Square Enix closed out the September 3 State of Play with the thing Final Fantasy fans have been waiting three years to hear: Final Fantasy VII Revelation arrives on April 8, 2027. The finale of the Remake trilogy showed up with a release date trailer, a ten minute gameplay deep dive, and pre-orders that went live the same day. It is a bigger swing than Rebirth in almost every direction, with an open world you cross in the Highwind and a combat system built around swappable uniforms. Here is what Square Enix actually showed and what it means for how the trilogy ends.

The Release Date and Where You Can Play It

Final Fantasy VII Revelation launches on April 8, 2027. Square Enix confirmed the game is coming to PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC through Steam, the Epic Games Store, and Xbox on PC. That is a notably wider net than Rebirth cast at launch, and it means the trilogy story ending will not spend a year behind a platform exclusivity window the way its predecessors did.

Pre-orders opened on the PlayStation Store the day of the broadcast. Every edition includes the Mecha-Chocobo and Moogle Summon Materia as a pre-order bonus.

The editions at a glance

• Standard Edition: the base game plus the pre-order summon materia.
• Premium Edition: base game, the Story Expansion Pass covering two story-focused DLC releases, 24 hour early access, the Reclaimant Choker accessory, and a set of starter consumables.
• Premium Plus Edition: everything in Premium plus a digital art book, a digital mini soundtrack, the Polydroid Alexander Summon Materia, the Nymphwing Bracelet armor, and the Risk Taker's Choker.

Square Enix has not detailed what the two Story Expansion Pass entries actually cover, saying only that more information is coming later.

The Highwind, Piko, and an Open World Built for Flight

The headline of the gameplay deep dive is scale. Revelation sets its open world across a map Square Enix describes as unprecedented for the series, and the way you cross it is the Highwind. The airship is not a cutscene prop this time. It is the primary way you move between regions, which is exactly the beat the original 1997 game hit at the same point in its story.

On the ground, Piko the chocobo returns as both a mount and an active combat ally. Unlike Rebirth regional chocobos, Piko levels up alongside the party and picks up new abilities that apply to traversal and to fights. Square Enix also added a grappling gun for scaling rooftops, which is the studio answer to the complaint that Rebirth cities were more scenery than playground.

Two smaller additions are worth flagging:

• Dynamic character switching lets you swap between party members instantly while exploring, not just in combat.
• Party-assigned quests let you pick which character takes on certain missions, and that choice changes how the story events around it play out.

The FITS System Is the Real Combat Change

Combat expands through what Square Enix is calling Function-Integrated Tactical Suitwear, shortened to FITS. In practice these are uniforms that carry their own move sets and rewrite what a character can do in a fight. There are four to start: Warrior, Knight, Black Mage, and Summoner.

The deep dive showed Cid in the Knight FITS and Vincent in the Summoner FITS, which is a good illustration of the point. A character role is no longer locked to their weapon and materia loadout. The FITS also change the character model, so the tactical layer is visible on screen rather than buried in a menu.

Queen's Blood comes back too, and it is not a straight port. The card game gets an entirely new storyline built around Red XIII, with new opponents whose abilities can flip the state of a match. Players who cleared Rebirth Queen's Blood campaign should expect the difficulty floor to be higher.

Square Enix has been careful about the word "finale" here, and Revelation is being sold as the actual end of the story that started with Remake in 2020. April 8, 2027 is a long wait, but it is a firm date on four platforms at once, which is more than the first two games managed. The next thing to watch for is detail on the Story Expansion Pass, since two story DLC releases attached to a trilogy capstone is an unusual structure and Square Enix has said nothing about what they contain.

What do you think, is a multiplatform day one launch enough to make up for the wait? Come talk about it in the NerdBlocks forum.

Nintendo saved the biggest reveal of its September 9 Direct for the very end, and it was a pink puffball holding a sword. Kirby and the World Beyond is a new 3D Kirby adventure built for Nintendo Switch 2, and the reveal trailer suggests it is going somewhere the series has never gone: a genuinely open world. It arrives in spring 2027 with no exact date and no price yet. Here is everything the trailer actually showed, what it means for the series, and why the premise is stranger than it first looks.

What Nintendo Showed

The trailer opens on a familiar bright, soft-edged Kirby landscape before a crack tears across the blue sky. That crack is the hook of the whole pitch. The sky is not a sky, it is a shell, and Kirby sets out with a strange new floating companion to find out what is on the other side of it.

Developed by HAL Laboratory, this is the fourteenth mainline Kirby game and only the second fully 3D entry after Kirby and the Forgotten Land in 2022. Forgotten Land was a linear, stage-based 3D platformer. World Beyond looks considerably less constrained.

Key details from the reveal:

• Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive
• Spring 2027 launch window
• Developed by HAL Laboratory
• Free-roaming exploration rather than a stage select
• A new floating companion character travels with Kirby

The Open World Question

Nintendo has not used the phrase "open world" in its own marketing, but the footage does a lot of the talking. Kirby moves across wide, connected terrain with no obvious level boundaries, and the camera pulls back far enough to show landmarks in the distance rather than the end of a corridor.

That comparison to Breath of the Wild has already been made by most of the outlets that covered the Direct, and it is not unreasonable. Forgotten Land sold extremely well and proved 3D Kirby works. The obvious next step is to take that traversal and give it somewhere bigger to go.

Copy Abilities Return

The trailer confirmed several returning Copy Abilities, including Cutter, Sword, Bomb and Parasol. Kirby still inhales enemies and takes their powers, so the core loop is intact. The wrinkle is the oversized sword Kirby carries in several shots, which looks less like a standard Copy Ability transformation and more like a dedicated piece of gear.

What Nintendo Did Not Say

The reveal was deliberately thin on specifics. There is no release date beyond "spring 2027," no price, no word on whether the world is one continuous map or several large connected regions, and no confirmation on multiplayer. Forgotten Land had a second-player Bandana Waddle Dee mode, and Kirby games almost always support co-op in some form, but Nintendo left that alone here.

There was also no mention of the Switch 2 features the game might lean on. Given that the platform has been out for over a year now, a first-party HAL project launching in 2027 is likely to be built around the hardware rather than ported up to it.

Kirby and the World Beyond is the rare late-Direct reveal that actually justifies the slot, mostly because it looks like a real structural change for the series rather than a follow-up with new levels. The trailer's Truman Show framing is a genuinely odd idea for a Kirby game, and it is the part most likely to hold up once the novelty of the open terrain wears off. Nintendo has until spring 2027 to fill in the blanks, and the next real update will probably come at whatever Direct lands in early 2027.

What do you think - is an open-world Kirby the right move for the series, or was Forgotten Land's structure already the sweet spot? Come talk about it in the NerdBlocks forum.

A cozy Pokemon building game with no gyms, no battles and no rival was never the obvious candidate to become one of the Switch 2's biggest sellers. Nintendo and The Pokemon Company announced this week that Pokemon Pokopia has passed 5 million units worldwide in just over four months, which puts it second on the Switch 2's software chart. The timing is not an accident either, arriving eight days after the game's first paid DLC. Here is where the number came from and what is still coming for the Expansion Pass.

The Milestone

Pokemon Pokopia launched exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2 on March 5, 2026. Combined physical and digital sales crossed 5 million units in a little over four months.

The context that makes the number interesting:

• Launched: March 5, 2026, Switch 2 exclusive
• Sales: 5 million-plus worldwide, physical and digital combined
• Timeframe: just over four months
• Position: second best-selling game on Switch 2

Estimates put that at roughly a fifth of the entire Switch 2 install base owning a copy. Attach rates like that are usually reserved for mainline Pokemon entries and first-party Nintendo tentpoles, not spinoffs built around decorating and terraforming.

The DLC Push Behind the Spike

The announcement landed eight days after Bubbly Basin, the first paid installment of the Pokopia Expansion Pass, went live on August 5 alongside a free update. That is close enough that the DLC almost certainly moved the needle on the base game as lapsed players came back and new ones bought in.

Bubbly Basin adds:

• A new underwater area to build in and explore
• New building blocks and ocean floor themed furniture
• New Pokemon residents living beneath the sea
• New outfits, including cosmetics for Ditto

What is still to come

Two more Expansion Pass installments are planned. The second is scheduled for late 2026 and centers on accessories that Pokemon can wear. The third is slated for sometime in 2027, with details not yet announced.

Why This Worked

Pokopia sits in the same space Animal Crossing occupies: a low-stakes, open-ended building game that rewards showing up daily rather than mastering systems. Attaching that to Pokemon gave it an enormous built-in audience that had never been served this way before.

It also had the Switch 2 launch window largely to itself in the cozy category. Releasing in March against a young install base, then supporting the game with a staggered Expansion Pass through 2027, is a straightforward playbook and it is working. The second best-selling position on the platform is the proof.

Five million in four months on a console still building its install base is a strong result by any measure, and the Expansion Pass roadmap means Pokopia has at least another year of scheduled content ahead of it. The late 2026 accessories update is the next milestone to watch, and whether the game holds its number two spot as the Switch 2 library fills out will say a lot about how durable the cozy Pokemon formula really is.

Are you still building in Pokopia, or did you drop off after the first month? Come talk about it in the NerdBlocks forum.

After more than a year of delays and a rocky first showing, Elden Ring is finally making its way to Nintendo Switch 2. Bandai Namco and FromSoftware confirmed that Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition launches August 28, bundling the base game with the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion and a handful of new extras built specifically for this release. The port had a bumpy road to get here, and fans have been watching closely to see whether the Switch 2 hardware could actually handle the Lands Between. Here's what's included, what's new, and why this launch matters more than a typical re-release.

A Long Road to Launch

Elden Ring on Switch 2 was originally teased alongside the console's 2025 reveal, but the port ran into serious trouble early on. A notorious Gamescom 2025 demo reportedly ran as low as 15fps, prompting FromSoftware to delay the game out of its original 2025 window "for game performance adjustments." Later hands-on sessions in early 2026 showed marked improvement, and the studio eventually landed on a stable 30fps target for the final release.

Bandai Namco officially locked in the August 28 release date on June 4, with physical pre-orders opening the following day.

What's in the Tarnished Edition

The Tarnished Edition is built as an all-in-one package rather than a simple port of the original release. It includes:

• The complete base game, Elden Ring
• The Shadow of the Erdtree expansion
• Two new Starting Classes exclusive to this edition
• New armor sets and weapons scattered throughout the world
• Expanded customization options for Torrent, the player's spectral steed

Players who already own Elden Ring and Shadow of the Erdtree on PlayStation, Xbox, or PC via Steam won't be left out - the new classes, weapons, armor, and horse customization options are available as a separate add-on on those platforms the same day.

Pricing and Format

The physical release costs $79.99 and ships as a Game-Key Card, meaning the cartridge itself acts as a license key and players will need to download the full game to their console's storage before playing.

Why This Release Matters

Elden Ring remains one of the best-selling and most acclaimed games of the last decade, and a working portable version on Switch 2's better hardware gives a huge number of players their first realistic shot at experiencing it on the go. The rough early demo made plenty of people skeptical that FromSoftware could pull off a stable handheld version of a game this demanding, so the final performance numbers at launch will be closely scrutinized by the community.

Between this and the previously announced Duskbloods, FromSoftware is putting real weight behind Switch 2 as a platform worth supporting. If Tarnished Edition runs the way Bandai Namco says it does, it could set the template for how other major open-world titles approach the console going forward.

Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition launches August 28 on Nintendo Switch 2 for $79.99. What do you think - will the Switch 2 finally do the Lands Between justice? Come talk about it in the NerdBlocks forum.

Why Players Are Angry

How Retailers Are Responding

FAQ

FromSoftware has opened sign-ups for a closed network test of "The Duskbloods," its upcoming PvPvE multiplayer exclusive for Nintendo Switch 2. Applications opened July 22 and run through July 28, with the test itself taking place across five sessions between August 21 and August 24.

What the Network Test Covers

The Duskbloods is FromSoftware's first major departure from single-player action RPGs like Elden Ring and the Dark Souls series, built instead around session-based online play. Up to eight players drop into a match as "Bloodsworn," each handed a randomized quest with victory conditions that can help or hinder the other participants, creating a mix of competition and forced cooperation.

Nintendo and FromSoftware say the network test will focus on server load, matchmaking stability, and overall game balance rather than showcasing final content. To participate, players need a Nintendo Switch 2 console and an active Nintendo Switch Online membership. Sign-ups close July 28 at 6:59 a.m. PDT, and selected participants will be notified afterward with download instructions.

Why This Test Matters

The Duskbloods was first revealed as a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive, marking a notable partnership between Nintendo and FromSoftware, a studio best known for punishing, atmospheric action games. Because the title leans so heavily on live multiplayer systems, a public network test is a bigger deal than it would be for a traditional single-player release. Server stability and matchmaking are difficult to validate internally at scale, which is likely why FromSoftware is running dedicated test sessions months ahead of launch.

The test also gives the studio a chance to gather balance data on the quest-based victory conditions, a system unlike anything in its previous catalog. How players respond to being handed objectives that can sabotage others in the same match will likely shape adjustments before the game's 2026 release.

The Duskbloods closed network test is a rare early look at FromSoftware's biggest structural experiment yet: a session-based multiplayer game built for Nintendo Switch 2. With sign-ups open through July 28 and testing scheduled for late August, players interested in a hands-on preview should apply soon.

Xbox has reportedly cancelled an unannounced Halo multiplayer project known internally as "Project Ekur" after years of quiet development. The cancellation was first reported by leaker Rebs Gaming and later corroborated by Windows Central's Jez Corden, though Microsoft and Halo Studios have never officially acknowledged the project existed in the first place.

What Was Project Ekur?

Project Ekur was described as a multiplayer extraction shooter set in the Halo universe, developed by Certain Affinity, the longtime Halo multiplayer collaborator behind numerous map packs and modes across the franchise. According to reports, Ekur began life as an offshoot of Halo Infinite's battle royale-style "Tatanka" project before splitting off into its own standalone game.

Sources say the project would have gone further than past Halo multiplayer spinoffs, reportedly including full character customization for both Spartans and the alien Sangheili, known to fans as Elites. That detail alone had some longtime players hopeful the project could have delivered a deeper multiplayer identity than Halo has offered in recent entries.

Why It Got Cancelled

Reports indicate that active development on Ekur quietly stopped months before the wider fan community learned the project existed at all. The cancellation is being attributed to "major development problems," with Halo Studios reportedly pulling staff and resources away from Ekur to prop up Campaign Evolved, the studio's next mainline single-player Halo project.

This is the latest in a string of difficult headlines for Xbox and Halo Studios, which has weathered layoffs, restructuring, and shifting priorities across its game lineup in recent years. Because Ekur was never officially announced, there is technically no formal cancellation statement from Microsoft, leaving fans to piece together the story from developer accounts and industry reporting.

What This Means for Halo's Future

With Ekur off the table, Halo Studios' public roadmap narrows further around Campaign Evolved, the story-focused project many fans have been asking for after years of multiplayer-first spinoffs. Whether any of Ekur's ideas, including the expanded Elite customization, resurface in a future project remains unknown.

For a franchise that has struggled to recapture its multiplayer heyday, the loss of another ambitious side project is a reminder of how much churn has hit Halo development behind the scenes, even as Microsoft continues to lean on the IP as one of Xbox's flagship franchises.

Conclusion

Project Ekur's reported cancellation closes the book on a multiplayer extraction shooter most fans never knew existed. With development resources shifting toward Campaign Evolved, Halo Studios appears to be betting its near-term future on delivering a strong single-player experience rather than another multiplayer experiment.