Gaming: Friday the 13th hits the Switch; Trine 4 trailer; more

Unlike its most recent Nintendo predecessors, the Switch is making a name for itself not only as a place to get your G-rated Mario and Zelda game on, but also as a versatile landing spot for grown-up games like Skyrim, Doom, and South Park: The Fractured But Whole.

That trend definitely won’t change with the news that Friday the 13th: The Game is making the cut on Nintendo’s hybrid console. Via Variety, Jason Voorhees will arrive on the Switch this spring in the form of Friday the 13th: The Game Ultimate Slasher Switch Edition.

The Switch version reportedly will gather all the DLC and original content from Friday the 13th into one bundle. The Kickstarter-funded game made its initial appearance on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Check out the game’s straight-from-the ‘80s launch trailer, which developer Gun Media teased back when Friday the 13th launched in April of 2017:

With a legal battle over ownership rights clouding development plans for more Friday content, the all-in-one-place version that’s heading to the Switch might be the current slasher cycle’s best dying gasp for now. Gun Media already has ended work on any further DLC, amid an ongoing rights claim from original Friday the 13th film writer Victor Miller.

The report doesn’t mention a specific release date when Friday the 13th: The Game Ultimate Slasher Switch Edition will be arriving this spring, so be on the lookout: Jason could jump out and surprise us in a heartbeat.

Trine may be growing up for its fourth installment, if the just-released announcement trailer for Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince is anything to go by. That doesn’t mean developer Frozenbyte’s whimsical fantasy setting is giving way to something more mature; rather, as you can see in the clip, it just means the enhanced-2D side scroller has never looked this good:

This time out, the series’ three heroes — Amadeus the Wizard, Pontius the Knight, and Zoya the Thief — are teaming up on a quest to save Selius, a “haunted prince” whose gift for magic has also created a rift that allows monsters to invade his dreams. Trine 4 also will introduce both online and local multiplayer features, with room for up to four players at once.

For now, Frozenbyte is only teasing that the game’s arriving this fall, so stay tuned for updates. When it does arrive, Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince will land on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PC.

Fortnite may have lifted the battle royale phenomenon to mainstream heights, but making the world’s most popular free-to-play co-op game comes with a side effect: It opens the door for other battle royale games looking to become the next big thing.

If Fortnite opened the door, then no recent game has blasted through it with the momentum of Apex Legends. In just one month since EA and Respawn’s Titanfall spinoff made its surprise debut, it’s already racked up more than 50 million players, according to Respawn’s  Vince Zampella, who promises there’s much more to come:

At last count, Epic Games’ Fortnite is still the undisputed king of battle royale, with a reported 200 million player accounts. But thanks in no small part to its own role in elevating the genre’s overall popularity — as well as solid praise for Apex Legends from gaming critics and fans alike — the new kid in town is looking more and more like a permanent resident.

Unlike Fortnite, though, Apex Legends is meant to be experienced on a bigger screen: Its entire install base has been established only via console and PC release, and there’s no mobile version. You can check out what all the buzz is about now: Apex Legends is available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.