As announced last Friday, Nintendo has released the final trailer for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie today ahead of its premiere next month (and, strangely, before Mar10 Day tomorrow). Nintendo also revealed some surprising casting choices for the remaining big characters.

The last trailer gives us a look at Yoshi in action as Mario’s faithful steed, Bowser Jr. joining up with his angry papa, and a surprising amount of Super Mario Bros. 2 representation. Check it out below. 

The Direct also revealed the following actors will voice Yoshi, Wart, and Honey Queen:

Yoshi will be voiced by Donald Glover, AKA Childish Gambino, the actor/rapper best known for his roles in Community, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and The Lion King.

Luis Guzmán will portray Wart, the evil frog king best known as the big bad in Super Mario Bros. 2 (U.S. version). Guzmán’s long list of credits includes TV series like Oz and Wednesday and films such as Carlito’s Way, Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love, and Traffic.

Lastly, Honey Queen, ruler of the Honey Hive galaxy, will be played by Issa Rae. Rae is perhaps best known as the star of HBO’s Insecure, but she has also appeared in films such as Little, Barbie, and American Fiction.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hits theaters on April 1. You can watch the first trailer here and the second trailer here. 

EA has laid off an unknown number of employees across the various teams that make up Battlefield Studios, which recently launched Battlefield 6 last year, IGN reports.

According to IGN’s Rebekah Valentine, staff members from Dice, Criterion, Ripple Effect, and Motive Studios were let go as part of what EA calls a “realignment.” These teams will remain operational as they continue supporting Battlefield 6, which was the best-selling game of 2025 in the US and the best launch in franchise history.

When asked to specify the number of employees and roles affected by these cuts, an EA spokesperson told IGN, “We’ve made select changes within our Battlefield organization to better align our teams around what matters most to our community. Battlefield remains one of our biggest priorities, and we’re continuing to invest in the franchise, guided by player feedback and insights from Battlefield Labs."

Battlefield 6

Since its launch, Battlefield 6 has received a battle royale mode and other updates, with EA publishing a three-month content roadmap last month following a delay of its Season 2 launch. The layoffs also come a few months after the untimely death of Battlefield head Vince Zampella in a car accident last December. 

Today's news marks the first instance of mass layoffs at EA this year. 2025 saw the publisher shut down Cliffhanger Games and cancel its in-development Black Panther game, and lay off 100 employees at Apex Legends developer, Respawn Entertainment. In 2024, EA cut over 650 jobs company-wide. EA is currently in the process of being acquired for $55 billion by an investor group comprised of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners that will take the company private. 

For more on Battlefield 6, check out our review. 

[Source: IGN]

Platform: PlayStation 5, PC
Publisher: Panic Inc.
Developer: House House

Confetti, friends, paint and noisemakers; a sunset over the ocean after solving a series of puzzles. Big Walk is filled with little bits of interactivity, interspersed throughout a wide landmass of structures and mysteries. It is a world you want to trek across, stopping and pausing along the way, with a good group of friends.

I spent some time exploring Big Walk in a preview session at publisher Panic's Portland offices, as a preview of the team's plans to eventually open the same playtest up to the public. After a brief introduction, I sat down at a computer terminal – complete with immersive hood and lights – and spent around the next 90 minutes or so trying to figure out Big Walk with three pals.

Big Walk is, as developer House House describes it, a "walker talker." (I did ask about the overused term "friendslop," though its inception postdates the start of development on Big Walk; they like the friend part, but not so much the slop.) You and up to 11 friends are spawned into a room on an island and let loose. From there, the world is yours to explore. A jungle gym-like area taught us basics like sliding, lifting, and pointing, and then we could go wherever our hearts collectively desired.

House House tells me the concept of Big Walk actually came from a desire to spend time together during a time when most couldn't: the COVID-19 lockdowns.

"So this is 2020. We're all stuck inside our houses, not seeing each other," game developer Nico Disseldorp says. "And the way that we're connecting most is by playing video games with each other a couple times a week, and getting this kind of sense of togetherness from that."

As House House wrapped up production on the two-player mode for its previous project, Untitled Goose Game, Big Walk felt natural. It spoke to the yearning they felt for connection and togetherness.

Setting out, my avatar – which we dubbed birds, though there's no confirmation whether or not they are birds – jogged alongside my three friends, and we came across a giant crane with a clamped object and button at the top. After a few earnest attempts at knocking the object down with whatever makeshift projectiles we could find, we stacked up and made a bird-tower, letting the top bird tap the button and un-clamp our objective: a gourd-like item. Some confetti shot out, and we celebrated.

This was an instructive puzzle for understanding how House House plans to scale Big Walk. There are three "modes" that groups can play in: two-player, three-player, and four-or-more, up to a maximum of 12 players. For two players, the crane might be a lower height than it would be for four or more. Broadly, you can expect a similar experience across the game, but puzzles might be altered to accommodate the player count for duos or trios.

As for why groups are capped out at four players? Well, on the one hand, House House says coordinating five or more people started to get unwieldy. But with a big group, players could start to split up and go off on their own. They could have jobs, or some could simply watch others complete a task, helping from the sidelines. Groups could splinter off, complete a challenge, then come back with the reward and a story to tell the other.

House House says the team even wants to encourage splitting up. Some challenges require players to form small groups and complete puzzles across vast expanses, and some tools naturally encourage splitting up by letting players keep in contact. A whiteboard or fireworks, for example, could help with nonverbal communication across vast distances.

 

Comms were surprisingly expressive and adaptive in my playtest, too. While proximity voice chat was the natural option, the text chat and other communication options – even just pointing and gesturing with your avatar – worked incredibly well, and added physicality to our vocal discussions, as we could point things out to friends while talking about them. Some puzzles even revolve around limited communications, where players might not be able to talk to each other and have to gesture, or use alternative means.

"Once you have this rich way to communicate with each other, taking away limited aspects of that and making you use the others is actually a really good way to get you thinking creatively and get you kind of playing and having fun, and like exploring the boundaries of those puppets," game developer Stuart Gillespie-Cook says.

Also, you'll need to bring your own friends. While House House and Panic are planning a launch later this year for PC and PlayStation 5, with cross-play between the platforms, you won't be able to matchmake into other people. You'll have to invite friends to play with you. House House says they imagined Big Walk as a group game, similar to a recurring Dungeons & Dragons session, that you might play for a few hours at a time over several sessions.

My time in Big Walk flitted by in what felt like minutes. The little interactive bits, like music stations or fiddly tools, were a blast. The puzzles were pitch-perfect, often requiring us to group up, discuss, and collaborate for a solution. Just as often, though, I loved the little moments of talking and walking. We'd start making jokes, or discussing what we thought we'd need to do next, or even just making funny noises and singing. It really did feel like a Big Walk with some pals in a virtual space.

"The walk's not there for no reason," Disseldorp says. "That's the negative space, that's the space for you to have your own fun and do your own thing in. So everything's nicely far away, and it's enough time for in between for you to kind of get a break, catch your breath, start talking to each other again, rather than this kind of unrelenting, 'okay, what's the next challenge?'"

Big Walk carries forward a lot of the interactivity and playfulness you might expect from the makers of Untitled Goose Game, but it understands the desire for a collaborative game so well. It's not just about the shared achievements and challenges, but about the virtual third space you can share together. It's easily become one of my most anticipated releases, and I'm eager to take a Big Walk with some friends later on this year.

This week on The Game Informer Show, Alex, Brian, and Kyle sit down to discuss the latest crossover in the Poké-verse, Pokémon Pokopia. Before that, though, the trio takes a little bit of time to discuss the recent Nintendo Indie World showcase, and some of the exciting announcements there.

After the break, Kyle takes the mic to declare his feelings on Scott Pilgrim EX. Does the beat 'em up hold up enough for an encore? It's a short but sweet episode, so grab a cold drink and enjoy!

Watch the video version:

Listen to "Pokémon Pokopia + Scott Pilgrim EX Reviews" on Spreaker.

Follow our hosts:

• Alex Van Aken (@itsvanaken)
• Brian Shea (@brianpshea)
• Kyle Hilliard (@kylehilliard)

Jump to a specific segment:

• 00:00 - Intro
• 03:02 - Nintendo Indie World Discussion
• 07:42 - Pokémon Pokopia
• 40:08 - Scott Pilgrim EX

Welcome to Friday! Between responding to all my LinkedIn notifications from folks congratulating me on my one-year anniversary at Game Informer, I have put together our weekly posting of weekend games to play. Of course, I have been with Game Informer since 2011, but it’s a complicated story, and I appreciate all the friendly, if not entirely accurate, well-wishes. Also, the important detail is that it has been a year since our grand return last year, and we’re feeling good!

Which all leads us to this. It's time for the weekend and our usual recommendation of games and things you should check out! But before that, here's a recap of the biggest stories of the week:

• Nirvanna The Band And Wii Shop Update Day Co-Creator Matt Johnson On How Video Games Are His ‘Single Greatest Influence’
• Pokémon Pokopia Review – A Pleasant Paradise
• Scott Pilgrim EX Review – Genre Aptitude
• New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma Discusses Next Gen Console Codenamed Project Helix
• Ubisoft Gives Updates On Assassin's Creed Franchise, Including Hexe And Invictus, Alongside Black Flag Remake Tease
• Highguard Is Shutting Down For Good Next Week