While we are starting off the new year with another big batch of news this Miku Monday, that doesn’t mean all big news is good.
She’s an Icon, She’s a Legend, and She Is the Moment
Confirming leeks leaks, Hatsune Miku officially joins Fortnite as the Festival Season 7 Icon.
The virtual singer will not only arrive to the stage with appropriately themed outfits, instruments, and even more songs, but she will also be joining the game at the same as the arrival of a pair of iconic kaiju for an upcoming Godzilla x Kong collaboration.
Ubisoft’s Unending Issues
Ubisoft announced another delay for Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The game, originally due out November 15, 2024, was initially pushed to February, and is now rescheduled again to release on March 20, 2025.
Ubisoft also stated that they have “appointed leading advisors to review and pursue various transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders.” This sounds like a good thing a healthy company does (John writes with sarcasm).
Because meanwhile, Indonesian support studio Brandoville Studios, who have been instrumental in Shadows’ development, have been outed by allegations of workplace abuse in a report by People Make Games. The support studio ultimately shuttered in 2024, and an Ubisoft spokesperson otherwise expresses their vague “condem[nation]” of the accounts.
The Los Angeles Wildfires
The ongoing Los Angeles wildfires have destroyed numerous homes and displaced hundreds of thousands of individuals. With LA being a sprawling point of the United States’ entertainment industry, a few celebrity homes and landmarks have been destroyed, and several anticipated events have been postponed.
Located near an evacuation warning zone, Riot Games has closed its Santa Monica office for all but “critical functions”. CEO Dylan Jadeja writes that, “Riot will be ready to stand up for Los Angeles and give back in every way [they] can.”
Dungeons & Dragons web series Critical Role has also postponed broadcast, with many of its performers based in impacted areas. The company has donated to a wildfire recovery fund.
As the path of the fire continues to be actively monitored, neighboring communities also continue to be subjected to smoke and strong winds, as Insomniac Games senior writer Nick Folkman comments.
This is a list of several funds you can donate to that aim to help support the victims of the fires.
For Californian residents, here’s a spreadsheet compiling numerous resources and local community hubs that are offering free necessities and shelter. Sorted by location, some of these spaces are seeking volunteers as well. The sheet is being updated and maintained by the Mutual Aid LA Network and are receptive to feedback.
Medical suppliers like Planet Halo Health are also taking requests for free respirators and face masks for community-based or individual distribution.
Through 211 LA, Airbnb is also providing temporary housing for those displaced.
In other news…
A remake of The House of the Dead 2 has been announced. Due out in Spring, the latest return to the light gun franchise will release on Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, Steam, and GOG.
Splash Damage’s co-op shooter Transformers: Reactivated has been canceled.
Sony has announced Horizon: Zero Dawn and Helldivers films, which means they’re pretty much just remaking Starship Troopers at this point. The second season of HBO’s The Last of Us series is also starting in April.
RetroRemake has announced the “first affordable FPGA gaming console” with the SS One, a device modeled after the PS One. The console will support PS1 games, memory cards, and controllers, and can also do anything the MiSTer can handle. The first run will cost $149, and future runs will be more expensive, but with a promise it will be at or under $220.
FuturLab, developers of PowerWash Simulator, has announced that support for the VR version of the game is going on indefinite hiatus. In the post announcing this, their CEO Kirsty Rigden said that the VR version wasn’t breaking even, and when job openings for the non-VR version became available, the decision was made to move the VR team over to those jobs so they could have job security.
This year’s Evo lineup has seemingly leaked thanks to an accidentally uploaded YouTube thumbnail. The games this year will be Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, Guilty Gear Strive, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, Under Night In-Birth 2, Mortal Kombat 1, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, and Marvel vs Capcom 2. The thumbnail may have been out of date, so this may not be 100% accurate, but it makes sense.

And finally, bunch more of Switch 2 leaks happened, and Nintendo still hasn’t announced the friggin’ thing. Sources are claiming the console will be announced on the 16th, with a release sometime in May or June.
They did, however, announce that a LEGO Game Boy kit will release in October.