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Twitter dataminer and self-described “efficient” Pokémon player @Sibuna_Switch has shared Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s “shiny” rates, determined for the soon-to-be-released game, and an important decree: “all static encounters, NPC trades, and NPC gifts are shiny-locked.” That means you won’t be immediately getting a…
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I’ll be the first to admit that I find the weirdly performative nature of the “Can You Pet The Dog” Twitter account to be annoying and odd. The idea that games should all include some moment when you pet a pup or a cat is silly to me and feels like a misguided reaction to so many games being violent power fantasies.…
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I can’t do it. I’m not strong enough. I skipped 18 weeks of Genshin Impact banners to ensure that I could get Nahida, but farming materials for her is so unpleasant. This isn’t just a problem for fans of the tragic goddess. Sumeru is just the worst area for collecting any kind of material. Things are so dire that I’ve…
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The new Call of Duty battle royale may be about squading up with friends to take on bad guys, but _Warzone 2’_s social tab is currently stopping you from doing just that. The tab is meant to let you see all of your friends logged onto Warzone 2.0 and invite them to team up, no matter what platform they’re on–but it’s…
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NetEase, the service provider Overwatch creators Blizzard have been using to bring its games to China for the last 14 years, is ending several licenses with the developer. Overwatch 2, Diablo III, World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm will no longer receive service in mainland China on January…
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While you’ll be responsible for securing much of your own gear once you touch down on Al Mazrah, Warzone 2.0 does allow you access to custom loadouts and preset perks packages. But if you’re used to loadouts and perks as they work in Modern Warfare II’s regular multiplayer, you might be in for a bit of a surprise as…
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The Xbox Series S is without question my favorite home console in years. It’s small, sleek, and runs like a Swiss watch. It’s also incredibly affordable at just $300, but somehow it just got even cheaper. Microsoft announced earlier today that the Game Pass juggernaut will be discounted to $250 throughout the holiday…
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As Pokémon Scarlet and Violet reviews hit the internet one day before the twin games are released, the overriding message has a grim tone: the Switch just can’t handle the game. Despite most effusively praising the game itself, few reviews can ignore that the open-world game struggles to run on the five-year-old…
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I tend to land on the Martin Scorsese side of the superhero craze—“The problem is the amusement park films,” he said in 2019—and so I admittedly went into Marvel’s Midnight Suns feeling bratty. The tactical role-playing game, which was delayed twice before finally landing on its current December 2 release date, comes…
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Ikumi Nakamura is best known to you, while still reading this opening sentence, as a games artist and director who has worked on everything from Okami to Bayonetta to The Evil Within to Ghostwire: Tokyo. Did you know, though, that for over a decade she has also been a prolific urban explorer?
Kotaku
Face Zero is an artist based in Seoul.
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Last year LEGO released their longest-ever set, the HMS Titanic, so this year they have decided to go breaking records on the vertical plane, announcing an Eiffel Tower set that is comically tall.
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While everyone was dealing with a confusing week of Elon Musk transforming Twitter verification check marks into an advertiser’s worst nightmare, the creator of the wildly popular manga, Chainsaw Man, was desperately fighting to get his account unsuspended.
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In April, crypto exchange FTX paid esports company TSM $210 million to change its name to TSM FTX. On Wednesday, TSM FTX changed its name back to just plain old TSM days after FTX filed for bankruptcy following the biggest crash in crypto history. And it only had to spam Twitter’s save button hundreds of times to do…
Kotaku
We’ve only had Warzone 2.0 for a few hours, and it’s already clear that proximity chat is an absolutely bonkers new feature. Today, the brand-new battle royale from Call of Duty launched an hour or so earlier than planned, and there are a ton of new features to parse through—an entirely revamped inventory system, a…
Kotaku
Marvel Snap contains a ton of variants for each base card in the game. Some of these variants feature different poses or place the heroes in completely new outfits. Others are a bit wackier, with heroes sporting odd costumes or anime-like variants of popular heroes such as Hawkeye or Spider-Man. But by far the most…
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Blizzard released a really cool new epic skin for Mei. The only problem is that players can’t see what her skin looks like because she’s been temporarily taken out of the game.
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Overwatch 2 continues to incur issue after issue, with the latest problem leaving the icy damage dealer Mei totally unplayable due to a “critical issue” with her Ice Wall ability. Well, Blizzard may also want to investigate the hero shooter’s newest support character, Kiriko, as it appears she can block headshot…
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Getting into tabletop roleplaying isn’t always easy. With thick rulebooks that mirror math textbooks and the need to find at least one other player (but ideally three others), simply getting to the table, ready to roleplay is enough of a challenge. Enter the concept of the Starter Set: An all-in-one collection of…
Kotaku
In 2022, virtual reality can be an amazing experience. It can transport you to brand-new worlds or let you meet and socialize with thousands of people from around the globe. However, even after years of improvements, VR can still be a very messy, hard-to-explain, and often annoying experience, too. And the latest…
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I can’t believe that U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just massacred millions of League of Legends players yesterday. She was dunking on a crypto bro who was really bad at Riot’s MOBA game, but she also caught many innocent players in the crossfire. Actually, that just makes me respect her more.
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This afternoon, Activision’s anticipated shooter Warzone 2.0 launched earlier than expected in certain regions, in a shocking break from the live-service launch tradition of everything getting delayed by a few hours. We’re looking at you, Overwatch 2.
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Ultimately, the goal of Pokémon TCG Live is to replace the decade-old Pokémon TCG Online as the way to play the enormously popular card game over the internet. However, as of today’s global beta release, given the bugs and issues we’ve experienced we’d strongly suggest you avoid it for now. However, if you’re…
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Earlier this year, it seemed like Microsoft would reveal its Xbox Game Pass streaming device, codenamed Keystone, at any moment. Fans even thought the company was teasing its release when it mysteriously appeared on a shelf last month. Instead, we got an app exclusive to Samsung smart TVs. And now the Xbox…
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Last week, New World’s patch notes indicated that taxes on Trade Post transactions would increase from 2.5 percent to a whopping 5 percent. What’s funny about this situation is that the MMO is published by Amazon Games, which is owned by Jeff Bezos. Last year, ProPublica reported that Jeff Bezos paid a true tax rate…
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The current British government, now onto its third Prime Minister since 2019 and rocked by a combination of scandals and gross, malicious incompetence, is facing an uphill battle to simply avoid complete destruction at the next general election, let alone win it. What better time, then, for one of its most important…
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AI-generated artwork, an ethical and copyright nightmare that is pissing artists off the world over, is finding resistance everywhere from Newgrounds to Fur Affinity to, in this latest case, an anime convention that has described AI art as “counterfeit merchandise”.
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An urgent update for Overwatch 2 was supposed to have gone live this afternoon, but was delayed at the 11th hour when Blizzard discovered a “critical issue”.
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Somerville is one of the coolest video games I’ve played in years. It’s also one of the most frustrating.
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True to its roots in the genre from which it takes its name, many of Cyberpunk 2077’s storylines task V with unraveling various schemes orchestrated by powerful people, known or unknown. While the main story has its share of corporate and political thrills, few capture the creepiness of powerful forces hiding just out…