It’s April Fools' Day, which means the next several hours will consist of scrutinizing every announcement to avoid being hoodwinked, bamboozled, and otherwise duped. However, this particular joke is legit. In the tradition of creating weird dating sims based on mature franchises, you can now find love in PUBG: Battlegrounds thanks to Winner Winner Romantic Dinner.

Winner Winner Romantic Dinner is a free visual novel set in a high school in the PUBG world. Players control a student preparing a school festival who can court pretty girls who are actually human personifications of iconic PUBG weapons. The Molotov cocktail, for example, transforms into a fiery red-headed girl, while the AKM takes the form of a stoic silver-haired love interest. The wacky adventure features branching storylines and multiple endings, with each conclusion unlocking a themed nameplate and Contraband Coupons, alongside other PUBG rewards. The game can even be played using voice recognition for those with microphones.

This is a good time to reiterate that this is a real thing.

However, it won’t be a permanent thing. Winner Winner Romantic Dinner will only be available until April 29. To play it, you’ll have to visit Krafton’s website and have a registered Krafton ID. The game can be played on PC and mobile. 

This is an example of the best kind of April Fools' joke, in that it’s a real thing people can engage with. It’s reminiscent of April Fools' 2023 when Sega released The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, a humorous (and quite good) visual novel mystery game that’s still available to play for free. Winner Winner Romantic Dinner seems like a cute way to celebrate April Fools', if for no other reason than knowing it’s a funny novelty that won’t be around forever.

Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch
Publisher: PlayStation Studios, MLB
Developer: Sony Interactive Entertainment San Diego Studio
Release: March 18, 2025
Rating: Everyone

Sports video game series, much like real-world sports franchises, tend to ebb and flow throughout the years. A stretch of a few consecutive good campaigns can be abruptly interrupted by an unexpected downturn plagued by unforced errors or a full-on rebuilding year. As you look at the sports gaming landscape, that has been true of nearly every series, but historically, MLB The Show has remained consistent throughout much of its existence. Though this year is more about staying the course through incremental improvements rather than massive innovations, MLB The Show 25 maintains the franchise's high standard of quality and entertainment, making for one of the better sports games of the last 12 months.

Stepping onto the diamond feels as good as it ever has. New elements like Ambush Hitting, which lets you guess where the pitcher is targeting for batting bonuses, and a new throw meter for fielders are good additional options, but after trying them, I reverted back to my settings from last year's game. Whether you're taking the mound, stepping into the batter's box, snagging a line drive out of the air, or timing your jump to second, I was hooked on maximizing each opportunity to either pad my player's stats or improve my team's chances in a close game. 

Those close games, which MLB The Show 25 masterfully engineers through its ever-calibrating Dynamic Difficulty setting, led to multiple white-knuckled affairs as I tried to maintain a minuscule lead into the late innings or battle back from the depths of defeat. Few feelings in gaming are worse than being fooled by a breaking ball in the bottom of the ninth to foil a good opportunity to take home the win, and watching my opponent's no-doubt homer soar over the fence after a poorly executed pitch instills a distinct sense of helplessness. Conversely, I lost count of the times I pumped my fist as I either drove in the winning run or my closer powered a 100 MPH fastball into the catcher's mitt to clinch the victory. 

Those thrills persist regardless of the mode. Short-term players can enjoy playing in exhibitions, online matches, or even the returning Retro mode that emulates the presentation and feeling of playing a '90s baseball video game, but I spent most of my time in the long-form modes. Taking control of my favorite team in hopes of capturing a championship is a highlight of any sports game for me, so I enjoyed getting into the weeds of Franchise mode. Controlling nearly every aspect of the organization from scouting and budgeting to player transactions and on-the-field action is a wannabe GM's dream come true; I particularly appreciate the new Free Agency board which lets you target specific players for negotiations. 

However, I continue to be drawn to March to October. This more narrative-focused mode strips away most of the management aspects and puts you on the field for impactful moments across multiple seasons. It's the best way to play through a season or two as fast as possible, and I love that you can convert your save file to the more in-depth Franchise mode in the offseason. 

After a World Series championship in March to October, my main attraction became Road to the Show. Here, you start a career as a young player and work your way up through the Minors en route to becoming a superstar in the Majors. This iteration continues the RPG-style progression of rewarding you for good plays and letting you unlock and upgrade situational Perks, which, in turn, lets you develop a player to your preferred play style. MLB The Show 25 offers microtransactions to boost your character, but it's nowhere near as in-your-face as the similar career modes found in NBA 2K and Madden. This year's iteration also adds a truncated college experience where you can opt to play a few games for one of eight universities. I appreciated being able to go to UCLA instead of the first team that drafted me, but the collegiate stint was so brief that it left no meaningful impact on my player's story.

MLB The Show 25's most unique mode in recent years has been Storylines, which shines a light on legends from The Negro Leagues. This third season highlighting this underrepresented corner of professional baseball history doesn't feature the household names of past years, but I loved learning about the three players through what essentially amounts to an interactive museum. Complete with historical footage and commentary from the president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, I relished familiarizing myself with the careers and legends of players like Cool Papa Bell and Bullet Rogan. My only criticism of this mode is that I was still hungry for more by the time I completed the brief selection of missions. 

I was able to satiate my desire for additional historical content through Moments, which lets you relive bygone eras with iconic players, but I'm disappointed that most of the historical content and players are locked behind the card-collection mode Diamond Dynasty. I would have loved the ability to play in Exhibition as specific teams from the past, like some of the classic Yankees teams or the late-'90s Mariners, but that option is sadly absent from this package. Instead, you can acquire many of these players in Diamond Dynasty as you build your custom team to complete various challenges to earn more rewards.

 

This year, Diamond Dynasty removes sets and seasons in favor of a year-round structure and adds a new roguelike board-game mode called Diamond Quest. Traversing and uncovering a board is a novel concept, but the same roguelike frustrations about losing progress permeate as I couldn't help but feel deflated each time my run came to an end. Cracking open packs of cards and upgrading your squad with some of history's best players has an immediately appealing hook, but I almost always chose to spend my time in the game in the more traditional modes.

MLB The Show 25's presentation is often incredible, even when you factor in various broadcast suites and commentators. A few glitches in the commentary plagued the title early on, but they've been largely patched out. Now that many of my commentary and animation gripes have been patched, my biggest immersion-breaking nitpick is how the foul-territory nets blink in and out. The broadcast package also looks and sounds great, though the noticeable absence of licensed stadium mainstays, as we see in franchises like Madden, detracts from the overall package. And when the crowd explodes into a crescendo during a big moment for the home team, it sounds artificial. However, custom cheers and jeers from the audience directed at the pitcher or batter by name are a nice touch. 

Though it's almost expected that MLB The Show will have another solid outing, I still can't help but smile when, after my first few games, I realize that baseball is back and we once again have a terrific representation of that in video game form. Whether I was leading my team to the World Series in March to October, charting my player's career in Road to the Show, or learning about the game's history in Storylines, I continually needed to pull myself away from playing "just one more." MLB The Show 25 delivers perhaps the most well-rounded package of any of the mainstream sports video games, making for a title I first fired up during Spring Training and could very well still be playing when the World Series rolls around.

Score: 8.5

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Eidos-Montréal, known for its work developing games like Guardians of the Galaxy and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, announced on social media today that it was letting go "up to" 75 staff members. According to the post, the layoffs are due to the fact that the company has completed one of its "mandates," and presumably has no other work to reassign the employees to.

"Today, we informed our studio staff that we are going to let go up to 75 valuable members, as one of our mandates is coming to an end," the statement reads. "It is not a reflection of their dedication or skills, but unfortunately, we don’t have the capacity to entirely reallocate them to our other ongoing projects and services.

"These very talented, highly experienced experts are going to enter the employment market, and we are working to support them through this transition."

Fable, set for release in 2026.

The statement goes on to mention that, despite laying off people related to that former, unnamed mandate, "Eidos-Montréal stays committed to deliver its other projects currently in development." The only public project the developer is currently working on is Fable, which it's assisting the main team at Playground on, but it's unclear whether that's a project Eidos-Montréal will continue to work on or the mandate it recently completed.

Over the past few years, layoffs have decimated the gaming workforce, affecting tens of thousands of people. The last news story posted on Game Informer before our closure last year was about 200 people losing their jobs at Bungie. On the other hand, one of the first stories written upon our return was about the creation of a gaming industry-wide union.

As always, the hearts of Game Informer's staff are with those affected by these layoffs, as well as those still at the studio.

Jagex has revealed RuneScape: Dragonwilds, a new open-world survival game set within the popular RuneScape universe. The game is slated to launch in Steam Early Access very soon.

Developed in Unreal Engine 5, Dragonwilds unfolds on the lost continent of Ashenfall and tasks players – either alone or with up to three friends – to discover ancient secrets, battle recognizable RuneScape enemies, and, most importantly, survive. That means a robust crafting system allows for base-building and players can forge new gear and spells. 

So far, Jagex has only released two brief teaser videos showcasing the environments and brief snippets of gameplay. A developer Q&A provides a little more detail on what Dragonwilds entails, which we've posted below. 

Jagex stresses that the game is a traditional open-world game rather than an MMO, and features quests, recognizable NPCs, classic RuneScape skills, and, as the subtitle suggests, plenty of dragons. Check out the screenshots gallery below. 

 

RuneScape: Dragonwilds is releasing on Steam Early Access this Spring. 

In a video interview with Bloomberg last Friday, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick discussed, among other topics, Grand Theft Auto VI. Although he, unsurprisingly, doesn’t spill the beans on the release date, Zelnick provided some insight into Take-Two and Rockstar’s reasoning for keeping fans waiting. 

At the end of the interview, Zelnick was asked the million-dollar question: when is GTA VI launching and why is Take-Two/Rockstar keeping it such a big secret? Zelnick responded:

“The anticipation for that title may be the greatest anticipation I’ve ever seen for an entertainment property. And I’ve been around the block a few times, and I’ve been in every entertainment business there is. We want to maintain the anticipation and the excitement. And we do have competitors who will describe their release schedule for years in advance, and we’ve found that the better thing to do is to provide marketing materials relatively close to the release window in order to create that excitement, on the one hand, and balance the excitement on that anticipation. And we don’t always get it exactly right, but that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Earlier in the interview, Zelnick was asked to explain the 12-year wait between GTA V, released in 2013, and GTA VI, providing additional context for Rockstar’s release cadence:

“Well, there are really two reasons,” says Zelnick. “We set an intention to rest our intellectual properties. So some of our competitors come to market very regularly, maybe even annually, with their titles. We only annualize our sports entertainment titles. For our non-sports titles, we think you need to create enormous anticipation, on the one hand. And of course on the other hand, it takes a long time to develop these big robust experiences. 

Rockstar Games seeks perfection in what they do, and perfection’s a pretty high bar. It takes a long time. And the reflection of that approach is in the success of Grand Theft Auto V, which has actually excelled in three console generations, which is extraordinary…so think of the high bar that that creates for us, of course, but much more so for the consumer.”

Grand Theft Auto VI was announced in December 2023. Set in a modern-day Vice City (which is modeled after Miami and South Florida), it appears to star two protagonists, including the series' first female lead, although Rockstar has not yet divulged details on these characters or their relationship with each other. The reveal trailer became a massive success, garnering over 100 million views in just a few days and setting a YouTube record for most views within a 24-hour period. 

Grand Theft Auto VI is slated to release sometime this year on consoles. A PC version has yet to be confirmed, though if it does launch on the platform, it will likely arrive later. For more on the game, you can watch Game Informer’s resident Floridians provide a humorous play-by-play analysis of the reveal trailer.