Last November, Nintendo hosted a Direct for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, sharing a new trailer and behind-the-scenes details about the sequel to 2023's box office hit. Even though the movie is only a few more months away, today the company announced a second livestream, which will presumably provide even more detail than the last. The stream will also air during the weekend, which is abnormal for Nintendo, on January 25 at 6 a.m. PT/9 a.m. ET. When it's live, you can watch it on Nintendo's YouTube channel, right here.

Additionally, the messaging around this Direct has been clear that it's strictly limited to information about the movie. If Mario fans were hoping for some kind of video game announcement or tie-in, they'll be disappointed; a description for the event on Nintendo's website includes the line "Please note that no game information will be included in this presentation."

The last look at The Super Mario Galaxy Movie showed us some of the movie's major new characters, including fan-favorite Rosalina (played by Brie Larson) and Bowser Jr. (played by Benny Safdie). It also included updates from executive producer Shigeru Miyamoto and Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri, like the fact that the studio was weeks away from putting the finishing touches on the movie. For more Super Mario Galaxy, you can check out the movie's reveal trailer, watch some gameplay of the newly released Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 bundle, or read Game Informer's review of The Super Mario Bros. Movie. 

Ryan Coogler, Michael B. Jordan, Raphael Saadiq and more of the 'Sinners' artists are speaking out about their monumental feat!

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Vampire Survivors took the gaming world by storm in 2022, thanks to its extremely effective hook, absurdly approachable gameplay, and a ridiculously low cost of entry. Though many games have borrowed elements from Vampire Survivors to great effect, fans of the genre have been waiting for a Survivors developer Poncle's next game. In November of last year, we learned of Vampire Crawlers, a spin-off title from Poncle that is a deck-building dungeon crawler. Today, we received more information about the anticipated spin-off title.

Described by Poncle as a "turboturn deckbuilder," Vampire Crawlers attempts to deliver turn-based combat without the trademark waiting. According to the developer, you don't need to pause for animations to complete before executing your next move, as the game stacks and executives your inputs in a way that minimizes downtime. The goal is to turn the often-slow tactical combat that sometimes typifies the genre into a more fast-paced and visually exciting experience. Poncle also shared that players can use gems to customize cards with various effects, ranging from damage multipliers to weapon evolutions.

You can see Vampire Crawlers in action through the first part of a new video series called "Let's Explore Vampire Crawlers," which will detail new gameplay mechanics with each subsequent episode.

Vampire Crawlers arrives on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC, iOS, and Android in 2026. It will receive a free demo on Xbox and on Steam as part of Steam Next Fest on February 23.

Financial Times:
Sources: Revolut scrapped plans to buy a US lender and will instead apply for a US banking license, betting Trump's lighter touch on approvals will be faster  —  UK-headquartered fintech had hoped to secure a banking charter through buying an American lender  —  Stephen Morris in Davos and Laith Al-Khalaf in London

Isabelle Bousquette / Wall Street Journal:
How Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google are testing AI models by having them play Pokémon Blue on Twitch to track a model's ability to reason and make decisions  —  Nintendo's original Pokémon games are becoming a popular and strangely effective way to test and benchmark new artificial-intelligence models.