The Morning After: The biggest announcements from Nintendo Direct

Nintendo sidestepped sharing the spotlight with all the other gaming companies at Summer Game Fest last week, promising its own Direct later in June. And that happened yesterday, teasing a lot of new games with Nintendo favorites. Mario games, yes. Zelda games, yes, and even a new Metroid game, confirmed. (More on that below the fold).

The funny thing is the new Zelda game is all about… Zelda. You play as the princess in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. It opens where most Zelda games finish, with Link defeating Ganon. But just as he frees Princess Zelda, our usual hero is sucked into an alternate dimension. The game is played top-down and borrows the art style of the Link’s Awakening remake. However, Zelda’s main weapon and tool is the trirod. With this, she can copy many items and use these “echoes” to navigate the world. You can even create echoes of monsters to fight for Zelda.

Nintendo’s 40-minute update also included release dates for the forthcoming Dragon Quest remake, a new Mario Party title and news that feline adventure Stray is coming to Switch.

Quick note: We’re updating our newsletter distro, and we apologies for any formatting hiccups on the way. And if you’re reading this on the site, why not sign up for this very newsletter? Subscribe right here!

— Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

Here are all of the just-announced Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon X chips

Black Myth: Wukong is pretty, intriguing and as challenging as it looks

Exactly what you’d expect for $80.

The Solo Buds cover the basics, but that’s about it. Audio quality is flat, unless you’re listening to Dolby Atmos content in Apple Music, but at least the earbuds are comfy with long battery life. Then again, they only cost 80 bucks.

Continue reading.

The company halted production in early 2024.

Fisker has officially declared bankruptcy. The US-based startup filed for Chapter 11 protections and plans to restructure its debt and sell its assets. This means the Alaska EV with a designated cowboy hat space — not a joke — will likely never happen. Fisker revealed in a recent report that it had produced 10,193 units of its sole EV available, the Ocean SUV, in 2023, but only delivered 4,929 vehicles.

Continue reading.

2005 is back.

Habbo Hotel: Origins, on Mac today, revives the 2005 PC game in all its nostalgic glory. If you never played Habbo Hotel 20 years ago, the game is an online community, in the format of, well, a hotel. Your avatar can chat with your friends in the virtual hotel lobby and spend in-game credits on furniture and accessories.

Continue reading.

And we got a trailer.

After 18 years and a complete reboot, Samus Aran will return in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, next year. We got our first glimpse of the game too, with Samus duking it out with aliens in typical Metroid style. The teaser ends with the reveal of a new big bad. It’s wearing a suit like our hero but is flanked by two floating metroids. Ominous? Yes.

Continue reading.