Retro

Despite setbacks, the dream of playing PS3 games on the PS5 without streaming is alive. The console’s unique architecture has excluded the titles from Sony’s PlayStation Plus Premium service. Implicit Conversions remains committed to developing a working PS3 emulator, but it could be years away.

The popular BrickBoy Kickstarter campaign has added a new Arcade Edition option for fans of classic arcade gaming. Repurposing the Lego Game Boy as an arcade cabinet, the BrickBoy Arcade Edition can be connected to a TV or used as a local multiplayer emulation device.

CheckMag The Neo Geo offered a home experience that most could only find at the local diner, eatery or arcade, and few could afford. Here are the best games for it you may have missed in every genre.

The Wand Co., in an official partnership with Bethesda, has unveiled a wearable 1:1 Pip-Boy 3000 replica that runs the full Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas interfaces. It is effectively a functioning prop that, the company says, left Bethesda "with their mouths open" when shown the prototype.

Former Rare developer Chris Sutherland told Retro Gamer that years of lunchtime four‑player GoldenEye 007 deathmatches directly shaped Banjo‑Tooie's design, inspiring the game's split‑character mechanic, first‑person sections, and shooting‑based multiplayer mini‑games as a deliberate evolution championed by director Gregg Mayles.

The classic Namco arcade racing game Ridge Racer has been unofficially ported to the Game Boy Advance. Despite the GBA's relatively weak hardware, the port is fairly faithful to the original, uses rudimentary 3D polygons, and plays at a locked 30 frames per second.

Early details about a new retro gaming handheld with a physical cartridge slot. Aimed at playing Game Boy Advance games, the GameMT E3 can also output to an external display unlike Nintendo's classic handheld.

Though it is not the first Warhammer game the developers have made, this latest title adds a ‘Vampire Survivors’ touch to the game and uses the same engine to boot.

Xbox’s Retro Classics has grown to 95 titles with the addition of seven 1990s Activision Blizzard games, including Blackthorne (Genesis and SNES ports), The Lost Vikings and The Lost Vikings 2 (SNES and PlayStation versions), RPM Racing and Rock n’ Roll Racing — now available to all Game Pass tiers, including Essential.

Limited Run Games, working with Headless Chicken Games, has announced Snow Bros. Classic Collection for Nintendo Switch, PS5, and PC: a compilation of the NES, Sega Genesis (Snow Bros.: Nick and Tom), and Game Boy ports that excludes the original arcade release and Snow Bros. 2, with pre-orders briefly selling out (before restocking) despite no official release date.

JoeScotto, a YouTuber and mechanical keyboard enthusiast known for some outlandish keyboard designs, has revived T9 typing with a fully 3D-printed, hand-wired mechanical keyboard. The tiny project has been published online for anyone to build the project for free, and it uses free, open-source firmware to achieve the T9 dialling features.

The TrimUI Smart Pro S is now official after a series of recent rumours regarding the handheld. While the new model closely resembles its predecessor, the Smart Pro S contain upgrades in several areas like a new chipset, an active cooling solution and a refined joystick experience.

TrimUI has updated its Brick gaming handheld again. Now available in two new finishes to rival the upcoming Ayaneo Pocket Vert, the TrimUI Brick 'Hammer' can be picked up for less than $100 with a CNC shell that can emulate up to PlayStation 1, Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 games.

Bitmap Bureau and Reef Entertainment have pushed their 16-bit retro platformer Terminator 2D: No Fate to December 12, 2025, marking the 3rd delay for the title, citing production hurdles related to tariff uncertainty for the physical edition, even as digital copies are also pushed back.

ZSKnight discussed ZSNES with Zophar of Zophar’s Domain, a popular site that hosts game emulators in a 90-minute session that covered multiple aspects of his emulation-related contributions.

UK MPs held a Westminster Hall debate on November 3 in response to an e-petition calling for publishers to be prohibited from permanently disabling games they have already sold, with members urging clearer ownership rights and mandatory disclosure for server-dependent "live service" titles.

NuPhy is planning to launch a new wireless gaming keyboard that combines wireless connectivity, a full metal body, and ultra-low latency Hall effect tech into an 80% form factor. The WH80 also features a couple of interesting retro-futures design touches that set it apart from the crowd of black and grey slabs out there.

APT is set to gain Rust code in 2026 as Debian modernises its package manager. The coding language's presence in open-source projects keep growing.

Digital Eclipse's Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection, released on Steam, Xbox Series S|X and Nintendo Switch for $50, has drawn mixed reviews, with only 45% of them being positive on Steam, after players reported high input lag, restrictive quick-play-only matchmaking, weak netcode, and audio and cutscene issues.

The Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is causing feelings of frustration more than nostalgia. Input lag is one reason why players are requesting PlayStation Store refunds. The classic Mortal Kombat games suffer from high latency, audio snafus, and dysfunctional matchmaking.

MagicX has lifted the lid on another gaming handheld focused on emulating one or two specific systems. This time, the company has presented the Two DS 46 in two designs aimed at being powerful enough to emulate up to 90% of Nintendo 3DS games at a 2x resolution scale and higher.

The ultra-light Windows 7 build is an impressive technical feat, though it offers little in the way of practical functionality as it can not even run most applications on its own.

Danny Russell, the former Senior Global Community Manager for Sega of America and the architect of the Sega Forever initiative, confirmed on LinkedIn that he left Sega after 7 years. He was a key figure in Sega's launch of the 2017 program, which evolved from mobile re-releases into a full-blown preservation and archival effort for titles.

Global pricing and complete specifications have now emerged for the Anbernic RG DS. Disappointingly, it seems that Anbernic's next retro gaming handheld is less powerful and potentially even more expensive than it previously suggested.

TrimUI is finally set to replace the Smart Pro with a more powerful alternative. Dubbed the Smart Pro S, the gaming handheld is said to expand upon TrimUI's PlayStation Portable lookalike in various areas.

Peter Molyneux, the famed designer behind Black and White, Fable, and Dungeon Keeper, says his upcoming game, Masters of Albion, is his final redemption story.

MagicX has presented its first clamshell gaming handheld. Launching for less than $100, the MagicX One Flip 50 will compete with the existing Retroid Pocket Flip 2 but at a much lower price point.

In the Shacknews documentary 24 ’Til Launch: The Making of Borderlands 4, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford recounts how EA’s cancellation of his Rebel Boat Rocker project Prax War and the subsequent founding of Gearbox led to an unexpected call from Valve’s Gabe Newell, who invited Pitchford to pitch an expanded Half‑Life storyline.

Version 1.0 of ARMSX2, an ARM-focused branch of the popular PCSX2 emulator, has landed on Android. The new version of the PlayStation 2 emulator uses a translation layer to run code from PCSX2 (with some additions) on ARM devices, including Android smartphones. This gives retro gamers another option to play PS2 titles on their smartphones.

Team Asobi's creative director Nicholas Doucet argued in an interview that the PlayStation 5 is a significant upgrade, stressing that innovations like the DualSense haptics and ultra-fast SSD yield hands‑on gameplay benefits that aren’t always visible in side‑by‑side graphical comparisons with late-cycle PS4 titles.

Shigeru Miyamoto told Nintendo Dream Web that because games can become obsolete as new versions replace them, Nintendo has expanded into film production to preserve and "immortalize" its IPs after the $1.36 billion success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie showed it that it was both financially and culturally viable.

A nine-member volunteer collective called Slurm Team has released a playable demo of Futurama: Hit and Run, a total-conversion mod that transplants The Simpsons: Hit and Run into a meticulously recreated New New York with four story missions, a bonus mission, ten side gags, and a full custom soundtrack.

Nintendo’s frequent trademark and patent filings sometimes give glimpses into the future. The latest submission has excited supporters of the defunct Virtual Console. Unlike the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, gamers purchased titles and stored them in a permanent library.

MagicX has shared new details about its Dreamcast, Genesis, Saturn and Nintendo 64 focused gaming handheld. Not only has the company now revealed what the device looks like, but it has also outlined pricing and hardware specifications before its global release.

The Miyoo Mini Flip is the latest clamshell retro gaming handheld to hit the market after releases from Anbernic, Powkiddy and Miyoo earlier this year. Sporting a more pocketable form factor, the Miyoo Mini Flip is said to feature a superior hinge than the existing Miyoo Flip, too.

GameMT has started teasing the E3 Vigor, a new horizontal gaming handheld with a square display. Showcased in three colours, the GameMT E3 Vigor should rival recent handhelds like the Anbernic RG CubeXX, Powkiddy RGB30 and the ZPG A1 Unicorn.

In a Reddit AMA promoting his Kickstarter, ToeJam & Earl co-creator Greg Johnson confirmed a fifth installment is in the planning stage and signaled a deliberate return to the randomized, cooperative spirit of the original duology.

A new game development engine aims to make creating games for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis much easier. MD Engine is a "visual engine" that greatly simplifies game development for Sega's 16-bit console with minimal coding knowledge needed.

Nintendo has not been reluctant to develop accessories targeting retro gaming fanatics. To cater to DS and 3DS loyalists, an add-on could multiply the number of Switch 2 screens. A new Nintendo patent demonstrates how the accessory would enhance Nintendo Switch Online titles.

The Mangmi Air X is a new horizontal retro gaming handheld that runs Android 14 and can emulate up to Nintendo Gamecube and PlayStation 2 games. Available for $75 at launch, the handheld also features a 450-nit and 5.5-inch IPS display complemented by a 5,000 mAh battery.

Ubisoft has quietly re-released Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow on Steam, Ubisoft Connect, and the Epic Games Store. The title addresses long-standing PC shadow-rendering bugs and offers a steep discount, while somewhat controversially retaining its original 4:3 aspect ratio.

Chained Echoes, the critically acclaimed indie JRPG from Matthias Linda and Deck13, is on sale on Steam for 60% off its original $25 price tag.

Sega and the International Olympic Committee have signed a multi-year licensing agreement effective October 7, 2025. This agreement allows Sega to produce Sonic the Hedgehog–branded Olympic merchandise featuring the official rings, in conjunction with the Olympic Games video game license, with a full product line scheduled for 2026.

The MagicX One 35 is a new pocket-sized retro gaming handheld sporting a MediaTek Helio G85 chipset, a 700-nit display and up to 4 GB of LPDDR4X RAM. Available for as little as $55, the MagicX One 35 comes in three colours and should be powerful enough to emulate up to PS Vita games.

Facepunch refines Source 2–based creation platform with improved workflow, physics stability and rendering performance

The upcoming remake of the original two Dragon Quest games (also known as Dragon Warrior in the United States) will bring new dungeons, new characters, and new questlines in an attempt to better staple the original games to the third entry.

An iPhone 4s was modded into a retro handheld - it uses an iOS 6.1.3 downgrade and jailbreak to run RetroArch emulators. Physical PS Vita buttons & a Bluetooth keyboard PCB provide tactile controls in a laser-engraved Kirby-themed metal case.

Megabonk, a solo-developed 3D reverse-bullet-hell roguelike by Vedinad, has sold one million copies in two weeks since its September 18 release, peaking at over 102,000 concurrent Steam players and rising to sixth on Steam’s global top-sellers list while clocking in a a low $5.49 price tag.

Kazuhiro Aoyama, director of the 1999 Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, expressed confusion after learning that Resident Evil 9: Requiem appears to depict Raccoon City and landmarks like the RPD intact, contradicting Nemesis’s canonical destruction by a thermobaric missile.