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Bubble Bobble 4 Friends is expanding beyond the Switch, with a PlayStation 4 release planned. The game’s PS4 release was announced on the game’s website, which promises that the game will arrive “at the end of 2020”. The game will receive a physical and digital release in America, Europe, and Australia.

The game is the Bubble Bobble fans know and love, but reimagined for 4-player gameplay.

The site also promises that the game will be “expanded greatly” on PS4, adding new modes and stages for more multiplayer fun. Switch owners will not miss out, as this content will also make its way to the version available on Nintendo’s console–although it’s unclear whether it will be free or not. The original game featured 100 stages.

There’s a fan art contest currently running as well, and the ten winners will have their art featured in the game’s credits and receive a PS4 code when available. You can enter now.

GameSpot did not review Bubble Bobble 4 Friends, but it currently holds a Metacritic score of 68 on Switch.

It seems like just about everyone is getting really into Animal Crossing these days, and the folks behind Tetris 99 are no exception. The 13th Maximus Cup, which will run from May 15, 12AM PT until May 18, 11:59 PM, will reward players who do well with an Animal Crossing: New Horizons theme.

The theme has not been revealed, so to get a good look at it you’ll just need to compete over the weekend and win it. Tetris 99 requires a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, but is otherwise free-to-play.

You’ll earn event points based on your placement in each match over the weekend, and players who score a total of 100 event points will unlock the new theme. As the press release Nintendo sent us points out, arranging Tetriminos isn’t so different from arranging items in your Animal Crossing home perfectly, so just think of the Happy Home Academy while you play.

The most recent Maximus Cup was themed around another huge Switch exclusive, Ring Fit Adventure. Animal Crossing fans are finding ways to celebrate their other favorite games within Nintendo’s life simulator, too–check out these incredible fan-made Final Fantasy 7 Remake costumes.

Overwatch‘s Jeff Kaplan has released a developer update from his home during quarantine, giving us some insight into what’s coming for Overwatch over the next few months. Kaplan, who serves as the game’s director, has delved into what’s happening with Competitive Open Queue going forward, and it’s good news for anyone who likes the mode.

Competitive Open Queue, which lets you pick your character without being hemmed in by the 2-2-2 split of the traditional Role Queue mode, is being added as a permanent competitive fixture. Kaplan reveals that the mode, which is not so popular in the US, is the second-most played in Korea, which has influenced their decision.

The mode will soon disappear from the Arcade playlists for a while, and then will receive a shortened arcade season in June (probably mid-June, Kaplan says, although he cannot commit to a date). After a very short competitive season it’ll disappear again, and then when Season 23 starts up in July, it’ll be an official Competitive mode alongside Role Queue.

You can see Kaplan explain it fully in the video below.

Kaplan addresses concerns about queue times, saying that Blizzard’s data suggests that this will improve wait times, not stretch them out. He also makes it clear that the game will continue to be balanced specifically for Role Queue, which will remain the primary competitive mode for Overwatch.

In other Overwatch news from this video, Kaplan says that the Experimental card is returning soon, introducing fun balance changes. He gives a few brief examples–Bastion will be made more viable, Ana’s healing will be tuned down, and Mercy is getting a buff. Zenyatta’s Discord Orb will be returning to its original form too, so its nerf is being undone. Changes for Moira and Junkrat are also mentioned, but not detailed.

There are changes coming to hero pools, too–they’ll no longer apply to matches for players with skill ratings below 3500. This means that the majority of players will not be subject to hero pools in competitive Season 23–only the top players. Hero pools will be determined by which heroes are used in the Overwatch League and other competitive events.

Overwatch recently added Echo, the final new character to come to the game before the release of Overwatch 2. No release date has been set for the sequel yet.

The Xbox Series X is Microsoft’s most powerful console ever. It’s capable of delivering frame rates of 120 FPS, but not every game will reach that height. Xbox marketing director Aaron Greenberg said on Twitter that developers will decide how to make the most out of the next-gen console, and there is no frame rate mandate.

“Ultimately, it is up to individual developers to determine how they leverage the power and speed of Xbox Series X,” he said.

Greenberg’s comment came after a spokesperson for Ubisoft said to Eurogamer Portugal that Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will reach “at least 30 FPS” on Xbox Series X. Greenberg said earlier that 60 FPS will be the “standard output” on Xbox Series X, but ultimately, developers will choose what’s best for their games.

The official word from Microsoft is that the Xbox Series X will support up to 120 FPS. “Xbox Series X allows developers to exceed standard 60 FPS output in favor of heightened realism or fast-paced action,” the company said in a news release.

Frame rate is just one part of the overall graphics and presentation package for a game. The Xbox Series X also has an SSD to help speed up loading times, along with a custom-designed processor that promises “four times the processing power” of the existing Xbox One. The next-gen system also uses a new technology called variable rate shading to help create “more stable frame rates and higher resolution.” The console also makes use of ray-tracing, which Microsoft says allows for “more dynamic and realistic environments.” This is the first time ray-tracing is coming to console.

The Xbox Series X will release this holiday, with Halo Infinite as a launch title. Microsoft will showcase Halo Infinite, and other first-party exclusives, during an Xbox 20/20 event in July.

Master Chief has become an enduring pop-culture figure and an important video game protagonist since his debut in 2001’s Halo: Combat Evolved, but his design could have been very different. Marcus Lehto, the co-creator of Halo, was largely responsible for the Master Chief design that made it into the game, and in an interview with IGN he explained the process that led to the character’s creation.

Lehto remembers how Halo started–a two-person team, consisting of him and Jason Jones, working on a sci-fi strategy title. “Even at that time, there was a character that we called ‘The Super-Soldier’,” he recalls, “and that super soldier was, in all honestly, the very root of what became the Master Chief.”

Eventually they built a vehicle for him to drive (which would ultimately become the Warthog) and switched to a third-person camera, which meant continuing to beef up the character’s design. “Through that time frame, of course, the Master Chief continued to turn from… this really, really simple block model to something that started to look more like this armored, true ‘Super Soldier,'” he told IGN.

However, a different iteration of the Master Chief was also worked up, and could have made it into the final game if things had gone differently. “One of our concept artists at that time, whose name’s Shi Kai Wang, who is a fantastic, great, talented person… had worked on some early concepts that were more anime-inspired,” Lehto recalls. “We built that character, and it was much more slender and agile-looking, at that time. That’s the character that we showcased in the Macworld demo.”

However, the stockier Master Chief eventually won out, because, as Lehto puts it, “he needed to look like a tank that could take on an entire army.”

Halo fans on PC have finally been able to dive into several games that were previously Xbox-exclusive thanks to the slow rollout of The Master Chief Collection. Halo 2 Anniversary arrives very soon, and Halo 3 is right around the corner.

Lehto is no longer with Bungie, and his new game is Disintegration, which combines FPS and RTS elements. It’s due to release on June 16 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.