It looks like the original Pac-Man, and plays an awful lot like it too, but once you see the titular yellow hero chow down on a line of ghosts 33 deep like some kind of insatiable, eyeless animal, it's clear the classic formula has been juiced a bit. It's Pac-Man 99, Nintendo Switch's new 99-player online battle royale, and I've been low-key obsessed since it came out in April. My first encounter with Pac-Man was pretty typical for the 1990s. It was a lonely vintage game in the corner at my local Aladdin's Castle arcade at Countryside Mall, a quiet machine in the glory days of TMNT, Mortal Kombat, and Street Fighter II. I tended to play it because there was never a wait (it was already considered a relic in 1992) and unlike the fighting games, I could actually survive for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

"Splatoon 3," the newest edition of the colorful family-friendly combat game, is in development for a 2022 release, the game maker announced during its 50-minute Nintendo Direct reveal on YouTube Wednesday. While Switch players must wait for that one, there's plenty of other games in the Switch pipeline. New items are coming to "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the release of "Super Mario Bros." You can get Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach costumes. You can also order the Super Mushroom and Question Block as furniture and install a pair of Warp Pipes to travel between locations on your island.

Rumors have swirled all weekend of Titanfall creator Respawn developing its own battle royale game, and... well, they're true. Geoff Keighley and pro player Myth have confirmed the existence of Apex Legends, a last-one-standing game to be unveiled and released on February 4th. They're not saying more at this stage, to no one's surprise, but esports consultant Rod Breslau understood it would be a free-to-play game with classes, up to 60 players in total, three players per team and no Titans -- sorry, folks, you won't pilot a giant robot to victory. The title would include purchases and loot boxes for cosmetic items and similar in-game content in an approach "very similar" to Overwatch. You wouldn't get a tactical edge by spending money, but you would look good no matter what you were doing.

Sony's chief executive says the company is not planning to allow Fortnite players on PlayStation to compete cross-platform because it feels their console offers the best experience for gamers. The technology giant caused controversy earlier this year when the battle royale game launched on the Nintendo Switch, but existing PlayStation players discovered they could not move or change platforms on the same account – despite Xbox and PC players being able to do so. In spite of vocal protests from gamers in response, Sony has not yet changed its policy. New chief executive Kenichiro Yoshida said the company believes the best experience is on PlayStation 4. The technology giant caused controversy earlier this year when the battle royale game launched on the Nintendo Switch, but existing PlayStation players discovered they could not move change platforms on the same account – despite Xbox and PC players being able to do so. Speaking at the IFA technology show in Berlin, Sony chief executive Kenichiro Yoshida said he felt playing on the PlayStation 4 was the best experience for gamers and therefore should not be compromised.

OK fine, laugh -- but it's always been my dream to be a "Cool Dad". The dad who can do flips on a trampoline and still knows how to surf. Sure, I can dole out sound, practical advice when shit hits the fan, but I can also do a pretty sick Ollie when the occasion demands it. Ever since my wife and I (mostly my wife) spawned two boys (a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old) I've long been confident Cool Dad status was incoming. I have a practical advantage: video games.

While it's a common refrain that PUBG is now likely to be playing second fiddle to Fortnite for the foreseeable future, it's easy to forget just how well the original ("original") battle royale game has done for itself. If that math seems a bit funny, that's because it's also including figures from the free-to-play PUBG mobile, which has done huge business especially in places in like China, to which PUBG owes a lot of its success. That 50 million copies sold figure is what I find the most impressive, especially considering it hasn't tapped the 80 million PS4s on the market yet at all. Yes, it's true that PUBG is not a full price game, usually selling at around $30 when not on sale, and yet I still think we need to acknowledge that technically, it's now the fifth best-selling video game ever. And there are a lot of caveats in that list as well.

The PC Gaming Show is always my favorite E3 press conference. It usually feels one step away from disaster at all times, a far cry from the ultra-slick press conferences from Microsoft, Bethesda, and so on. This year's highlights included Yakuza 0--yes, you read that right--and Star Control: Origins, but it's worth scrolling through the full list of bigger announcements below and just admiring the breadth of experiences offered on PC these days. So many indie games were announced that we couldn't even cover them all here. The Goat Simulator team over at Coffee Stain Studios is making a real game again, Satisfactory. Not really sure what to make of this, except that it looks like a 3D Factorio or maybe a less puzzle-oriented Infinifactory.

Battle Royale is coming to Battlefield 5. During today's EA Play livestream, DICE confirmed a battle royale mode coming to Battlefield 5. That's about all the information we got about the new mode, though we learned that it will be different (somehow) from any battle royale game out now, with all of the things that make Battlefield distinct, such as destructible environments and vehicles. Many people seem to think that we already have a saturated battle royale market for some reason, despite having just two actual contenders in that space. You could hear some audible groaning in the crowd when the battle royale mode was announced. The thinking seems to be that battle royale is a trend and that trend-chasing is foolish.

What even is H1Z1 these days? Answering that question is harder than you might think, if you haven't been paying attention. Once upon a time, there was a game called H1Z1, with no subtitle. It was a zombie-survival game in the vein of DayZ. That game developed a mode called "King of the Kill," a battle royale mode when the genre was still basically unheard of--and that mode then proved so popular it spun off into its own game, H1Z1: King of the Kill.