Batman Beyond and Static Shock are teaming up again, the spiritual successor to Patapon finally has a release date, and there’s always a bigger PC gaming handheld, apparently. It’s Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku‘s daily roundup of gaming news, culture, and other ephemera. But before we begin, there’s an important update. Our hoagie hero from earlier in the week? He was caught and charged with “forcefully” throwing a Subway sandwich at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent. So much for eating fresh.
Can your Switch 2 do this?
No, no it can not. As reported by VideoCardz, a DIY modder posting on Bilibili took a RTX 4090 laptop, stripped it down, and repurposed it into a handheld. It sports a 12.5-inch display and a Core i9 processor, plus 64GB of DDR5 memory. The existing cooling system apparently vents enough heat to keep the GPU below 160 degrees. I don’t think this one is going to win any awards for battery life, but running Horizon Forbidden West and other PS5 games at 4K in your hands is no small feat. I’m mostly impressed with the appearance, which has a certain appeal despite being closer to a contestant on Robot Wars than a mass market device. It makes Acer’s Nitro Blaze 11 look almost normal by comparison.
On whether Tekken 8 will get ported
With Street Fighter 6 being a launch game for Switch 2 (and a decent version at that), it seems like a no brainer for Bandai Namco’s 3D fighter to make the jump as well. Is a Tekken 8 port already in the works or still something fans will have to wait for? “It’s an interesting option, and not totally off the table,” series director Katsuhiro Harada said at Evo earlier this month (via Eurogamer). “But it would require a lot of work on the game to get it running on that hardware.”
But it sounds like Harada still hasn’t made a decision. “From a business standpoint, [the Switch 2] is doing quite well, so it would be a very good business decision if you’re trying to get a bigger audience. But the amount of work that would have to be done on the game makes it not a very easy decision. At this point in time, there are no…(laughs)…there is nothing to announce.”
While Tekken Tag Tournament 2 was on Wii U, no numbered entry in the series has ever appeared on a Nintendo platform. Harada also recently said he doesn’t think it would make sense to make a new Tekken Tag, with it being more practical to just add that as a mode to the existing game.
Starbucks asks customers in Korea to stop treating it like an office
❗️어메이징 스타벅스❗️
스타벅스 코리아 본사는 매장에서 개인용 데스크톱 컴퓨터를 비롯해 프린터·칸막이·멀티탭의 사용을 제한키로 결정하고, 전국 매장에 공지를 했답니다.
멀티탭을 막 써서 컴퓨터나 프린터를 쓰고, 테이블 위에 가림막까지 설치한다니!
너무 심한 거 아닌가요? pic.twitter.com/ueZRyNrifj
— UNICON 𝕏 (@UNICONTSLA) August 7, 2025
South Korea is famous for its PC bang internet cafes, but what if you have the equipment already and just need a place to plug in? According to The Korea Herald (via PC Gamer), customers have been bringing full-on office setups to their local Starbucks, complete in some extreme cases with printers and cubicle dividers. As a result, Starbucks stores in the country have been putting out gentle notices on tables reminding patrons that it’s not a free WeWork space. I’m going to try to throw my next LAN party at Burger King.
Tales news is on the way, including a likely remaster of Xillia
Bandai Namco Europe apparently let slip a thumbnail on YouTube for an upcoming showcase seemingly scheduled for August 18 that would include updates on the Tales RPG series. Included in the quickly removed screenshot was a reference to a rumored Tales of Xillia remaster. The 2013 game came out at the tail end of the PS3’s lifecycle and was largely well-received by fans, minus some really clunky English voice acting.
Batman/Static: Beyond is a six-issue series coming this fall
Comics are still one of the hardest mediums to keep up with, but anything Batman Beyond-related always has my attention. So I was excited to see DC announced a new limited-run series with Terry McGinnis and Static Shock’s Virgil Hawkins teaming up for the second time to face new techno-infused threats together. And that was before I realized that Kotaku alum Evan Narcisse was writing it with artist Nikolas Draper-Ivey!
“This story is intended to be a commentary on our overreliance on technology and the imminent dangers becoming complacent and too comfortable using AI to substitute our own imagination and human ingenuity,” the artist said. “We now use our watches to find our phones, we use our phones to connect to everything else. We don’t rely on our own memories. We rely on technology to remember for us. That deeply concerns me. I worry that we are getting to a point where if all these things were to be suddenly taken away from us in an instant—at the rate we’re going now, humanity will be at a huge disadvantage.”
Ratatan finally has a real release date
The Patapon remaster came out earlier this summer and was great, but what I’ve really been waiting for is the spiritual successor from the original designer himself. Crowdfunded project Ratatan will deliver that when it comes to Early Access on PC on September 19. There are so many ways the game could fail to live up to the hype, but I’m looking forward to seeing what creator Hiroyuki Kotani has been cooking up either way.
ICYMI
Watch This:
You’ve heard about Dark Souls no-hit runs, but YouTuber ymfah decided to pull off an “all-hits” playthrough of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, completing the game without parrying or dodging a single attack. It’s incredibly painful to watch.