NLG - Next Level Gaming

Metroid is easily one of Nintendo’s underrated top-tier franchises; entries come few and far between compared to Mario, Zelda, and even Splatoon these days. It’s a series that rarely misses, with each entry ranging from a fun romp that’s worth playing to a consistently great experience than can be considered one of the greatest games of all time. Metroid has inspired an entire genre of games that mix platforming, action, discovery, and abilities unlocking even more options for the previous three pillars, and it even remains at the peak of that archetype in its latest entries. The mark Metroid has made on modern gaming is undeniable, so we’re here to celebrate the franchise surrounding gaming’s most beloved bounty hunter. The following is our ranking of each official entry in the Metroid series, including the remakes and offshoots released throughout the years. Most of these games are exceptional in their own way, and your ranking may be different. If you have any thoughts on the orde

After suffering a delay last year,  Warhammer 40,000: Darktide  finally arrives on September 13. Darktide serves as developer Fatshark’s sci-fi follow-up to the fan-favorite Vermintide series. Up to four players team up to mow down waves of enemies in the hive city of Tertium to eradicate a cultist corporation. Characters remain class-based, and melee attacks build upon Vermintide 2’s combat. However, you riddle foes with bullets using an arsenal of high-tech firearms. You can watch the release date trailer below to look at the explosive combat in action.  Click here to watch embedded media Warhammer 40,000: Darktide will be available on Xbox Series X/S and PC. For an idea of the co-op shenanigans, check out our review for Vermintide 2 here .

Update 3/31/22:   Aurora is available today! To mark the occasion, a gameplay trailer has been unveiled showing off how this guest character handles herself in the world of Bloodstained. Check out the new footage below and read on to learn about this free DLC. Click here to watch embedded media Original Story 3/30/22: Aurora, the tenacious main character from Ubisoft's Child of Light , will be available as a playable character in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night starting on March 31 for select platforms. Her inclusion was originally teased back in 2019 along with Yacht Club Games' Shovel Knight. Bloodstain's publisher 505 Games released a brief trailer that teases Aurora's impending inclusion, but more information can be found in a new blog post on the game's website . There, a smidge of context is given to why she has arrived in a new franchise.  Click here to watch embedded media "Aurora has lost her way and awoken in a strange, dangerous new land. A

Admittedly, it'd take very little for me to be on board with a Death Stranding Director's Cut . It only needed to be more Death Stranding f or me to be sold on revisiting Hideo Kojima's latest vanity project. Luckily for me, that's exactly what the Director's Cut is. I love the original release, and this is a perfect excuse to dive back in. I think you should play it, too. But maybe not for the reasons you think.  Death Stranding Director's Cut is pitched as an expanded version of the base game that came out in 2019, the definitive version of Kojima's vision. After 26 hours – and much, much more still to go – my knee-jerk impression is that the Director's Cut moniker is marketing spiel more than anything. Still, there are some fun and creative new additions that enhance the overall experience. For new players, all the bells and whistles you've come to expect from PlayStation re-releases are present in Director's Cut – performance/resolution mo

Click here to watch embedded media 427 isn't just Stanley's employee identification number. The number cleverly is also the release date for Crows Crows Crows' The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe . The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe comes to Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S on April 27, 2022! pic.twitter.com/lBmfJh575X — Crows Crows Crows (@crowsx3) March 30, 2022 The developer took to Twitter today, where it posted a new trailer announcing the release date of Ultra Deluxe, which is coming on April 27. The trailer starts like a bland corporate training video and gets intense in a hasty fashion. A video explains Stanley's place at the company where he works, pressing buttons on a computer all day. Then the camera zooms out to the player's perspective, who runs into the hall revealing endless rooms with the same video projected onto screens. The trailer's tone gets more frantic as the camera moves into a maintenance room, whipping

Blizzard Entertainment released a Diablo IV Quarterly Update  yesterday, and several devs chimed in on what the upcoming open-world RPG will offer players. Recently-appointed game director Joe Shely voiced that Diablo IV will be "an immersive world you can wander through and enjoy getting lost in." These words held even more weight when art director of environments Brian Fletcher and lead exterior environment artist Matt McDaid added that Sanctuary (the game world/mortal realm) boasts five explorable regions with over 150 dungeons.  It is important to keep in mind what is going on within Activision Blizzard regarding ongoing allegations about the work culture. The ongoing lawsuit from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) against the company is over-reported toxic workplace culture. The bulk of the suit focuses on "violations of the state's civil rights and equal pay laws," specifically regarding the treatment of women and other margi

House of the Dragon , the prequel series to Game of Thrones centered on House Targaryen, premieres on August 21, HBO announced on Twitter today.  The 10-episode series, which will only be streamed through HBO Max, is set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, when the Targaryens were still in power. However, House of the Dragon centers on the inner turmoil that led to their downfall, particularly a civil war known as the Dance of Dragons. The show draws partial inspiration from author George R.R. Martin’s 2018 book Fire & Blood .   The cast includes Matt Smith (Prince Daemon Targaryen), Olivia Cooke (Lady Alicent Hightower), Paddy Considine (King Viserys I Targaryen), and Emma D’Arcy (Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen). Writer and producer Ryan J. Condal ( Rampage , Colony ) and George R.R. Martin serve as principal showrunners. You can watch House of the Dragon ’s first trailer, which premiered last October, here . Are you excited to watch House of the Dragon? Let us

Aurora, the tenacious main character from Ubisoft's Child of Light , will be available as a playable character in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night starting on March 31 for select platforms. Her inclusion was originally teased back in 2019 along with Yacht Club Games' Shovel Knight. Bloodstain's publisher 505 Games released a brief trailer that teases Aurora's impending inclusion, but more information can be found in a new blog post on the game's website . There, a smidge of context is given to why she has arrived in a new franchise.  Click here to watch embedded media "Aurora has lost her way and awoken in a strange, dangerous new land. Armed with the Sword of Matildis and accompanied by the loyal Igniculus, she must find a way to escape. Despite the dire situation, Aurora is not alone. Johannes is on hand to help her increase her power by transmuting items found in chests throughout the game," says 505 Games community manager Jason Ryan. Aurora wil

If you’ve been hitting the links online in Everybody’s Golf, your days on the green are now numbered. Sony has announced that the online servers for the 2017 title are shutting down later this year. The shutdown occurs on September 30, as per a message that appears when you visit the game’s PlayStation Store page . It also states that “all online features (including online multiplayer modes) will cease on that date. You will still be able to play and enjoy the game in single-player offline modes.”  That means Everybody Golf will lose its online open-course exploration, where players could freely roam courses and communicate with other players. It also lets players indulge in non-golfing activities such as fishing and swimming. Competitive options such as the game’s Turf Mode and international tournaments will also fall to the wayside.  Furthermore, this also means that the following online-dependent trophies will no longer be attainable: Platinum Trophy – “Push it to the Limit!”

Publisher Bandai Namco has announced that it will be delisting Fast & Furious Crossroads on April 29, effectively ending all sales of it.  This news comes by way of a small update on the game’s official website that says “all product sales will end on” April 28, 2022 at 7 p.m. PT/10 p.m. ET/4 a.m. CEST (on April 29), as reported by Video Games Chronicle . What this means is that if you don’t own Fast & Furious Crossroads come April 29, you won’t be able to buy it digitally at any point after that. However, because it was released physically, you could always track down a hard copy of the game.  Bandai Namco says that “if you bought the game digitally, it will remain in your library and can be redownloaded in the future.” DLC for it will be delisted on April 29 as well, so if you’re interested in owning that, you’ll need to purchase it soon. The DLC is completely digital so don’t rely on physical copies of Fast & Furious Crossroads to add it to your library, because that

Activision Blizzard, the publisher-studio giant behind franchises like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch, is set to bring an end to one of the multiple lawsuits filed against it with an $18 million settlement.  It must be approved by the courts first, of course, and according to The Washington Post , U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer is “prepared to approve” Activision Blizzard’s $18 million settlement in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against it by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It’s important to note that this lawsuit is just one of many Activision Blizzard is facing and you can read more about the others, including this one filed last week, here .  “The Court is generally satisfied that both the monetary relief and the nonmonetary provisions are fair, reasonable, and adequate,” a California court filing published today reads, according to The Washington Post . These filings call the opposition’s – in this case, California’s Department of Fair E

Long Live Mortal Kombat: Round 1 – The Fatalities and Fandom of the Arcade Era is an upcoming novel detailing the origin and early history of Mortal Kombat. The book compiles interviews with MK co-creator John Tobias and other designers, critics, and fans to weave a comprehensive tale of the franchises' beginnings. Author David L. Craddock ( Stay Awhile and Listen trilogy, Monsters in the Dark: The Making of X-COM: UFO Defense ) has launched a Kickstarter campaign to get the book off the ground and shared an exclusive chapter from the book with Game Informer that you can read below.   Long Live Mortal Kombat: Round 1 Book Cover Long Live Mortal Kombat: Round 1 – The Fatalities and Fandom of the Arcade Era goes behind the scenes to reveal untold stories from the making of Mortal Kombat 1 through 4 and explores how the franchise impacted popular culture, and is funding now on Kickstarter. In this excerpt from the book, a small boy earns the respect of the drug dealers who ru

Russia openly attacked and invaded Ukraine on February 24 after weeks of mounting tensions between the two countries, with hundreds of Ukrainian citizens reportedly killed by bombings and Russian militia as a result. As the world watches this historical and terrifying event unfold, efforts have begun to aid civilians and organizations on the ground floor and those displaced, like the Ukrainian Red Cross. Many of these efforts have come from studios within the video game industry, some in the form of charity drives, others with public displays of support for Ukraine.  Game Informer will continue to update this story.  Fortnite Epic Games announced that from March 20 through April 3, all proceeds from its popular battle royale, Fortnite, would be donated to humanitarian relief for people affected by the war in Ukraine.  pic.twitter.com/BADuu3pwCF — Fortnite (@FortniteGame) March 20, 2022 One day later, the Fortnite Twitter account revealed that Fortnite players had already raise