Kotaku
Incredible Mod Recreates SimCity 2000 Cities In Minecraft, Down To The Trees
The year is 1994. You’re playing SimCity 2000 and you’re thinking, man, wouldn’t it be amazing if I could somehow get down into the game and walk these streets.
KotakuKotakuFortnite (?) Is Now One Of The Best-Looking Games On Earth (?!)
One of the big reasons Fortnite became one of the biggest games on the planet is because it could run on anything, from phones to tired laptops to hand-me-down desktops. That’s created an expectation that the game is graphically basic, but as we head into 2023 the shooter—first released in 2017—just got one hell of a…
KotakuGameStop Gets Into Holiday Spirit With More Layoffs
In the spirit of Christmas and the ruthless pursuit of meme stock shareholder value, GameStop carried out its latest round of layoffs on Monday ahead of its new earnings report, which is due out later this week. The cuts reportedly hit staff working on the company’s crypto push, as well as a number of other…
KotakuAfter Backlash, Overwatch 2's New Tank Will Be Easier To Unlock For Free
Free-to-play shooter Overwatch 2 is launching Season 2 tomorrow and with it a brand new tank character, Ramattra. And like last time, you can either buy the premium battle pass to unlock the new hero instantly or you can grind the free path to eventually gain access to him. But this time, following complaints from…
KotakuThe Death Of DJ Game Fuser Is A Huge Bummer
Fuser, the DJ game from original Guitar Hero creator and Rock Band studio Harmonix, is shutting down its live service content and ceasing sales. This comes just two years after the music-mixing game launched—and it’s honestly a big bummer.
KotakuDwarf Fortress' Steam Upgrade Was Worth The Wait
Dwarf Fortress’ reputation precedes it. Likely the most intensely detailed simulation game ever devised, its strategic depths, which grow deeper each new update, are rivaled only by the modestness of its text-based visuals. But now, 16 years after its debut, a new Steam (and Itch.io) edition has emerged from the…
Kotaku300 QA Devs Unionize At Microsoft-Owned ZeniMax Studios
The gaming industry’s recent wave of labor organizing just exploded. Roughly 300 quality assurance staff at ZeniMax studios, which includes Bethesda and games like The Elder Scrolls Online , announced today that they will unionize with the Communications Workers of America. And unlike union drives at Activision…
KotakuGenshin Impact Fans Who Waited Two Years For Its Most Annoying Character Are Stronger Than Me
I am a proud Scaramouche hater. When he was first introduced, I couldn’t stand his obnoxious taunts, his weird coat-shorts combination, or his embarrassing bowl cut. I’ve since warmed to his now more-compelling backstory, but there are fans out there who have been waiting for this villain to be playable since he first…
KotakuStarfield Will Be $70 As Microsoft Confirms New-Gen Price Hike
Starting next year, Microsoft will raise the price of its first-party games from $60 to $70, joining other publishers and video game companies who are doing the same. Welcome to the era of the $70 game, folks.
KotakuThe Week In Games: Creepy Neighbors And Cursed Trains
KotakuThe Best Shooters Of 2022
2022 was a good year for shooter fans. While the launch of a new shooter title (FPS or otherwise) is pretty common every year, the variety we received in 2022 was fantastic. From massive, online battle royales to smaller, quirky indie shooters and everything in between, this year really did have a little something…
KotakuStar Wars Jedi: Survivor Leak Makes Early 2023 Look Like Mayhem
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the sequel to EA’s only great Star Wars game throughout its entire 10-year exclusivity deal with Disney, looks like it will come out on March 16, 2023. That’s according to a recent Steam page leak ahead of the 2022 Game Awards marketing blitz later this week. It’s good news for Star Wars fans…
KotakuPokémon Scarlet And Violet Saves Its Worst Technical Disaster For Online Raids
We’ve chronicled the many, serious issues with Pokémon Scarlet and Violet since its release last month, but there’s one aspect—worse than any other—that has not received enough attention: Its abysmal online raids.
KotakuCallisto Protocol Devs Rush Out Patches For Busted PC And Xbox Versions, Promise More Updates
Space survival horror shooter Callisto Protocol has now received two big patches after some versions of it were panned for performance issues at launch, and more fixes are on the way. After releasing the latest update to address frame rate drops and other problems with the Xbox Series X/S edition, Striking Distance…
KotakuVery Good Air Horn Bug Has Sadly Been Patched Out Of Spider-Man: Miles Morales
For the past week or so, some folks playing Spider-Man: Miles Morales on the PC have been encountering a bug that, at the end of the game’s dialogue sequences, would just go ahead and play a honking loud air horn.
KotakuThe Last Of Us TV Show Gets Longer, Chattier Trailer
The Last Of Us TV series has had a couple of trailers, one very short and one a bit longer, but both of those were very much of the teaser variety, keeping things close to their chest and only showing brief flashes of scenery and action. HBO released a third trailer over the weekend, however, and this one has a lot …
KotakuEd Boon Announces He Won't Be Announcing Anything At The Game Awards
The Winter E3, aka The Game Awards, is airing next week and people are getting excited about what will be revealed during the three-hour montage of trailers and awards. But if you were excited about a new Mortal Kombat or Injustice 3 making a surprise appearance, well, you might want to sit down. I’ve got some bad…
KotakuValve’s Giving Away A Steam Deck Every Minute During The Game Awards
If you’ve been wanting Valve’s portable PC console, the Steam Deck, but lack the spare cash, Valve will be giving away a ton of them for free during next week’s annual broadcast of The Game Awards. All you have to do is watch The Game Awards through Valve’s streaming site. Oh, yeah: Remember when Valve launched a…
KotakuSonic Frontiers Fans Are Convinced Genshin Impact Is Bribing Its Community For TGA Votes
There’s a corruption controversy rocking The Game Awards, and it’s about...Genshin Impact? Apparently, there are a lot of Sonic Frontiers fans and TGA fans who think the gacha game’s ascent in the Players’ Voice award category has been suspicious, and they’re loud about their displeasure. Things got so heated that TGA…
KotakuThe Callisto Protocol, The Kotaku Review
Bizarrely, after a biophage mutant, limbs falling off it as easily as scooping into a pudding, puts its hands into my mouth and rips my jaw from my face for the fifth time, it comes to me: Oh, this is a transportation game.
KotakuChainsaw Man Voice Actor Says Makima Is More Than Just A ‘Dommy Mommy’
KotakuNetflix Removed A Fan-Favorite JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Scene To Avoid Disney’s Lawyers
Although Netflix fumbled the bag with its marketing of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean, it managed to avoid a hefty copyright strike from Disney by removing one of the most beloved scenes in the manga.
KotakuPC Players Report The Callisto Protocol Is Plagued With Performance Issues
With today’s launch of The Callisto Protocol, a consensus across the games media is that this is a decent PS5 Dead Space-like, but a terrible PC game. The reason being, the game is grimly stuttering, even on top-end machines. I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to stutter, but you do need to switch off some bells and…
KotakuNintendo Says It ‘Cares’ About Smash Bros. Fans As Tournament Dispute Continues
If you’ve been following the dizzying drama around the Smash World Tour, you may have seen Nintendo’s new statement regarding the tournament’s sudden cancellation. The Mario maker has said it “cares about Super Smash Bros. fans,” expressly stating that esports organization Panda Global had no influence on Video Game…
KotakuThe Best And Worst Battle Passes Of 2022 From Overwatch 2 To Fortnite
Ah, the battle pass. Once a feature seemingly reserved for the battle royale, it’s now as ubiquitous in the gaming industry as everyone’s favorite dripless MC. In the past year or so, franchises like Halo and Overwatch embraced the battle pass for the first time, likely in the face of proof that the live-service…
KotakuPour One Out For The Bosses: Activision Blizzard Loses Second Union Vote
Activision Blizzard’s playbook came up short again. Despite delays, legal appeals, and threats to workers that organizing would lead to lower pay raises, quality assurance developers at the Diablo production studio Blizzard Albany voted 14-0 to unionize today. The Game Workers Alliance Albany are now the second group…
KotakuDiabolical ATM Displays Bank Balances On Leaderboards
Are you flourishing at the game of life, or are you floundering at the very bottom? Give this ATM your debit card, and you can find out. Art Basel, a ghoulishly lavish art show, is hosting an ATM that takes your picture and ranks you on a public leaderboard according to your debit bank balance. Some people have $0.…
KotakuWarzone 2.0: The DMZ AI Difficulty Is Too Damn High
As far as I’m concerned, Call of Duty’s new DMZ mode isn’t just CoD’s best game type, it’s one of the best shooter game modes I’ve played in years. It’s the familiar rush of a good shooter with great, roaming tactics that demand smart and reactive planning. But recent adjustments to the AI in this hybrid PvPvE game…
KotakuPokémon Scarlet And Violet Contains One Of The Greatest Facts Of All Time
Within the many, many aspects of the new Pokémon Scarlet And Violet (PSV), from its Gym campaign to its Titan-battling storyline, is one feature that is easily forgotten: its Academy lessons. For the most part, that’s for a good reason—they’re astoundingly boring. But there’s one moment, in the middle of a math…
KotakuNetflix’s Binge-Model Release of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean Ruined The Anime’s Hype
Finally, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean is done, but I wouldn’t hold it against you if you didn’t know that because Netflix’s binge-watching model and its handling of the anime’s promotion has circumvented any hype and online discussion for it. And now I’m worried about the fate of its sequel arc, Steel Ball Run…