One of 2023's best Castlevania-style platformers was Gal Guardians: Demon Purge from PQUBE. As such, there's a good chance that the sequel, Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark, will end up knocking our socks off this year too. We'll find out when the digital version comes along at the end of March. Physical collectors won't be left in the cold, however, because the physical PlayStation and Switch editions now have a firm June 12 release date.

While there won't be a Double Dragon game in Arc System Works' upcoming Super Technos World: River City & Technos Arcade Classics, the Japanese publisher does have something special in store for Double Dragon fans this year... Double Dragon Revive, the slick 3D reboot of the classic co-op beat 'em up, is due out in October. Preorders have opened up and include a free bonus game. To further hype up aficionados, Arc System Works is releasing a series of developer diaries with lots of behind-the-scenes details and images.

Long ago, Technos was one of the big Japanese developers, gifting the Double Dragon series and many other fine games to the world. Sadly, the studio closed its doors in 1996. Happily, however, Arc System Works bought the Technos name and library in 2015 and has produced several quality games since then. 2020's Double Dragon & Kunio-kun Retro Brawler Bundle compiled an impressive selection of Technos' NES games. This year, Arc System Works will follow up with Super Technos World: River City & Technos Arcade Classics.

Even though we haven't covered Killing Floor 3 all that much, please don't mistake that for a lack of enthusiasm. Killing Floor 2 is one of my all-time favorite co-op shooters, and I thought the Killing Floor 3 closed beta was pretty terrific. Some other players must've had a different impression, however, providing lots of constructive criticism to Tripwire, the series developer. Hence, Killing Floor 3 has been delayed from its original March 25 release date to a nebulous "later in 2025" release window. Darn it!

The original Gal Guardians: Demon Purge is a fantastic Castlevania-style co-op platformer, so it's great news that it'll soon have a sequel.  Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark will arrive on consoles and PC in March - not too far from now! What's more, PQUBE has released a free demo on Steam that allows players to experience the opening of the game and its 2-player local co-op support.

As a part of the Steam Next Fest event, Forever Entertainment has released a free demo of THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 2: Remake on Steam. The demo allows 1-2 local players to try the first level of the remake. Join James Taylor and Gary Stewart as they fight stop an army of undead zombies and monsters from taking over the world.

It's a rare treat to see a game that was previously non-cooperative gain co-op support. That's just what happened to Tetris Forever this week. The third game in Digital Eclipse's Gold Master Series (which also contains the delightfully quirky Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story) is a collection of new and classic Tetris games from throughout the franchise's history, plus documentary content. The arrival of Super Tetris, which supports 2-player local co-op, pushes the game count up to 21. That's a lotta Tetris!

 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind has received a few updates since launching last year, tweaking the gameplay and making for a better experience. The most recent update does that and goes one step farther by adding a new skill point system to differentiate the various Power Rangers and give players upgrades to work towards. If that's not enough, Digital Eclipse and Atari have announced that online play will be getting an upgrade later this year as well.

Digital game releases are the primary distribution model for indie games, but that doesn't mean that some gamers don't want physical versions. Those guys like to look at their cases on the shelf, you know! And some of them will be pleased to learn that Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind from Digital Eclipse and Atari will be getting physical releases on May 30. I say "some" because only the PlayStation 5 and Switch versions will get physical releases. Everybody else will need to grab the game digitally.

I don't want to get too big for my britches or anything, but sometimes we games journalists have a lot of sway in the industry. For instance, we just published our Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 co-op review today, and on the very same day, D3 Publisher finally updates the Steam version of Earth Defense Force 6. Coincidence? I think not! The update fixes a killer crash that afflicted some AMD Radeon users, reduces load times, and more. You're welcome, EDF fans! ;)

Earth Defense Force spin-off games have been hit or miss. EDF: Insect Armageddon wasn’t much of a game, and EDF: Iron Rain was too tough for its own good. EDF: World Brothers, however, struck the right balance between new ideas and classic EDF gameplay – not to mention adding the fun of crossover characters and enemies from EDFs past. T...

Arcade-style basketball games like NBA Jam are good, but how do we make them better? With robots, of course! It's a formula as old as time itself. Jollypunch Games has used this common knowledge to create RoboDunk. The robotic basketball game has just arrived on consoles and Steam, and it even features 2-player drop in, drop out local co-op.