April Fools' Day has arrived, and with it, our favorite gaming companies and figures have sent out a slew of fun little goofs and gaffs to keep players entertained and on their toes. From silly joke videos from the Pokémon Company and Capcom to full-on fake game announcements from ShiftUp and CD Projekt Red, the gaming industry has had plenty of gamers fooled, chuckling and definitely not panicking to pre-order.
In the spirit of the season, tons of other games have added April Fools-inspired modes and events that significantly shake up their gameplay. Fortnite’s temporary "Big Head" mode is a fun spin on a strange, long-gone gaming trope, while games like Minecraft and PEAK have added funny and chaotic features to spice things up and offer plenty of laughs.
Here’s a fun recap for the gaming pranks and jokes this April Fool’s Day.
Gaming Goofs at a Glance: April Fool’s Day 2026
Mega Starmie Ran, Ran So Far Away
Nier: Cosmic Horror Isn’t Real, Which is the Real Horror for the Fans
Pragmata? More like Prag-Mega Man!
Goddess of Victory: Nikke 2 Releases for the Player’s Imagination in 2036
CD Projekt Red Are Horsin’ Around With the New ROACH Controller
Warhammer 40,000 Announced a Musical that Sounded Too Good to be True
Other Pranks and Goofs for April Fool’s Day 2026
April Fools-Themed Updates
⚫︎ Furries Rejoice, Palworld is Letting Players Date Pals Now!
⚫︎ Pokopia’s Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Sudowoodo
⚫︎ A Game so PEAK You’ll Kick Yourself - Or Your Friends!
⚫︎ Fortnite’s Big-Headed April Fool’s Update
⚫︎ Minecraft’s Herdcraft Update Has Items Escape the Void and Follow in the Adventure
Other April Fools-Themed Updates This Week
Gaming Pranks at a Glance: April Fool’s Day
Mega Starmie Ran, Ran So Far Away
The Pokemon Company’s YouTube channel kicked off April Fool’s Day with a 10 hour long stream of fan-favorite Mega Evolution Mega Starmie running towards nothing in particular, with fittingly funky techno beats playing throughout it. The livestream, which also featured flashes of the new Mega Starmie EX card, is also a promotional tie-in to the recently released Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolution—Perfect Order expansion.
Mega Starmie has become a favorite amongst Pokemon fans because of its goofy appearance, with some fans comparing its pose on the Mega Starmie EX card to Patrick Star’s appearance in The Spongebob Squarepants movie. For Pokefans looking for more than just a bunch of cheap walk cycles, spinoffs like Pokemon: Pokopia and Pokemon GO have released their own April Fool’s Day tie-in content.
Nier: Cosmic Horror Isn’t Real, Which is the Real Horror for the Fans
In news that bewildered and excited fans of the Nier series, Nier: Cosmic Horror was announced on the official Nier Japan Twitter account through a short trailer. However, the account quickly cleared up that the announcement was an April Fool’s joke, apologizing for any confusion on the matter.
The news was met with initial excitement from fans, but quickly turned to ire and frustration since it’s been nearly 10 years since the last Nier game. Surely, the next game in the series is "Nier"-er to completion, Yoko Taro just has to finish hanging out with The Weeknd and directing the new Neon Genesis Evangelion series first.
Pragmata? More like Prag-Mega Man!
The official Twitter account for Capcom’s highly anticipated game Pragmata decided to play along with rumours of the game being a Mega Man title by posting a short, tongue-in-cheek video which showed protagonist Diana walking on a beach with Hugh Williams in a Mega Man suit. The video is a reference to longstanding fan rumours that the game would be a Mega Man title, which Capcom has since disproven in an interview.
While the account itself confirms that the video is nothing more than a silly joke poking at the rumours, fans are now speculating if the Mega Man suit will be an unlockable cosmetic for Pragmata’s full release, which is slated for April 17. In any case, at least it looks better than Mega Man’s "box cover accurate" appearance in Street Fighter x Tekken.
Goddess of Victory: Nikke 2 Releases for the Player’s Imagination in 2036
A sequel to the beloved third-person shooter and action RPG Goddess of Victory: Nikke was abruptly announced by Shiftup Studios this week… until it was quickly revealed that it was just an elaborate prank. NIKKE director Hyung-suk Yoo began the 7 minute teaser earnestly talking about expanding the NIKKE IP and teasing Surface Beta 10.0, but after community created meme Doro started appearing in the video it became clear that this was a lot less serious than we realized.
The video then teased Goddess of Victory: Nikke World, a parody of popular action-RPG game Monster Hunter: World which showed characters like Rapi, Nayuta, Scarlet, Rapunzel, and Snow White fighting boss character Nihilister. The trailer ends by claiming that pre-registration for the game starts in 2036 through player’s imaginations, which doesn’t seem like much of a victory for the playerbase.
CD Projekt Red Are Horsin’ Around With the New ROACH Controller
In a scarily well-detailed trailer and announcement from CD Projekt Red, the legendary developers behind the Witcher series and Cyberpunk 2077 announced a controller specifically for Geralt of Rivia’s trusty steed Roach: The R.O.A.C.H. (Ride On A Controller Horse). The controller, which is just a hobby horse, was conceptualized to "make the horse the controller" and is shown being used by the motion capture actors during Geralt’s horseback adventures.
The idea for the controller was supposedly kicked into gear 10 years ago during the early stages of The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt’s development, but it is currently a nay (or should we say, a neigh?) on whether or not this will actually exist.
Warhammer 40,000 Announced a Musical that Sounded Too Good to be True
Warhammer 40,000 announced "The Emperor Protects: A Warhammer 40,000 Musical" yesterday on its YouTube channel which features Space Marines, Trazyn, Sisters, and even a full ensemble singing songs about intergalactic war. The songs and production value were so good that fans across the community were clamoring for it to be real, but the ticket pre-order link on the trailer simply led players back to the Warhammer 40,000 website.
Other Gaming Pranks and Goofs This Week
⚫︎ Sega’s logo is now 3% more blue. The company is advising users to get used to this change.
⚫︎ Leon Kennedy and Grace Ashcroft’s voice actors go full Freaky Friday as the Resident Evil Twitter account posts them reciting each other’s lines.
⚫︎ In a bit of cross-promotion, REPO devs have announced a mountain climbing co-op game called P.E.A.K.O.
⚫︎ The HITMAN Twitter account has shown what Agent 47 would look like with hair by introducing a new weapon: HAIR or (H.ostile A.rea I.ntegration R.esource)
⚫︎ The team behind Powerwash Simulator 2 has announced "Date the Dirt," a dating simulator where players can date a number of different garden flora.
⚫︎ Infinity Nikki has announced a "Dancing vs. Dancing" mode.
April Fools Themed Updates Roundup: April Fool’s Day
Furries Rejoice, Palworld is Letting Players Date Pals Now!
Palworld is following up on an April Fools’ joke video they uploaded a couple of years ago and are, essentially, making it real by announcing the dating sim "Pal♡world! ~More Than Just Pals~." The game, which will let some players fulfill their wildest fantasies of dating their favorite Pals, is a visual-novel style dating sim that is now currently in development.
While the game was initially announced as an April Fool’s joke in 2024, it is now a legitimate project that can be wishlisted on Steam. No release date has been announced for Pal♡world! ~More Than Just Pals~ yet.
Pokopia’s Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Sudowoodo
Nintendo’s latest hit, Pokémon Pokopia, has received a bonus Mystery Gift which players were able to access on April Fool’s Day. The Mystery Gift granted players an Inflatable Sudowoodo item which functions similarly to "Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tubeguys" found at certain stores, and required players to solve certain riddles to claim it.
A Game so PEAK You’ll Kick Yourself - Or Your Friends!
For April Fools' Day, PEAK developers AggroCrab Games have replaced the "Help" option during runs with a "Kick" button, effectively letting players kick their friends down the mountain. While PEAK has always been a gameplay experience centered around cooperation and teamwork, the development team has decided that this way of playing the game is "lame af."
Fortnite’s Big-Headed April Fool’s Update
Fortnite’s v. 40.10 update brings in large (in more ways than one) changes for April Fool’s Day. Most notably, the game now has a Big Head mode which is exactly as it sounds: all players will have enlarged heads for the duration of a match similar to how retro games like GoldenEye: 007 and Batman: Arkham City (yes, that game is technically retro now).
Alongside this, Fortnite’s April Fool’s update adds in finger guns as weapons, the ability to ride on your teammates’ shoulders, and riding llamas as steeds. The update ends on April 2, 2026, at 2:30 AM PST.
Minecraft’s Herdcraft Update Has Items Escape the Void and Follow in the Adventure
Minecraft will be receiving a special new inventory system for April Fool’s Day called "Herdcraft" which will be playable in a temporary build of Java Edition. Herdcraft does away with the game’s usual inventory management and simply lets items, from blocks and strings to weapons, follow the player around the world.
Other April Fools Themed Updates for This Week
⚫︎ Deadlock removes hero limits per team, allowing players to play as multiple of the same character per game.
⚫︎ Marvel Rivals has launched the limited-time April Pool's Day event, letting players claim a free Jeff emote and, upon using it for 100m on the Times Square map, 100 free Units.
⚫︎ Overwatch's "Underwatch" event completely shifts balance by changing character height, weapons, and abilities to be sillier.
