After remaking every Game Boy model imaginable, Anbernic is ready to take on the next frontier of classic gaming handhelds: the Nintendo DS. In its usual drip-feed fashion, the handheld maker released a teaser video revealing the Anbernic RG DS. The company didn’t offer many details for its Nintendo DS clone, but announced that it would cost less than $100.
That price tag isn’t surprising for anyone who’s been following Anbernic’s recipe of recreating iconic handhelds at an affordable price point. However, it’s still an attractive price point that’s even cheaper than the Nintendo DS’ original MSRP of $149.99. Beyond price, Anbernic hinted at a possible new chip and showed off four colorways, including black/red, teal, white and transparent.
Anbernic hasn’t announced a release date yet, but the company often starts selling its devices shortly after the first reveal video. Once available, the Anbernic RG DS will compete against the more premium Ayn Thor that starts at $250. It’s important to note that Anbernic paused shipments from its Chinese warehouses to US customers in April following the tariff changes, meaning American buyers were limited to Anbernic’s US stock. The previous notice has since been removed, but the Trump administration recently announced another retaliatory tariff on all Chinese goods.
Nintendo doesn’t normally let fans in on its hardware plans, but if you’re the type of person to spot trends, it’s clear the Switch 2 will become the Mario maker’s everything console. Nintendo has started offering more hardware specifically tailored for playing its old, defunct consoles. The inevitable next step is for the company to let us return to its most popular handheld ever, the Nintendo DS.
Today, Nintendo decided it was time to bring back what is likely its least popular gaming hardware it ever released. The $100 Virtual Boy for Switch 2 revives Nintendo’s first use of stereoscopic visuals and the odd bipod-mounted headset for playing them. That modernized system is a relic—a blast from the past—that makes use of the Switch handheld hardware as the screen. While Nintendo has been releasing new controllers routinely for its Nintendo Classics list from the NES all the way up to the latest revitalized GameCube controller, this is the first instance of a specific device to feel authentic—as if you’re thrown back to 1995 and playing the weird 3D console for the first time.
While the Virtual Boy was Nintendo’s worst-selling console ever—only managing to move 770,000 units in its lifetime—the company’s top-selling device is still MIA from the Nintendo Classics list. The Nintendo DS first launched in 2004 but hit its stride with the DS Lite in 2006. Over its lifespan, Nintendo sold 154 million units. The company’s next-best-selling device, the original Switch, has sold 153.10 million.
Back in 2023, Nintendo filed a patent with the U.S. Patent Office that gave us a glimpse of how a supposed device with a large screen could attach to a handheld. Last month, Mike Odyssey on X spotted that Nintendo had updated the patent for 2025. The attached screen would be positioned at an “incline,” according to the patent, and doesn’t describe a hinge system for the top screen to fold down onto the handheld, so this attachment would need to be removed and transported separately if you were to take the Switch 2 on the road.
Patents don’t suggest a company will actually make the product, only that they’re exploring ideas and want to protect them. Even if Nintendo is working on a dual-screen add-on for the Switch 2, that doesn’t necessarily mean the finished product would look anything like this proposed design. Now that Nintendo has gone back 30 years to its strangest console, it opens the possibility of winding back the clock to every instance of its past hardware. The one missing piece, beyond the Wii and Wii U (at least Super Mario Galaxy is getting another remaster), is the Nintendo DS and the less-popular 3DS.
The Switch 2 has more capacity for these peripherals thanks to its top and bottom USB-C ports. A move toward more Switch 2 retro peripherals makes more sense when you understand why Nintendo keeps publishing its classic library for Switch owners. Retro emulators, which recreate older consoles as software, are growing increasingly popular with the generation of gamers who grew up with Nintendo’s older consoles. Nintendo is also one of the few companies that rails hardest against emulation in its crusade to combat piracy and protect its intellectual property. Nintendo has taken down multiple Switch emulators, including Ryujinx, Citra, and—especially—Yuzu. Nintendo has hindered GameCube emulator Dolphin from a full release on Steam. The company offers its own emulation through its Nintendo Classics list as an alternative to the legion of players jumping at the burgeoning retro handheld scene.
And it couldn’t come soon enough. While players have too much choice for Game Boy-like devices, the DS and 3DS are still new territory. In the last few months, Ayaneo showed off its Pocket DS, a dual-screen Android handheld made for playing DS games. Fellow handheld maker AYN announced its Thor dual-screen device as well. Meanwhile, Retroid crafted its own $69 dual-screen add-on for its horizontally oriented handhelds to play two-screen games. Nintendo will take its time to launch even more hardware. The company rolls out its games over time, so those wanting to return to the DS glory days will have to wait for something official.
Ayn added more than just a touch of nostalgia with its upcoming dual-screen handheld that gives us modern-day Nintendo DS vibes. After teasing the device in a YouTube video earlier this week, Ayn dropped the full spec sheet, price range and release date for its Thor handhelds. The Thor Lite base model will start at $249 for preorder pricing, but you can opt for the top-of-the-line Thor Max model that goes for $429. Besides the clear purple colorway, the Ayn Thor will come in black, white and rainbow, which colors its buttons like the SNES.
Ayn built all of its Thor models with a primary six-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, while the secondary 3.92-inch AMOLED screen will have a 60Hz refresh rate and a smaller 1,240 x 1,080 resolution. The Thor Lite maxes out at 8GB of memory and 128GB of storage, but you can upgrade to 16GB of memory and 1TB of storage with the Thor Max. The Pro and Max models will pack a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, while the Lite will use the less powerful Snapdragon 865.
Outside of the spec differences, all Thor models will run on a 6,000 mAh battery and Android 13. The dual-screen handheld will have video output capabilities, a USB-C port, a 3.5mm audio jack, a TF card slot and can connect via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. As with all foldable devices, the hinge is often a point of failure, so Ayn built the Thor with a reinforced hinge, along with an active cooling system and Hall effect joysticks.
Ayn isn’t the only handheld maker getting into dual-screen devices. The market was previously dominated by the Ayaneo Flip DS, which currently starts at $1,139, but Ayaneo has announced a more affordable dual-screen handheld called the Pocket DS. Along with the Retroid Flip 2 that was released earlier this year, Retroid is selling an add-on accessory to make some of its other products into a dual-screen handheld. As for the Ayn Thor, preorders start August 25 at 10:30PM ET, with the first shipments expected in mid-October.
In 2002 a group of friends in Italy started developing an action-platformer with RPG elements for Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance handheld. Then 22 years passed and now, in 2024, Kien is finally launching on GBA, ending one of the longest delays in video game history.
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Over the decades, there have been numerous games with protracted development cycles and delayed releases. One of the most famous is Duke Nukem Forever, which was first announced in 1997 but didn’t end up shipping until 2011, nearly 15 years later. But Kien took even longer to finally arrive.
As reported by The Guardianand Patricia Hernandez (former EIC of Kotaku), Kien was developed by a small group of friends in Italy back in 2002. None of them had experience making games. But for the next two years, the pals worked extremely hard to develop Kien, taking very few breaks and crunching a lot. After a few years of development, the game was finished and ready to be published. However, the high costs of shipping the game on Game Boy carts and the risk that Kien might not be successful led to no publisher wanting to release the game.
GameTrailers / Incube8
Eventually, only one member of the original development team remained: game designer Fabio Belsanti. Despite believing in the unpublished game, he moved on with his life, founded a new development company, and began creating educational games for kids and teens. Through it all, though, Belsanti never gave up hope for Kien. When he noticed recently that retro games and consoles were popular again, he decided to return to Kien and give it another chance.
“I believe we are in a phase similar to [the revival of] vinyl or cassettes for music,” Belsanti told The Guardian, “a return to previous, more primitive forms of the medium driven by nostalgia from the generations who lived those eras, and curiosity by those who came after such technology.”
Belsanti teamed up with Incube8, a publisher focused on releasing and supporting new games for classic consoles, like the GBA. Incube8 was a perfect fit for Kien and in June it finally launched, 22 years after development had started on the action-platformer.
“On a romantic level, the thought of releasing the game on its original console is simply magical,” said Belsanti. “To see Kien come to life on the very platform it was designed for is a dream come true.”
Kien is out now. You can pick up a physical version of the game for Game Boy Advance or buy a digital version that you can play on an emulator.
Next Fest is Steam’s triannual event where hundreds of developers upload demo builds of their games for you to try for free. And it’s one of the very few things in gaming that just feels unambiguously positive! Indie sits alongside—or often above—AAA, nothing is about gouging anyone, and it revives the lost art of the demo in a way that makes the whole industry pay attention. But the number of demos can be a little overwhelming, so let us help with getting started.
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Steam
Highlighted during the PC Gaming Show at Summer Game Fest, The Invincible promises a hardcore sci-fi story based on the work of Stanislaw Lem. Luke recently highlighted the amazing work of one of the artists involved, and everything about this narrative-led philosophical story looks so enticing. Now you can play a chunk to see if it lives up to this.
Starward Industries
This eye-ticklingly lovely-looking voxel railway sim makes building a train network look enticing, rather than daunting. Station To Station’s emphasis on minimalism and relaxation really piles on that appeal. There’s now a portion of the game to try for yourself, and it really delivers.
Prismatika
I’m so pleased Word Factori is as fun and daft as it looks. This is a game about building all the letters of the alphabet out of the letter I, using, you know, factories. As you’ll likely know, a C is just a curved I, so you need to run those through a curving factory. And a V is two Is joined together at the bottom, so you’ll need to use a merging factory for that one. I totally made a CAT out of Is! The presentation is lovely and simple, too, even if the puzzles are not, making this well worth a look.
Star Garden Games
Galvanic Games’ co-op survival game revealed at Summer Game Fest shone at the show, and now has a demo you can play. Wizard With A Gun is about exploring the unknown as a wizard, alone of with a chum, in a sandbox game with all manner of combat and action.
Devolver Digital
When I first read about A Tiny Sticker Tale, I had one desire: that it feel like those laminated background scenes you’d get as a kid, where you could place the rubbery, restickable stickers on top, to create your own stories. It is that! It’s exactly like that! Except here, when you place a sticker onto a scene, it magically becomes part of the drawing. It’s so splendid that I could happily play with it even if it weren’t a bunch of sweet little puzzles.
Ogre Pixel
Ooh, there’s a new full-length Rusty Lake game coming! And from this demo, it plays like their classic Cube Escape games, returning to the series roots, and with all the menacing air that comes with the peculiar puzzles.
Rusty Lake
I’d never heard of Thronefall before, but it’s straight on my Wishlist. It’s the most extraordinary combination of city builder, auto-battler, tower defense, and direct-control RTS, but all presented in a calm, clear and minimalist manner. The demo neatly piles on the instructions and introduces all these elements in a way that feels manageable and frequently surprising.
It is May 12, 2023, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom release day, and the temperature in New York City is creeping dangerously close to 90 degrees. In Midtown, bankers are sweating through their Brooks Brothers dress shirts and slacks, while tourists have busted out the cargo shorts. As I make my way out of the subway station near Rockefeller Center, I walk smack into a massive line of people. I sneer, assuming it’s the wildly long Nintendo Store line from more than a block away that our managing editor Carolyn Petit saw earlier this morning (I hate the idea of waiting in lines), but nope, the Jonas Brothers are at Rough Trade.
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Monday 3:53PM
Hours later, I head out to sit in the blazing sun for a bit to recharge my battery and notice the front of the Nintendo store looks conspicuously spacious. I hustle over, figuring I’ll snag a copy for someone else at Kotaku who wants to play (I do not). But as soon as I approach the front entrance to the building, which is on the corner of Rockefeller Plaza and 48th street, I realize the line is snaking down the adjacent street. It sits directly in the sun, many of the people waiting are visibly sweating.
At random intervals, a huge gap of bodies indicates the presence of a driveway, a few security guys making sure it remains open for cars passing through. Several future Tears of the Kingdom owners are hunched over playing Nintendo Switch. One woman is sitting on the sidewalk in shorts, a New York City no-no.
“Oh, fuck this,” I mumble before heading back to the dry, frigid air of the G/O Media offices. I may not be a big Zelda fan, but I don’t think there’s anything in the world that could make me wait hours on a line in Midtown Manhattan in the midst of a heatwave.
Zelda Tears of the Kingdom lines feel very nostalgic
Despite my beliefs, I’m fascinated to see people waiting in lines like this across the U.S. for the Breath of the Wild sequel. It feels sort of like a bygone era of gaming has returned—the last time I went to the midnight release of a game was November 2012 for Halo 4 at a Best Buy in Long Island, New York. I was 22 years old, and I was incredibly hyped.
The need to wait in long lines for midnight game releases has disappeared over the years, as more and more gamers turn to digital storefronts and downloads in order to get a new game the moment it releases, and the need for physical media wanes. (Though the side effects of a shift to entirely digital have been felt in the loss of access to so many movies—like sci-fi thriller Strange Days, which for some time was nearly impossible to watch without a physical DVD, only just becoming available to stream this year—and will undoubtedly soon affect games.) In 2012, you couldn’t play Halo 4 in any way other than on the two discs that came in the Master Chief-adorned case, but that’s simply not the case now.
What is it about Tears of the Kingdom that’s brought lines back in such a big way? After all, the Nintendo eShop is open 24/7, you can download the game right now without having to stand up for hours at a time, shuffling every 10 or so minutes a few inches closer to the shining glass Nintendo store doors. You can play Tears of the Kingdom right this second, no long-time exposure to stagnant, exhaust-filled NYC air required. Why, people in line, are you not doing this?
For many, the promise of special swag beckons. The Nintendo store has special-edition pins (and other “surprise giveaways”), many of which will undoubtedly end up on eBay for thousands of dollars. Meanwhile, Target has a fanny pack that people are freaking out over. The allure of impossible-to-get swag will always attract gamers, a group known to be completionists and collectors through and through.
But perhaps, despite my decidedly Grinch-y attitude about waiting in long lines for a video game, people are happily queuing for Tears of the Kingdom for the vibes, y’all. They’ve waited six years for a sequel to Breath of the Wild; what’s a few, sweaty hours more, especially in the company of your fellow die-hard fans?
In the wake of a massive hype wave following the latest The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom trailer, Nintendo has seemingly ratched up the number of rogue copyright claims it puts out against content creators on Youtube, and at least one of them is hitting back. In his latest video, Eric “PointCrow” Morino pleaded with Nintendo to leave his channel alone after it recently issued dozens of additional claims against his videos.
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“Please remove these strikes and claims or at least start a dialogue with us so we can all move forward with the excitement I’m sure you would love to see about your future games,” Morino said in a video to Nintendo posted on YouTube on April 14 that he said was vetted by his lawyer. The request comes after the Switch manufacturer apparently doubled down on issuing copyright claims and strikes against Morino’s channel, increasing the total number to 28, including ones against older videos that had nothing to do with Breath of the Wild, like one about Wii Sports.
Nintendo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Nintendo first began targeting the Zelda speedrunner’s YouTube channel on April 6 after he uploaded footage of a Breath of the Wild multiplayer mod he commissioned and released to the public. Despite making videos featuring challenge runs and other modded content for years, it appeared to be the first time Nintendo signaled it took any sort of issue with the content. Morino posted about it on Twitter at the time, criticizing the move and calling on the publisher to reverse its decision.
He now says Nintendo has done the opposite, proceeding to copyright claim over 20 additional videos spanning his entire content making career. While most of them included the word “mod” in the title, at least one contained just vanilla gameplay with commentary. “These takedowns may have started with modded content, but they’ve spiraled into something else entirely,” Morino said in his latest video.
On April 23, another Zelda Youtuber, Croton, said 10 of their streams and two of their videos were “nuked” from the platform. “No answers, no context, just a copyright removal,” they tweeted. “And one of these videos has literally nothing to do with mods and was simply a Zelda challenge run.”
In his own video, Morino accuses Nintendo of flouting its content creator guidelines to target him, and defends his modded Breath of the Wild runs, which have collectively garnered tens of millions of views and helped maintain excitement around a game that’s now six years old. “To be clear I have never encouraged piracy of Nintendo’s games,” he said. “The mods I’ve commissioned are not being sold, and all of the code is custom, meaning they are free of Nintendo’s assets.”
At the exact time when many content creators are gearing up for a massive influx of interest from fans and viewers ahead of the release of Tears of the Kingdom next month, Morino’s now weary of making content for the game at all, lest the arbitrary copyright claims continue. “This is a little scary because the precedent that they set with this case may apply heavily for their upcoming release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom,” he said. “As per their decisions to take down challenge and gameplay videos alongside the modded content it will be difficult for any content creator to post creative concepts without having the fear of Nintendo exercising their copyright over video that is in line with their own policies.”
Morino initially planned to appeal the copyright claims, defending his videos on fair use grounds, but he now says those legal efforts could cost millions and could jeopardize the future of his over 1.6 million subscriber YouTube channel. He recently tweeted, “it’s hard to become excited for Tears of the Kingdom when the Zelda community is being nuked off YouTube.”
I wasn’t sure if we’d ever see the day, but after years of waiting, the top hits from the Game Boy Advance are steadily trickling onto the Nintendo Switch. Metroid Fusion joins the Switch Online Expansion Pack library next Wednesday, perfectly timed for everyone who just beat Metroid Prime Remastered and is still itching to shoot through some creepy underground test facilities.
Metroid Fusion sees bounty hunter Samus Aran charged with investigating an explosion in the Biologic Space Laboratories station on a dark and stormy planet, only this time she’s infected by the X Parasite and rocking a new teal suit to compensate. Oh, and she’s being hunted, Terminator style, by a relentless clone of herself, called the SA-X. On the upside, she can absorb additional parasites to restore health, ammunition, and gain new abilities. The 2002 GBA release is one of the most linear in the series, but what it lacks in open-ended exploration it more than makes up for with cool boss encounters, good storytelling, and an incredibly eerie vibe.
Prior to 2023, Nintendo had made trying to revisit Metroid’s past a huge pain in the ass. If you didn’t have a Wii U or the ambassador’s program on the 3DS, there was no way to access Metroid Fusion. This was particularly frustrating since 2021’s Metroid Dread is a direct sequel. In the span of just a couple weeks, however, Nintendo has finally brought both Fusion and another classic, Metroid Prime, to the Switch. It now contains:
Metroid
Metroid II: Return of Samus
Super Metroid
Metroid Fusion
Metroid Prime
Metroid Dread
Not too shabby, especially considering that the GBA’s Metroid: Zero Mission, a remake of the first game, and Metroid Prime 2 and 3 also now appear destined to eventually get added. The only Metroid Switch owners aren’t likely to get their hands on any time soon is Metroid: Samus Returns, the 2017 3DS remake of II. In fact, most 3DS games seem unlikely to ever make the jump to a modern platform. Is there a Metroid I’m forgetting? Nope, can’t think of any others.
I only have one gripe: I wish the Switch Online games could also be purchased separately like in the old days of the Virtual Console. While Sony has been slow to add PlayStation 1 classics to PS Plus, the ones that have arrived are also sold separately, letting you hone in on the exact ones you want and not rely on an indefinite paid subscription for access. Maybe Switch (or the Switch 2) will get there one day. Baby steps I guess. For now, inject the Parasite X directly into my eyeballs like it’s 2002 all over again.
While The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom is one of the most hotly-anticipated video game sequels of all time, that’s not the only reason it’s notable this week. It is also, sadly, the first Nintendo game to hit the $70 threshold.
While physical copies of the game have previously been available for preorder at places like GameStop for $60, Nintendo’s press release for the game following tonight’s Direct confirms that the cheapest version will be selling for $70. Preorders for the game at that $60 pricepoint suddenly stopped being accepted by retailers on Tuesday night.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: An epic adventure across the land and skies of Hyrule awaits. In this sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you’ll decide your own path through the sprawling landscapes of Hyrule and the mysterious islands floating in the vast skies above. Can you harness the power of Link’s new abilities to fight back against the malevolent forces that threaten the kingdom? In addition to the standard version, which will be available at a suggested retail price of $69.99, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Collector’s Edition will release on launch day at a suggested retail price of $129.99, and includes a physical version of the game, an artbook with concept art, a Steelbook case, an Iconart steel poster and a set of four pin badges.
That would make it the first ever Nintendo game to hit that $70 threshold, at least as a recommended retail price, which is a bummer for us as consumers (since wages aren’t increasing in line with the inflated cost of…everything) but also expected from a business (because all their costs have gone up). This is why it’s called an inflation crisis, baby!
Back in November, Nintendo responded to Sony’s decision to increase the price of the PS5 by saying “it won’t take such actions at this moment, but will continue monitoring situation and carefully consider (whether we need to take the option).”
While that Switch hardware increase hasn’t materialised—yet—maybe recouping an extra $10 per copy of a game expected to sell millions will help Nintendo’s bottom line, especially since the company just saw its share prices tumble after analysts predicted the aging Switch is “rushing to end of its lifecycle at a faster-than-expected pace,” and that without news of replacement hardware on the horizon things might just get worse.
