Would PS VR2 have sold better if the games looked and played more like PlayStation 2 classics? Will John Romero’s next game also get suddenly canceled? And can a Cyberpunk trading card game bring back those awesome Netrunner vibes? It’s the latest edition of Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku‘s daily roundup of gaming news and culture. It’s Game Awards Eve and I’m celebrating by remembering the special kind of hell that was Joel McHale co-hosting the 2013 VGX.
The Boys is getting a VR game that looks like a PS2 game
The Boys is coming to Meta Quest just in time for season 5. The licensed tie-in is called The Boys: Trigger Warning, drops in spring 2026 for $24, and features Butcher and Mother’s Milk “guiding from the shadows” as game protagonist Lucas Costa “sets off on a no-mercy hunt” to kill “a washed-up but still lethal family of Vought Superheroes.”
As The Gamer notes, it somehow looks like something that would have come out in 2003. Despite weird, lifeless depictions of Karl Urban and Laz Alonso, the VR spin-off by Arvore Immersive Games, which is inexplicably published by Sony Pictures Virtual Reality, promises “brutal boss fights” and “partial nudity.”
Minecraft has a big new content drop
Mounts of Mayhem arrived December 9 and added new creatures for players to ride and a new weapon. Spears are finally in the game, too. They bring a new lunge capability to mounts. Fans are already fantasizing about recreating the “Charge of the Rohirrim” in Minecraft.
The developer was speaking at Salón del Videojuego de Madrid (via Eurogamer) when he confirmed that Romero Games is working on a new project that “incorporates a lot of the elements” from a game that was cancelled earlier this year when Microsoft suddenly pulled funding. “We’re not starting at ground zero,” he said. “We can take pieces out of and put into a brand new indie game. We have a lot of stuff we can put in the game. The design is completely different, but the team is very excited about the new design.”
Switch Online is getting two more N64 adventures
Rayman 2: The Great Escape and Tonic Trouble are getting added to the Expansion Pack on December 17. It’s the first time the Ubisoft classics will be available on a modern console, which may help get fans primed for the eventual new Rayman game Ubisoft is reportedly working on.
Microsoft is reportedly working on getting legacy Xbox games running on PC gaming handhelds
That’s according to industry leaker NateTheHate. “There exists a hope to make legacy Xbox (OG and Xbox 360) games [backwards compatible] on ROG and Windows. Whether they succeed is the unknown; but there is an effort being made,” he wrote on the gaming forum ResetEra. “The other unknown would be how extensive will the initiative be in offerings. Will it be what we currently have on Series or will BC expand to add more titles across the Xbox ecosystem.”
Cyberpunk 2077 is getting turned into a trading card game
The Cyberpunk TCG is a collaboration between CD Projekt Red and TCG newcomers WeirdCo. Characters like Johnny and Panam will make the cut for the starting set, as will Edgerunners characters like Lucy. It’s still not entirely clear what the mechanics of the game will be, but it looks like it will revolve around cybernetic enhancements, as you’d expect. The game will be crowdfunded through Kickstarter.
Warner Bros. is reportedly sticking with the Netflix deal
Despite Paramount’s 11th-hour bid of over $100 million, which included financing from Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner, Bloomberg‘s Lucas Shaw says Warner Bros. Discovery isn’t interested. The company is expected to stick with Netflix’s bid after the streaming platform shored up support among its board. Maybe it’ll bring back Succession for a bonus season to celebrate.