel Rivals climbed to #1 on Steam's US top sellers (and #3 globally) after yesterday's sultry swimsuit skins dropped. The thirst is very real.

Gaming Roundup

D23 weekend is here — IGN is on the ground covering the Entertainment Showcase, and GameSpot reports Disney now counts nine gaming franchises that have generated $1 billion+ at retail, including Kingdom Hearts, with KH news expected at the show. Palworld's team tells PC Gamer that fans "do not realize the sheer number of collabs we've rejected" under its "fun-first approach." Former WB boss Christian Allen says 2011's The Lord of the Rings: War in the North never got a "fair shake" launching near Skyrim, and he's glad it's back. IGN also has Secretlab's Back to School sale on Titan Evo chairs, including the flagship Nanogen Edition. Finally, a new study cited by Destructoid found just 81 percent of parents are "concerned" about their kids' safety in online games — a number low enough to raise an eyebrow.