Gaming: Borderlands 3 trailer & release date; Mario’s Lost Levels; more

After revealing at last week’s GDC that Borderlands 3 is real and it’s coming, Gearbox has just taken the wraps off a proper announcement trailer for the next installment in the vault-hunting franchise that’s pretty much come to define the whole looter-shooter genre.

The clip comes with a deluge of new looks and info about how Borderlands 3 will expand the deliciously gritty, lowbrow fantasy setting of Pandora and the unexplored worlds beyond, including our first introduction to four new playable characters. The split-screen mode for two players looks like it’ll also be returning, too, and what’s more, the release date for all this trashy goodness won’t have us waiting until Claptrap’s bolts rust over.

Check it out, and then stick around on the other side for the details:

Those two smirking baddies? They’re your antagonists the Calypso Twins, and they’ll be marshaling all the inventively wicked enemy forces Borderlands can dream up to take on whichever character you pick from the new batch of playable Vault Hunters. That new group includes gun specialist Moze; FL4K, an animal whisperer who can unleash a growing menagerie of fighting beasts; gear and tech specialist Zane; and Amara, the melee brawler who summons those extra arms in the trailer for some next-level pummeling.

Gearbox is already teasing its May 1 livestream as the next chance to get an even deeper look. But thanks to the latest round of info, we’ve already got plenty to tide us over through the short wait until the game arrives this fall. Slated to debut for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, the loots be thine when Borderlands 3 arrives on Sept. 13. 

Switch Online members are in for a one-two-three punch of retro awesomeness, thanks to Nintendo’s April lineup of completely free downloadable games from the NES era.

First up is Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, a game that American fans never got to play when it originally released in Japan as Super Mario Bros. 2 (not to be confused with the same-named NES game we got here in the west). “Mario fans will appreciate the familiar look and feel of the game, while finding that its updated gameplay creates an entirely new challenge,” Nintendo says, teasing new (for us) enemies and challenges like “Poison Mushrooms, backward Warp Zones and the occasional wind gust (which can help or hinder your progress).”

Then there’s Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream, the boxing game that old-school NES owners knew and loved, back in the day, as Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! — before Nintendo’s license to use Tyson’s intimidating likeness expired. The Mr. Dream version arrives on the Switch with scrappy up-and-comer Little Mac, and he’ll fight his way through the retro ranks of all those original contenders: Glass Joe, King Hippo, and more.

Finally, there’s Star Soldier, the arcade-style, vertical scrolling shooter that lobs 16 stages’ worth of increasingly chaotic challenges as you fight your way forward to Starbrain — the supercomputer that’s pulling the strings for the galactic invasion you’re trying to stop. 

All three games will appear April 10 as free-to-play blasts from the past for Switch Online members. 

In a cool merging of the fictional Call of Duty universe with a worthy real-life cause, the nonprofit Call of Duty Endowment revealed this week that it successfully landed post-service employment for more than 10,000 veterans last year. 

Founded a decade ago by Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, the organization has put the Call of Duty banner to good use, placing veterans in jobs that, according to the endowment, offered an average starting salary last year of $58,250. So far, the Call of Duty Endowment reports finding jobs for more than 54,000 veterans over the course of its ten-year run.

There’s never a time when a Call of Duty game isn’t a click away, and you can pick up the latest — Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 — for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.