Category: Entertainment & Lifestyle

Back in October 2024, Masahiro Sakurai featured a special finale episode on his YouTube channel to mark the end of his “Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games” video series.

During that final episode, Sakurai was surprisingly forthcoming as he revealed that he had been working on a secret game project since April 2022. He had apparently received the request to write up the game proposal for this secret game project back in July 2021 while he was still juggling the Kazuya and Sora DLC for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and completed it at “lightning speed.”

For obvious reasons, Sakurai wasn’t willing to share many more details beyond that. When can we expect to learn more about this “secret game project” of Sakurai’s?

“I’m sorry I can’t share more about this project, but assuming we’re able to get it made, it should be announced sooner or later.” — Masahiro Sakurai

“I’m sorry I can’t share more about this project, but assuming we’re able to get it made, it should be announced sooner or later,” stated Sakurai on the subject. It’s been over four months since Sakurai said that.

More than likely, Sakurai’s next game is slated to be on the Nintendo Switch 2, which was revealed back in January. In less than two weeks, there will be a Nintendo Switch 2 focused Direct held on April 2 that will reveal more about the console and its game library.

This surely means that Masahiro Sakurai is fully finished with his YouTube channel, right? In a recent interview with Entax, shortly after Sakurai had received the Lifetime Achievement Award from AMD, he revealed how he was potentially planning on using his YouTube channel in the future.

“You’ve ended your YouTube channel for now, but do you have any plans to make a second or third series? Are there still things pent up inside you that you want to explain or share with an audience?” asked Entax during the interview.

“Also, since I have this channel now after all, I’ve been thinking about the possibility of using it for various announcements and such.” — Masahiro Sakurai

“Well, I honestly haven’t thought about doing it again, ha ha… What I showed on that channel was really just a small part of the knowhow and knowledge so if you’re asking me if there’s more content I could potentially make, there’s probably a ton,” responded Sakurai. “But, it was really rough to make what I already made, ha ha…”

To clarify, Sakurai has relayed that he spent about 90 million yen (the equivalent of $630,000 USD) creating his YouTube series. Additionally, it was only possible for him take on a project like this due to the span of free time he had between game projects after Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s DLC had wrapped up.

Although Sakurai probably doesn’t have the time or resources that he’s willing to put into a second or third series in the foreseeable future, that doesn’t mean the YouTube channel can’t be used again for another purpose.

“So moving forward, I think it would be difficult for me to make something in the same way again, but there may be opportunities of sharing more of my knowhow via different avenues or methods in the future,” continued Sakurai.

“That said, now that I have this channel, it’s always possible I could use it to talk about something else down the line. You never know what might happen, so I’m trying to stay flexible in how I approach it.” — Masahiro Sakurai

“Also, since I have this channel now after all, I’ve been thinking about the possibility of using it for various announcements and such.”

Of course, it’s important to note that Sakurai said something similar to this during his special finale episode. The fact that this idea is still on his mind means that it might become relevant in the near future. Could this potentially have something to do with that secret game project of his? After all, it’s really curious how it hasn’t even been announced yet.

“This will be the channel’s final episode,” said Sakurai back then. “I’m sure I could think of plenty more to discuss, but at present, I have no plans to continue. So please don’t ask me for more episodes on this topic or that topic. I’ve already given this my best.”

“That said, now that I have this channel, it’s always possible I could use it to talk about something else down the line,” continued Sakurai. “You never know what might happen, so I’m trying to stay flexible in how I approach it.”

As previously alluded to, there’s a good possibility that Sakurai’s secret game project will be revealed during the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 Direct scheduled for April 2, 2025. By then, this game project will have been in development for about three years.

A likely possibility is that Sakurai’s mysterious game is the next entry in the Super Smash Bros. series. Of course, it will be difficult to follow up after the latest iteration on the Switch considering its “Everyone Is Here” theme, but Nintendo would probably have an interest in having Sakurai oversee such a project based on the massive success of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

We’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but it’s possible that Sakurai might be planning to use his YouTube channel to push out daily updates, similar to what he did with the Super Smash Bros. websites for previous games.

A special thanks goes out to Nicholas “MajinTenshinhan” Taylor for the translations featured in this article.

In the world of fighting games, there’s arguably no name more recognizable than BST|Daigo Umehara.

It seems someone over at Twitch may not have been quite as familiar with The Beast, however.

French variety streamer Ponce recently received a package from Twitch containing the big purple heart trophy from the company for his accolades.

While he was one stream, though, he took a closer look at the 5 million hours watched trophy itself and realized it wasn’t actually his.

“I have something to tell you. It’s exceptional,” said Ponce as translated by Kahikusu. “It’s the first time I’m looking at it, and it’s not mine.”

“I swear it’s true. It says DaigoTheBeastTV… Who is this streamer? Oh, but he really is a streamer. It’s not mine.”

Luckily, Ponce seems to accept the great humor of this situation and is pretty much laughing the entire time.

Unfortunately, we don’t have Daigo’s reaction to this mishap yet, but given his usual laidback attitude, he probably won’t mind much and may have a laugh himself.

Umehara obviously already has no shortage of trophies from all of the tournaments he’s won over the years.

Plus, Daigo was recently honored at the Japan eSports Awards where he received a Lifetime Achievement Award and Live Entertainment Best Bout Award earlier this year.

So, it seems congratulations are still in order for Daigo and Ponce here.

And we assume Twitch will make this right for both creators and get them their own true trophies at some point in the near future.

Dans le genre IMPROBABLE : si le joueur japonais @daigothebeast n’a jamais reçu son trophée Twitch des 5 millions d’heures de visionnage c’est parce qu’il a été envoyé chez le streamer français @poncefleur.

Véridique ! #OFLP pic.twitter.com/xo31p1ANXf

— Anis Kx Hmi (@kahikusu) March 19, 2025

The paradigm has largely shifted in the fighting game community away from complete mystery Season Passes where players don’t know the DLC ahead of time over the past few years.

We still have some exceptions to that, however, with the largest one being Tekken 8 as it moves into Season 2 at the end of this month.

Recently, Tekken Producer Michael Murray asked fans if they would rather Bandai Namco start announcing all of their planned characters for the year ahead up front after the developers discussed the topic on the Tekken Talk Live where they revealed Anna Williams as the first character.

The fan response was pretty clear in the X/Twitter poll where 64.5% of responders voting they’d like to see the whole season ahead of time after 19,000 people chimed in.

With another Season 2 Tekken Talk Live scheduled for this Sunday, March 32, there was some hope among fans that Bandai Namco may just come out then or soon with the full roster of three additional characters.

Per the TEKKEN Talk Live. Do you want to know the characters in the whole season ahead of time with just simple concept sketches, or like the current big reveals at EVO etc.

— Michael Murray (@mykeryu) February 25, 2025

That’s probably not going to be the case, however, judging by the Producer’s response after the poll closed.

“I think most people understand this, but the poll was because we want
To know people’s thoughts so we can develop a multiyear strategy,” wrote Murray on X. “It’s not just ‘vote yes and we’ll release all the upcoming characters names in a PowerPoint slide next month.’ Sooner, probably yes. Everything all at once, at this moment, probably not.

As he points out, a major video game’s DLC schedule and plan is laid out a year in advance if not much more than that in the modern landscape.

There’s marketing, scheduling, crossover partnerships, event partnerships, and more that all need to be considered when a publisher is deciding how to unveil their new content to the world.

sooner, probably yes. Everything all at once, at this moment, probably not.

— Michael Murray (@mykeryu) March 11, 2025

While the general zeitgeist has essentially moved on from the practice of complete mystery season passes that players buy before knowing exactly what they’re getting, that doesn’t mean Tekken is going to catch up overnight.

It could still happen at some point during Season 2 where Bandai Namco just throws up the rest of the lineup at like Evo 2025 or something, but we’re more likely to see a change in strategy in Season 3 judging by Murray’s statements.

That of course could all change at any time really should the Tekken team leads push for the move, but they also discussed their comfortability with the tradition of keeping the surprises secret.

Street Fighter 6, Guilty Gear Strive, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising and even the upcoming Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves have all revealed their full season passes ahead of time, so it only seems like a matter of time before Tekken follows suit.

We’ll just have to wait and see how the team wants to handle their DLC moving forward after Anna.

There’s a new giant robo battler in town, and it’s bringing in some of the classics along for the ride too.

Game Duchy has now released Iron Saga VS featuring a collection of iconic anime mecha as well as some flashy originals.

Iron Saga VS launches with 12 pilotable mechs including those from the Mazinger Z, Shin Getter Robo Armageddon and Super Beast Machine God Dancouga series.

Those are Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, Boss Borot, Getter Robo, and Dancouga with the rest of the cast made up of Iron Saga originals.

The game is a four-button fighter with standard motion inputs as well as two different arsenals to differ some of your mech’s attacks.

Rollback netcode is indeed included for its Ranked, Lobby and Casual as well as Training, Arcade, Combo Trials, Challenges and more.

On top of that, the launch and roadmap trailer confirms Shin Getter Robo for mid-June and Zeorymer of Heaven for Winter as paid DLC, but that’s not all.

Mazinkaiser, Black Getter and Story Mode are all coming as free updates too this Summer and Fall.

Iron Saga VS is now available on Steam for 15% off its standard retail price until the end of the month, so it’s $25.50 instead of $30.

Click images for larger versions

The Arc World Tour 2024 Finals are happening this weekend and will be in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Players participating are FLY|Nitro, Tatuma, Gamera, IBSG|Tororo, PAR|Aarondamac, PAR|Zando, Solo|Verix, IBSG|Rookies, TM|Slash, PAR|Daru, ONi|TigerPop, EGO|Sanakan, Socky, PAR|Kojicoco, ZETA|Tyurara, Jonathan Tene, Gobou, PAR|Zane, Iago|Ryazo, Fitizen, RFL|Zippy, Kanme|Elsa, Kanme|Xerom, mCon|Space, Monarch, Oplon|Skyll, FLY|Razzo, DRX|Poka, PAR|BigBlack, Oushuu-Hittou, PT|Rang13, BBB|Defiant, Senaru, Mawaru, Kyo and Mo.Sin, though more will join from the Last Chance Qualifiers for each game.

The Arc World Tour Finals have had circuits going on throughout all of 2024 (and slipping into early 2025) for three titles where players have been able to qualify for the finals.

Guilty Gear Strive, Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising and Under Night In-Birth 2 [Sys:celes] are the three games represented and the former two have a prize pool of $100,000 each while the latter has $50,000 at stake.

Each of the three games will have a Last Chance Qualifier where players can get into the competition and vie for some of those cash prizes themselves.

Guilty Gear Strive and Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising will have a four group format with a round robin stage between four players in each group which will have two players from each group advancing to a final top 8 bracket. Under Night In Birth 2 [Sys:celes] will start straight from a top 8 bracket instead.

As it is a general celebration of Arc System Works games, there will also be side tournaments on-site for Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2, BlazBlue: Central Fiction, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle and Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R.

Streaming is being done at Arc System Works U.

It only took over a decade for The King of Fighters 13 to finally receive rollback netcode, but things haven’t gone as buttery smooth as fans had hoped.

SNK has now released a statement regarding King of Fighters 13 Global Match’s rollback netcode issues and plans to hopefully solve them.

After releasing a month ago on PC, KOF13 Global Match currently sits with a “Very Negative” rating on Steam with a vast majority of complaints put against the game’s online problems.

The original developer acknowledges these rollback issues now and state that their troubleshooting took longer than initially expected, but they have a plan of action now.

An update is planned to hit KOF13 on PC within 30 days that’ll do two things in particular to hopefully ease these netplay woes.

Firstly, background stage elements will be made static, and secondly, some stages “that demand large amounts of resources” will no longer be selectable for online play.

Regarding Online Play in THE KING OF FIGHTERS XIII GLOBAL MATCH (Steam Version)

We would like to apologize for the rollback netcode issues present in the Steam version of THE KING OF FIGHTERS XIII GLOBAL MATCH.

Please check the following website for details.…

— SNK GLOBAL (@SNKPofficial) March 21, 2025

This doesn’t sound like the most ideal solution to get the rollback up and running to where it needs to be, but it should still make a difference in the quality of connections should it go according to plan.

They also state they are committed to continuing making improvements on the game with future updates coming down the line it seems.

Although Code Mystics had been SNK’s go to for rollback conversions up to as recently as SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos, Safari Games are listed as the developers of KOF13 Global Match, whose previous titles focused mostly on mobile games and Nintendo Switch ports like Samurai Shodown.

You can find the full statement for The King of Fighters 13 Global Match on PC below.

We would like to apologize for the rollback netcode issues present in the Steam version of The King of Fighters 13 Global Match.

Despite our resolve to address this situation swiftly, the time required to troubleshoot the issue took longer than expected.
We would now like to both present to players our plans to resolve the network issues, and offer our deepest apologies for the lack of communication regarding this issue so far.

We are actively investigating the issue and developing an update aimed at improving the situation for players. The plan is to roll out the update within the next 30 days.

Planned Update Details:

1. The background stage elements of online matches will be made static in order to lessen rollback netcode strain.

2. Some stages that demand large amounts of resources will no longer be selectable when playing online.

Beyond this update, we are committed to continuing work on improving the online experience of the title, and will announce further updates and adjustments in the future.

When the above planned update is rolled out, there will be a short maintenance period in which online functions will be unavailable.
We ask for your understanding and patience during the downtime.

More information regarding the timing of this update will be announced on our official X account (@SNKPOfficial) in due course.
To all players of The King of Fighters 13 Global Match, we thank you for your patience as we work to provide the satisfying online experience you deserve.

The series of Street Fighter is built on hundreds upon hundreds of interactions where it’s pretty much impossible to know all of them even if you’re a world-level champion.

Current Evo champion FLY|Punk recently ran into one such situation in Street Fighter 6 up against a gutsy Zangief player.

The clip in question begins with Punk’s Terry getting air SPD’d after trying to jump back by Kusko’s Zangief, who just used up the rest of his Drive Meter and put himself in Burnout.

Punk wonders how well Terry can stun the big grappler, so he decides to go for it in the quickest way possible.

In neutral, he goes for a Burn Knuckle to get in and put himself at the advantage, however, the Grand Master Gief was ready with his own perfect counter.

As soon as Terry started to fly across the screen, he was immediately scooped up by another Spinning Pile Driver that would spell the end for the round.

“What? Isn’t he airborne?” Punk exclaims.

As it turns out, Terry is not.

Although Burn Knuckle makes it look as though Terry is off the ground, the game still counts him as grounded for the move thus allowing the SPD to connect.

The comments point out a handful of other attacks in SF6 for characters like Juri and Jamie that also appear to be airborne, but that’s not how they’re flagged in the game.

You’d also expect a strike to beat a throw, though, Kusko was able to time things just right somehow to catch Terry just before the hitbox fully reached him while he flew right into the SPD.

So it seems as though Crack Shoot would have been the appropriate go-to chase down attack here since Gief didn’t have any Super meter — but with Kusko’s reactions, perhaps that would have not worked out well for Punk either.

Are there any more moves you feel are crazy that SF6 counts as grounded versus airborne? Let us know in the comments.

I don’t understand this game at all. pic.twitter.com/NndofEEEFo

— Punk (@PunkDaGod) March 20, 2025

It only took like 10 years, but Bleach is finally getting a new console game, which is just about to release this Friday, March 21.

While Bleach Rebirth of Souls has a pretty decent roster size of 33 fighters at the start, there are still some big notable exclusions that are likely being saved for DLC on the Season Pass.

Since Rebirth of Souls only covers the manga’s story through the end of the Arrancar Arc, there’s still two more being left untouched.

Unfortunately for Fullbringer fans, Bandai Namco has already confirmed the Season Pass is going to be focused solely on the final Thousand-Year Blood War that’s being adapted into the anime.

As such, we’re going to look at the most likely candidates for the DLC characters coming to Bleach Rebirth of Souls after launch.

There’s a ton of options up for the choices here considering we have a whole different faction in the Quincies, but there’s only four slots open in this first pass.

So that means a ton of Sternritter are going to continue to be left on the sidelines. Sorry to the few NaNaNa Najahkoop believers out there.

Many of the Soul Reapers also received big power upgrades during the arc too, however, most of them are already playable on the base roster, which lessens their appeal to show up again as DLC.

We could still certainly see Renji Abarai’s true Bankai or Kenpachi Zaraki’s Shikai or even Bankai forms appear here, but they didn’t end up making our list for the most likely.

So let’s dive into those picks, and be aware there will be some Thousand-Year Blood War Arc spoilers below

There’s already three versions of Ichigo already available in Rebirth of Souls, but it’d likely be a misstep for Bamco to exclude the main character’s important awakening from the final arc.

Through The Blade is Me, Ichigo is able to reforge is Zanpakuto into its true form with two swords this time around denoting the mix of his Shinigami / Hollow powers and his Quincy heritage.

Perhaps they could even go a few steps further and give Ichigo his horn of salvation form as an Awakening or maybe his true Bankai that barely got to do anything in the manga.

He’ll need all of that power to stand up for the rest of the fighters being added to the game.

Uryu is the other character most poised to receive an upgraded form as the second poster boy from the TYBW especially given the big glowup he received in the anime adaptation.

Ishida’s new Schrift and Vollständig are a good bit different than his standard Quincy powers, so it’d be cool to see them represented in the game in playable form.

His flying bits may sound overwhelming to fight against on paper, however, it ultimately would likely play out similarly to Byakuya’s Bankia in actual gameplay.

They would have to give him all of his new anime powers too considering he didn’t actually get to show off all that much in the original manga.

The confined Quincy king, who no one knew how to really pronounce the name of a decade ago, is all but a shoe-in for a DLC slot considering he’s the main antagonist of the Thousand-Year Blood War itself.

His complete control over the suite of Quincy powers would make him a big spectacle on the battlefield considering what he pulls off against Ichigo and Yamamoto

How they can / will apply Yhwach’s absolutely busted The Almighty would be quite interesting as well though we suspect it may just among to something like counters, teleports and enhanced defensive options.

They can’t leave king Baja Blast sleeping for too much longer when he’s the big bad in the anime going on now.

Besides the Quincy army, the Thousand-Year Blood War also finally introduced Squad Zero, and who better to include in the game than its leader.

Ichibe has the most defined power set out of the royal guard, so that and his importance make him a very likely candidate for DLC in Rebirth of Souls.

We can easily see his big brush strokes of Ichimonji on the screen already, and his ancient Bankai would make for a highly cinematic Super move.

Plus, there’s all the other abilities we see him pull off against Yhwach to flesh out his moveset even more.

Considering their popularity and prominence, it only makes sense that at least one of the Bambis would get a nod for the Season Pass, so why not their leader too.

Bambietta’s explosive personality made her a fan-favorite of the Sternritter, so she could make for a strong mid to long range fighter in Rebirth of Souls.

Maybe she could even call in the other Bambis for assists or her Supers since it’d feel a bit wrong to leave all of the girls out of the action.

But perhaps someone else like Candice could get the pick instead.

Finally, we have the first Quincy to receive a Schrift from Yhwach and the head of the Schutzstaffel.

It may be a bit trickier to make Lille’s abilities work in a fighting game considering the X-Axis is basically just used for long-range combat, but it also feels a bit wrong to leave out god’s messenger entirely.

Plus, we really want to see what the developers could do with Lille’s extremely weird Vollständig even if none of the characters should be able to technically touch him in that state.

Let us know in the comments who you want to see added to Bleach Rebirth of Souls and if we missed anyone you think is even more important than our picks here.

It’s time for some Spring cleaning, but it’s also time to save a good chunk of change on some new fighting games as well.

PlayStation is currently running their Mega March sale, which offers up some sweet discounts to many of the biggest fighting games around.

Despite just coming out in September, Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns’ expansion is now 67% off along with the big Khaos Reigns Expansion, so you can get all of MK1’s content including the newly released T-1000 for just under $30.

The King of Fighters 15 Ultimate Edition is also on sale on PlayStation for the first time at a whopping 70% off, meaning you can get all of that game’s DLC including Vice and Mature for only $18.

DNF Duel is a title that rarely goes on sale, but you can get it and the game’s Season Pass for 70% off each now too.

Street Fighter 6 and its first round of DLC are discounted once again too to their usual cheaper rates.

This was going on at the same time as the Steam Spring Sale event, but that big PC sale is now unfortunately concluded as of the time of reporting.

The PlayStation Mega March sale is slated to last until March 26. You can check out all of the big fighting game deals below, but please note that prices and availability will differ outside of the United States.

• Bounty Battle – $2.50

• Brawlout Deluxe Edition – $4.50

• Breakers Collection – $10.00

• Dissidia Final Fantasy NT Digital Deluxe Edition – $13.50

• DNF Duel – $15.00

• DNFDuel Season Pass – $6.00

• Fighting EX Layer – $8.00

• Injustice Ultimate Edition – $5.00

• Injustice 2 – $3.00

• KOF15 Team Pass 1 – $4.80

• KOF15 Team Pass 2 – $4.80

• King of Fighters 15 – $9.00

• King of Fighters 15 Ultimate Edition – $18.00

• Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite – $8.00

• Melty Blood: Type Lumina – $20.00

• Melty Blood: Type Lumina Deluxe Edition – $28.00

• Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate Add-on Bundle – $5.00

• Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns Kollection – $29.69

• Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns Expansion – $16.50

• Omen of Sorrow – $7.00

• SNK Heroines – $25.00

• Soul Calibur 6 Deluxe Edition – $14.39

• Street Fighter 6 – $30.00

• Street Fighter 6 Ultimate Edition – $52.50

• SF6 Year 1 Character Pass – $19.50

• SF6 Year 1 Ultimate Pass – $32.50

• Virtua Fighter 5 Tekken Collaboration pack – $7.50

• Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown + DLC – $22.50

• Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 – $7.50