Good morning and good day. Welcome to Wednesday, perhaps the most meh day of the week. You ain’t not Friday, but you aren’t as bad as Monday. Anyway, welcome to latest edition of Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku‘s daily roundup of gaming news and culture. Today, we’re looking at a cool new box set from Nintendo, checking in on the Game Awards, getting updates for games you can’t buy anymore, and remembering how cool Day of the Tentacle was and still is in 2025.
Nintendo’s $180+ Breath of the Wild vinyl soundtrack release is a test
On October 29, Nintendo announced a new 8-LP Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild soundtrack box set featuring 134 remastered songs. The newly announced soundtrack will be available in June 2026 and can be pre-ordered starting today. The box set will also include archival artwork created by the development team.
This is a rare move for Nintendo, which normally doesn’t release physical soundtracks for its games in the United States. But this new box set, as well as a cheaper double LP offering up 34 select tracks from the game, is being used as a way to “gauge” how many people over here want something like this, according to Nintendo.
“In the Japanese market, CD is still a pretty prominent format there, and they do a lot of video game soundtracks on CD in Japan, and they’ve been doing that for years and years,” Nintendo VP of player & product experience Bill Trinen told Variety. “Here in the U.S., we haven’t been releasing much in the way of physical soundtracks at all. And so partly, this is a little bit about us trying to gauge and understand what is the demand for physical soundtracks in the United States. Part of this is also simply an interest in trying to bring video game music to a broader audience, and it’s part of a few steps that we’ve taken.”
Apple is now on the Game Awards advisory board
Apple’s gaming push continues, with the tech giant now becoming a member of the Game Awards advisory board alongside companies like Rockstar Games, Sony, EA, and Epic. VGC spotted the news via the official Game Awards website, which was recently updated to include Apple on the list of board members. To be clear, the advisory board doesn’t have any involvement in what games are nominated, or which ones win. So Apple won’t be helping pick this year’s Game of the Year at Geoff Keighley’s annual trailer extravaganza (featuring some awards), but it will be rubbing elbows with more of the gaming industry. How many Apple Arcade commercials will we see this year? My bet is at least two!
Super Mario 3D All-Stars gets another Switch 2 update, still not for sale again
Remember Super Mario 3D All-Stars? It was that awesome collection of 3D Mario games—SM64, Galaxy, and Sunshine—that Nintendo launched in 2020. And then stopped selling after just six months as part of a limited-time celebration of the franchise’s 35th anniversary. Five years later, Nintendo still hasn’t made the games available again to buy on its store (well, except for Galaxy which recently got a remaster that costs $40 all by itself). But if you do own 3D All-Stars, good news: It just got another update to help it run better on Switch 2. This keeps happening, with the collection getting an update in July, and it’s extremely frustrating. Why is this package not available to buy on Switch and Switch 2 in 2025? Come on, Nintendo, let people give you money.
The Resident Evil 2 remake has now sold over 16 million copies
The best-selling Resident Evil game continues to sell well. Resident Evil 2 remake has now sold over 16 million copies, according to Capcom’s latest financial report. But interestingly, Resident Evil 7 Biohazard is catching up. This latest report shows the soft reboot of the horror franchise has now reached 15.9 million copies sold. With Resident Evil 7 making the leap to Switch 2 in 2026, it’s likely that this entry might overtake the RE2 remake to become the biggest game in the survival horror series.
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