Video game preview: Familiar franchises, action-packed entries hit consoles this spring
New flowers – and new video games – are blooming all season long.
Video game lovers can enjoy a plethora of new and exciting titles that are sure to keep them engaged as the days get longer. Whether they’re interested in action or mystery, there is a game for everyone in these coming months.
Read on for the Daily Bruin’s curated video game recommendations this spring.
Pokémon Champions (April 8)
Pokémon fans can catch ‘em all this April.
On April 8, Pokémon Champions released on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 and features familiar characters in a new, battle-focused format. Pokémon Champions includes a Single Battle and Double Battle format, allowing players to collaborate with friends or fight solo. Players can select between Ranked Battles, Casual Battles and Private Battles – through Ranked Battles, players can accumulate Victory Points, which allow them to obtain and train more Pokémon.
Pokémon Champions allows players to build their fighting teams in multiple ways. Players can use Pokémon Home – an app on mobile devices and consoles that allows players to store their Pokémon – to import visiting fighters and accumulate new Pokémon through acquiring Victory Points. Unlike past games, players can also acquire Pokémon by visiting the Roster Ranch, which allows users to purchase from a list of random Pokémon rather than collecting them.
After the release of Pokémon Champions, fans are fighting to bring Pokémon new and old into battle.
– Julia Kinion
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Mouse: P.I. for Hire (April 16)
Get your mouse traps locked and loaded for this cartoonish noir adventure.
In Mouse: P.I. For Hire, which released April 16, players don the hat of private investigator Jack Pepper as they battle and sleuth their way through the corrupt city of Mouseburg. A first-person shooter, the game features black and white hand-drawn rubber hose animation and a 1930s atmosphere reminiscent of the 2017 run and gun game Cuphead. Its original big band jazz soundtrack and robust city setting – which includes levels ranging from film studios to opera houses to sewers – add to the game’s distinct retro vibe compared to other boomer shooters.
In addition to action-packed combat, players will also be able to uncover the detective story at the heart of the game, meeting rodent allies and enemies along the way. Trailers show over ten weapons and multiple collectible power-ups available for constantly changing gameplay, including freeze rays, stun abilities and paint guns.
With its vintage twist to the shooter genre, Mouse: P.I. For Hire promises a mystery that, while full of cheese-lovers, is far from cheesy.
– Gwendolyn Lopez
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Invincible VS (April 30)
From the Himalayas to the Moon, players can face the most powerful warriors the universe has ever seen.
On April 30, gamers and fans of the Amazon Prime Video adaption of the comics series “Invincible” can engage in brutal 3v3 combat game as a team of their favorite superheroes at classic locations from the story. Soon to be available on Xbox Series X/S, Playstation 5 and PC, the long awaited Invincible VS was developed by Quarter Up, a subsidiary of publisher Skybound Games, and is expected to be full of high-adrenaline, canon-authentic battles.
Invincible VS was developed by the same team that worked on Killer Instinct, and the 3v3 gameplay format has led to comparisons with popular fighting games such as Injustice and Dragon Ball FighterZ. Most of the characters in the tag-fighting game are voiced by their respective actors from the Amazon series, as teased by a trailer in June of 2025 featuring characters Invincible, Bulletproof, Atom Eve and three Viltrumites as playable characters. The immersive to-the-death action captures destruction in real-time and lifts devastating attacks directly from the show and comics.
Making the ambitious leap from screen to console, Invincible VS will launch players into Mark Grayson’s universe, where the mightiest heroes must unleash vicious attacks to survive.
– Emily Berkowitz
