The Video Game Library Newsletter - Vol. #035
A 100-book record! Plus TONS of comics and manga, a few exciting Kickstarters and more!
Welcome back to The Video Game Library Newsletter!
Guys, this has been a GREAT week. Easily one of our most productive since the site began, with over 100 books being catalogued since last week’s Newsletter. HUGE and heartfelt thanks to our amazing team of volunteers who’ve been working diligently to make sure these entries are as accurate and complete as possible.
And for those of you here for the news, I hope you love comics and manga because they’re coming fast and furious this week, alongside a few exciting Kickstarters and some really cool hardcovers.
As always, super curious to hear what stands out for you guys. Be sure to leave your comments below, or come on by the Discord to chat books and video games.
Lots to talk about, so let’s dive in!
📰 News & Highlights
Dark Horse Books’ Marvel Rivals: The Poster Collection has released just in time for the Season 6 launch, spotlighting the game’s art as a dedicated print set. A 64-page poster collection with art by NetEase Games, which makes it a fun way to take the game’s visuals off-screen and onto your wall. Great to see these poster books making a comeback in recent years!
Sticking with Dark Horse, Tomb Raider: Sacred Artifacts #1 arrives as the start of the official prequel comic to Netflix’s Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. The synopsis tees up Lara Croft returning home after her latest adventure, only to find something dangerous and powerful waiting for her. These 4 issues will of course culminate in a collected volume later this year.
Over in Night City, Dark Horse Comics launches Cyberpunk 2077: Chrome #1. The setup follows a tech forger, a braindance editor, and a traveling monk who all end up in the orbit of a mysterious client named Mr. Glover. Have loved seeing the fan excitement for this run!
From there, Titan Comics continues the saga with Dark Souls: Mother of Mourning #2, keeping the pressure on as the story escalates. Admittedly I still haven’t read the first issue yet, but I’m hearing great things!
Shifting gears to a classic Capcom corner, Udon Entertainment’s Mega Man Legends Timelines #1 releases as part of a trilogy of Blue Bomber content. And while fans of Legends undoubtedly are still dreaming about the 3rd installment that never was, this is a nice homage to the much-loved spin-off.
Next up, Udon Entertainment drops Mega Man X #0 as a prelude issue that points straight at the moment the Maverick threat begins to erupt. X is my personal favourite in the overall Mega Man franchise, and has been my soundtrack of choice while writing up this week’s newsletter.
Udon Entertainment keeps the momentum going with Mega Man ZX Timelines #1, launching a new arc in this continuity. Here, the world’s under threat from eight “mysterious and dangerous Pseudoroids,” and the story puts Grey and Ashe at the center as they fight to survive, and to uncover what’s really going on.
Masters of Unlocking: A Resident Evil Retrospective has been announced for Kickstarter! This is a detailed history of the Resident Evil, series covering every mainline game, spin-off, remake and film. A very exciting project that’s already garnering a ton of fan clamor. Also, please bring back the Masters of Unlocking podcast! (IYKYK).
Also on Kickstarter GEEKS-LINE has launched the Playstation Anthology: The Tetralogy box set, which in just a few days, has shattered its funding goal. Expect 4 books and over 1300 pages of PlayStation content.
And finally, a newly announced Kickstarter for fans of GameShark. GameShark Returns: The Complete Cheat Code Compendium is a premium, collector-grade hardcover celebrating the wild era of cheat devices that changed gaming forever. Built by the original creator, it preserves the codes, stories, and behind-the-scenes history of GameShark, Game Genie, Action Replay, CodeBreaker, and more.
On the manga side, VIZ Media has Minecraft: The Manga, Vol. 4 listed as an English paperback edition, keeping the series rolling forward in print. This joins the French, Spanish, Catalan, German, Italian and Japanese versions.
Looking ahead, White Owl’s The Hardest Video Games Ever Made by Aleksha McLoughlin is now up as a preorder, with a listed publication date of April 30, 2026. The pitch promises a four-decade tour of famously tough games, digging into what made them notorious, how difficulty evolved from the 1980s to the 2020s, and how to beat them. Ninja Gaiden and Elden Ring seem like appropriate cover fodder.
Runescape: The Fall of Hallowvale has an audiobook edition out in the world thanks to Tantor Media, narrated by Antony Ferguson. It adapts a story where a player character winds up dropped into the game’s vampyre-infected lands, caught between survival, alliances, and the pull of a dark power.
Meanwhile, GTM has revealed a trio of February covers, once again leaning into a set-of-three approach for the month. The cover lineup calls out Mario Tennis Fever, Resident Evil Requiem, and Dragon Quest VII: ReImagined as the featured themes.
International editions keep coming too, with Mal’Opus releasing Світ гри S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl as a Ukrainian edition of the game’s art book. It’s presented as a 240-page hardcover art book focused on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl.
And staying with Mal’Opus, pre-orders are open for the Ukrainian translation of The Official Stardew Valley Cookbook. The first official cookbook from the immensely popular Stardew Valley, featuring more than 50 delightful recipes straight out of the video game.
Over in Spain, Planeta Cómic has a Spanish edition of Kingdom Hearts III Vol. 4 released this week. From the brilliant mind of Shiro Amano this 320-page manga volume in the Manga Shonen collection should make KH fans very happy to see it continuing in print.
Italy gets its own manga treat this week with Star Comics’ Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, Vol. 11 – La Distesa Della Morte I. The synopsis sets Hadlar’s revenge in motion as he arrives on Dermline Island to face Avan, raising the stakes for Daï and the others as Avan’s strength is already nearly spent from training.
In Poland, KADOKAWA’s Elden Ring: The Road to the Erdtree Vol. 7 appears as the Polish paperback edition continuing the manga run. At the request of the sorcerer Rogier, the Ashen One aims to obtain Ranni’s "Curse of Death."
Also in Polish, Polski JPFantastica releases Persona 4 #1 as the local edition of the manga adaptation. The fog-shrouded town of Inaba, a string of murders, and a mysterious TV-program rumor, pulling Yu Narukami and his friends into a dangerous, otherworldly mystery.
On the live-event front, the CHRONO TRIGGER ORCHESTRA CONCERT 時を超える旋律 オフィシャルパンフレット has been revealed as special concert merch tied to this week’s Chrono Trigger orchestral event. It’s an “official pamphlet” item among the event goods, giving fans a tangible keepsake to go with the performance experience.
Japan’s news wave continues with Kadokawa’s Ensemble Stars!! Official Works Vol. 4 landing as a hefty official setting/materials collection for the game. It covers materials spanning roughly September 2022 through August 2023, and it’s explicitly positioned as a big-volume installment (with a foil-stamped cover and 376 pages).
Magazine-watchers can also grab 週刊ファミ通 2026年1月29日号 No.1931 as this week’s new issue. This week’s issue has a pre-release special on Arknights: Endfield, Hypergryph’s anime-styled open-world RPG. It also includes the first half of a 2025 “Hall of Fame” catalogue (Jan-Jun releases) and a special interview with Street Fighter 6 producer Shuhei Matsumoto × Nijisanji’s Kuzuha, celebrating KZHCUP RUMBLE.
Right alongside it, コンプティーク 2026年2月号 is also out as the February 2026 issue of Comptiq. The listing teases a special feature focused on “Super Kaguyahime” which will be hitting Netflix worldwide next week and notes bundled items like a Fate/Grand Order “2026 calendar poster” and a “Valkyrie Comics” booklet.
And to round things out, Chuo Keizai-sha publishes 基礎からわかるゲームビジネスの法律実務 as a newly issued guide to legal practice in the digital game business. The overview frames it as a lawyer-authored handbook that tackles real-world game-industry legal topics—explicitly including areas like intellectual property, consumer issues, and hot-button mechanics such as gacha/loot boxes and in-game currency.
Did I miss something cool? Want to see this laid out differently?
Drop it in the comments or swing by our Discord to share it with the community.
Let’s keep this celebration of game-inspired books going strong!
📚 Behind the Shelves
Every week, I take you behind the scenes of The Video Game Library. From surprising discoveries to cataloguing challenges, there’s always something new as we dig deeper into this ever-expanding archive of game-related literature.
No shortage of Japanese business books cover the video game industry, and this week I spent some time digging deeper into that backlog. I’ve been surprised by how little information is available online about many of these titles, so it feels especially good to finally get them properly catalogued on the site.
Dating sims are a huge blind spot for me. But after listening to the latest “Top 47,858 Games of All Time” episode from HG101, where guests FlannelKat and Katherine talked about the first major dating sim, Dōkyūsei, I got curious. A quick Google search turned up a bunch of Japanese novels and guides connected to the series, so I started cataloguing what I could find. There are still a few more to track down, but I made a solid dent in it this week.
When Minecraft released for the Nintendo Switch, One Publishing released a series of building guides in Japan as part of their One Computer Mook series. We spent some time this week getting the collection catalogued.
On the GameDev side, volunteer Tommy has been hard at work adding a bunch of newly catalogued entries from the CRC Press collection.
We also have a wave of Japanese guides thanks to Nathanial, who’s been diving back into the N64 era. Some real heavy hitters here that were missing from the site.
And of course Fran keeps the Prima train rolling this week with some more great guides.
This, as usual, is only a small sample of all the things that have been happening behind the scenes, so take a peek at the site to see everything that’s been added since last week! And while you’re at it, drop your thoughts in the comments below. Your feedback helps shape how we deliver these looks behind the curtain.
💡 Book Spotlights
Every week I like to zoom in on a few standout books from the collection. Sometimes it’s brand new releases, other times it’s older gems that deserve more love.
If you’re looking for deeper dives and not just quick headlines, check out some of these past spotlights:
BOOK SPOTLIGHT - REDO FROM START (USA & JAPAN)
Andrea Pachetti (2025); Microzeit Publishing; Non-Fiction, Game History
"I had originally intended to start with the CRACKER books, but Paul Norman’s eyes….they drew me in."
BOOK SPOTLIGHT - A Brief Legal History of the Video Game (Une Brève Histoire Juridique du Jeu Video)
Geoffray Brunaux (2025); Mare & Martin; Non-Fiction, Game History
"...sets out to recount the history of the video game industry, not through sales numbers or nostalgic releases, but through the courtroom battles that helped define one of the world’s most influential entertainment sectors."
BOOK SPOTLIGHT - The Best Life Adventure Games
Jupiter Hadley (2025); Pen & Sword Books - White Owl; Non-Fiction
"The Best Life Adventure Games isn't just a catalogue. It's a love letter to the art of slow, thoughtful play."
🙏 THANK YOU for Reading
That’s a wrap for this week’s Newsletter. I hope you discovered something new, surprising, or just plain fun.
As always, your feedback helps shape this project - so don’t be shy! Drop a comment below, join the conversation on Discord, or just reply to this newsletter and share your thoughts.
And if you’re enjoying these weekly roundups, please consider supporting The Video Game Library with a paid subscription or forwarding this to a fellow fan. Every little bit helps us keep preserving and celebrating these incredible works - and the passionate people behind them.
Until next week — happy reading,
Dean (Founder, The Video Game Library)
One day, it'd be awesome if a novel was released finishing Adam Jensen's story from Deus Ex. And maybe another that acts as a sequel to Invisible War...