According to Nintendo, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was the beginning of a new tale after the Phazon saga from the original Metroid Prime Trilogy, where they may have already plans to continue this tale sooner than later. So, let's explore the possibilities. Spoilers for the game's ending right ahead!
Teased 18 years ago, announced eight years ago, and its development rebooted six years ago... Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has a very long development history and now has finally become a reality on the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. But was it worth the wait? Does it hold up to the reputation of the original Metroid Prime Trilogy? And how how does Sylux fare as a villain? If you have followed my logbook, then you will already have a good idea, but here is the condensed version.
The collection is finally complete! I have now received all of the First 4 Figures Champions as presents over the last couple of years, starting with Urbosa in 2023, followed by Mipha and Daruk last year. And as an early Christmas gift there is now Revali joining them.
Somehow my partner managed to hide this from me in our closet for the past six months, but since she had put Daruk in the same spot, I must have learned to turn a blind eye to it.
Well, normally you save the best for the last, but I would be lying if I said that Revali was my favorite of the Champions. The statue is still awesome, though. They have used an actual bowstring for the weapon, or at least a proper string, which is a fantastic detail. And to make Revali shine more, I got the light-up version:
My Mipha has this as well, but not the other two, so I will have to see how I make good use of this. And I still need to buy a proper display cabinet for them all, where there had been other priorities throughout the year. But at least I now won't have to leave an open space inside once it's in place.
It is that time of the year again, where your current wall calendar will soon have completed its service. And in the past Zelda fans could look forward to something new every year, but those days seem somewhat over...
The team at Danilo decided to make their Tears of the Kingdom calendars a trilogy, so it's more of the same. That means you get another 12 months of character artworks from the last 3D Zelda game, with some repeats and some new ones. Here is what's in it:
Link, Riju, Sidon, Tulin and Ganondorf are repeats from 2024. Zelda, Yunobo, Rauru and Hestu are repeats from 2025. And the Great Deku Tree, Purah and Mineru have their first occurrence.
Well, this could have been easily reduced to two calendars. Especially the current poster, which was last year's cover motive (and vice versa), seems rather uninteresting. And since there had been five repeats in the previous calendar already, two would have been enough to include all the artworks. Plus, they still haven't made use of everything there is yet, like Yunobo's default artwork.
At least the overall design has improved quite a bit, compared to last year. There is a lot more variance in the backgrounds and they have added the names of the characters, which looks good. I still like the one from 2024 the best, even though it has the simplest design of the three, but its simplicity made it the most stylish in my opinion.
Of course, the new calendar is very much still up-to-date with the releases that we had this year. Tears of the Kingdom got a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, new amiibo, and its own spin-off game with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. A calendar based on the latter would have been amazing, though, but that probably wasn't as easy/cheap to realize, since it involves a third party. In addition, Mineru and Tulin will make their crossover debut in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, so there is some small relevance to 2026 as well.
Still, some love for Echoes of Wisdom would have been nice. This is where Abrams could have shined, but I'm pretty sure they have simply recycled stuff from their previous calendars, while getting some inspiration from Pyramid with their cover motives. So, I'd rather take the Tears of the Kingdom calendar for a third time, because this has at least something "fresh" in it.
This week the version 1.0.3 update for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment was released, so it was time to briefly return to the game for the latest addition of Challenges, the new Phantom Ganon appearances, and some weapon building.
Difficulty: Very Hard
Scenarios: 24
Challenges: 167
Quests: 406
Map Completion: 100% (Again)
We're already getting the version 1.0.3 update for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment this week, the second of the two free mini expansions. It's scheduled for December 18th, but last time it already came out a day earlier, where maybe they are releasing 0AM Japanese time. So, keep an eye out tomorrow. You can find all the info on the Japanese website, and only there, so the official English names are still pending.
However, the update says pretty much in the expectations from last month, where it does check off a number of boxes and fills the obvious gaps, except for the one on the roster that everyone was really hoping for. But the minor version number already indicates that this isn't meant as anything substantial. Still, there is truly more stuff in here to keep you engaged (official English names pending):
Those are truly the equivalents the Apocalyptic difficulty and the Blood Moon battles from Age of Calamity, but more sophisticated. The changed enemies in Phantom Mode could truly prove a challenge and the additional rewards give you a real incentive to clear the entire game in the new difficulty mode, which wasn't the case before.
It will also be great to have something to play on rotation with the Phantom Mode, just to keep the game going for when you want it to. And you get more ways of earning pure Zonaite Steel, which was badly needed.
As expected, they will add more Vicious Monsters and corresponding Challenges as well. These are Lizalfos and Chuchus, where the latter look especially crazy, almost like a homage to Arrghus or Wart from A Link to the Past and Majora's Mask with all those smaller slimes surrounding them.
Curiously, they haven't made any vicious variants of the Horriblins, Gibdo or the Molduga. And they most likely won't add those later, since these vicious monsters are utilized in the new Phantom Mode and Koei Tecmo has explicitly spoken of two updates... I can't say that I'm overly sad about this omission, because these battles have gotten quite frustrating in the last update. And now you can do them all over again in the new difficulty mode... Ouch.
In addition, there will be some more Challenges with new mission types, like battles focused on certain warriors, or a "fight to the death with a powerful foe", whatever that means. Well, it's probably a Challenge featuring the Forbidden Construct, which will be similar to Rauru's battle in the last update, offering you a new weapon as a reward. Which is part of some smaller extras:
The additional unique skills for the Mysterious Construct make so much sense in hindsight, because there were some clear gaps here. You could always use Zonai devices instead, but it's better to have options.
In the first update we got the High Guard's Spear and the Longsword of Light, so with the Forbidden Sword there is now one powerful extra weapon for each category. It also looks quite interesting, like a dark counterpart to Zelda's Blade of Light:
It's actually the weapon the Forbidden Construct is using, hence the name. That's neat, but certainly not the weapon / character that everyone was hoping for. Maybe they will offer paid DLC in the near future, but I'm not really expecting it.
PS: The timing is absolutely perfect, since I just finished Metroid Prime 4 two days ago. Yet, I feel like I'm not getting a break here with these back-to-back releases...
Team Cherry has announced the first big expansion for Hollow Knight: Silksong on their blog, featuring a small teaser trailer. It will be called Sea of Sorrow, adding a maritime area to the game, amongst other things. Two months ago I had discussed my DLC ideas for the game and this was right on top of the list.
This first free expansion will most certainly add the missing "Pharloom Bay" area, which we saw in the earlier trailers, but didn't make the cut. This included a new port town, with lots of barnacles around, and will likely be placed to right / east of Bilewater.
Another part of it is the "Lifeblood Spire", which is probably the facility that we can see in the new trailer. They haven't shared any details, but it looks like their DLCs will be going in the right direction.
They give "2026" as a release date, but be careful with that... Team Cherry has a reputation now for taking their time. But to be fair, they had released all content updates for the original Hollow Knight within 18 months from the game's launch, so it's probably going to be in the first half of 2026.
