Kotaku
The term “Soulslike” generates a specific kind of game in the mind. It conjures something that’s hard as hell, with fearsome bosses to beat, intricate levels to explore, tight combat to experience, and a world rife with enough lore to fill several tomes. You may call games in the genre alluring, unforgettable, and…
Kotaku
Were it almost any other game from almost any other studio, Cyberpunk 2077's disastrous launch would have condemned it to the sales bins of history. Big AAA releases dropping with some bugs is one thing; big AAA releases being taken off the PlayStation Store because they were so broken is something else entirely.
Kotaku
They were never headline news, but Sony did a pretty good job throughout the PlayStation 4's lifespan of releasing custom consoles. You know the drill: it’s a regular PlayStation 4 inside, but the case would be a new colour, or there’d be a fancy faceplate with a game’s logo or piece of art on it.
Kotaku
Yesterday, Luminous Productions, the developers behind the rocky fantasy parkour game Forspoken, announced that it will no longer exist as a separate game studio. On May 1, Luminous will be merged back into its parent company, Square Enix.
Kotaku
It seems that Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki and I share an affinity for the same kind of game: Extraction shooters. (I always knew he had good taste). In a recent interview, the award-winning director said that he was a fan of none other than Escape From Tarkov and, more importantly, that it and other…
Kotaku
The Xbox Series S may not be the most powerful console out there, but its a perfect little machine for playing most Game Pass bangers and Xbox exclusives. And now, the Series S is available for only $150. The catch: You have to be a Verizon subscriber to take advantage of this limited-time deal.
Kotaku
You’ll get coaxed into turning bounty hunter Samus Aran into a compact, slippy metal Morph Ball shortly after you start the new Metroid Prime Remastered, quickly forcing you to dodge churning, red lava pits and obnoxiously buzzing bombers by rolling around them. This basic bowling ball movement becomes complex as you…
Kotaku
During a press junket interview for Creed III, actor Michael B. Jordan revealed that he wanted his directorial debut to be jam-packed with references to some of the best fights in anime.
Kotaku
This week, Florida governor Ronald Dion DeSantis signed a bill that targets the Disney Company’s control over the Reedy Creek Improvement District, a nearly 40-square mile area in Florida’s Orange and Osceola counties. The area covers the Walt Disney World Resort and was, until now, under independent governance…
Kotaku
Just outside the main castle grounds in Hogwarts Legacy, the vibrant and towering Quidditch stands sit on the horizon, beckoning. If you hop on your broomstick, you can soar up the pitch’s shorter walls and down onto the field itself, the impossibly green grass begging to be sullied by your footsteps. If you want, you…
Kotaku
The opening level of GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64 is one of the most iconic video game areas out there. The overcast skies, the low-res rock walls, the sniper towers, and the tunnel leading to an underground maze. Remember how it slowly causes your game to become more and more glitchy due to some unknown entity?…
Kotaku
In a lot of ways, Octopath Traveler II can feel like a pretty straightforward turn-based RPG, but when you take into account its eight characters’ original mechanics, its non-linear storytelling, and how unapologetic it can be about throwing you into the deep end, there’s a lot of complexity under the hood. Whether…
Kotaku
I like the Iron Bull a lot. I’d get a drink with a guy like him in real life. We’d get each others’ backs if anyone was giving shit to either of us. Which is why I can’t stop thinking about how badly his story arc concluded in the action RPG Dragon Age: Inquisition, and why I’ve been revisiting the ways it lines up…
Kotaku
Kai Cenat, the 21-year-old rising Twitch star who took the Amazon-owned livestreaming platform by storm in 2021 and 2022, has smashed another record on the last day of Black History Month. This time, it was the record for the streamer with the most active subscribers, an accolade previously attained by Tyler “Ninja”…
Kotaku
Ahead of this week’s Lightfall release, Destiny 2 was on a roll. Season of the Seraph delivered on every front, including a terrific final mission and concluding cutscene showing the series’ infamous white orb called the Traveler finally getting off its ass. The pre-release marketing campaign for Lightfall was firing…
Kotaku
Last week, the official One Piece staff Twitter account posted a video of creator Eiichiro Oda diving completely off of the deep end by asking ChatGPT, the world’s most popular AI chat software, to write a new One Piece chapter for him. The tweet described the bold request as Oda asking “the taboo question,” according…
Kotaku
While Nike likes to dabble in the out-and-out nerd market sometimes, from Doraemon to Hello Kitty, for the most part the company likes to keep its collabs subtle, and has not worked with Nintendo for a long time. Meaning it will likely never officially release shoes this nice.
Kotaku
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) have today filed charges against publisher Activision—a company with a long track record of alleged union-busting—claiming the publisher violated several workplace laws in relation to the firing of two QA testers.
Kotaku
Earlier today, The Times published what it hoped would be an esteemed list, an evergreen piece setting in stone what the paper considered the “20 best video games of all time”.
Kotaku
The first Rockyfilm was released way back in 1976. It was a gritty, well-written, and heartfelt movie about a down-on-his-luck boxer given one last chance to make a name for himself. Decades later, Creed was released as a spin-off for that franchise, and it kept the same gritty tone and down-to-earth feeling of the…
Kotaku
When you think of Black hair in games, what comes to mind? Maybe a clean set of cornrows? What about some dreadlocks? Or, and this is probably the most likely, do you think of an afro, a Caesar fade, or just a bald scalp?
Kotaku
Where Skyrim had Lydia, the latest big Steam survival hit—_Sons of the Forest—_has Kelvin. He’s there to help, no matter how much his ears bleed, and people absolutely love the adorable, lobotomized handyman.
Kotaku
Final Fantasy XVI producer Naoki Yoshida aka Yoshi-P revealed in a recent interview that he and other developers in Japan didn’t like the popular term JRPG (Japanese role-playing game) when it first popped up years ago, thinking it was “discriminatory” or being used to “make fun of” Japanese developers working on…
Kotaku
There sure are a lot of video game adaptations in the works. And while they likely won’t all be as celebrated as HBO’s The Last of Us or 2020’s Sonic the Hedgehog, it sure seems like production companies aren’t holding back when it comes to recreating gaming’s iconic locales. The latest sighting of sets-in-progress is…
Kotaku
We’re roughly four months out from Final Fantasy XVI’s release, and the press recently got to preview the next entry in the legendary JRPG series. Writers in attendance were impressed by the grandiose, cinematic real-time battles that some likened to God of War. They praised the series’ departure from turn-based…
Kotaku
Just when you thought it was safe to freely scope out CRTs at celebratory nerd gatherings, one of the best cosplays from this year’s ATL Comic Convention has reminded us of at least one nasty issue with old cathode ray tubes: Sometimes ghostly girls can crawl out of them. Or at least that’s what one particular…
Kotaku
Over 100 quality assurance testers at Electronic Arts’ Baton Rouge, LA office were abruptly laid off during a surprise Zoom call on Tuesday, three sources familiar with the meeting tell Kotaku. They worked predominantly on Apex Legends, the publisher’s hit battle royale developed by Respawn Entertainment.
Kotaku
According to a very disappointed Reddit user, a Mercy player recently won a competitive Overwatch game by submerging herself completely in a bush. Hey! Cut it out, stop laughing. This isn’t a product of Rule 34 or your Discord friend’s sick, twisted fantasy, it’s real life. And it’s effective—safe in the confines of…
Kotaku
There are so many games (maybe too many?) based on mangaka Masashi Kishimoto’s wildly popular shonen series Naruto. Some date back to the Game Boy Advance and OG PlayStation, while others, such as the *new* game Naruto x Boruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections that was revealed during Sony’s February State of Play,…
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Today, IO Interactive announced it is working on a new game, unrelated to Hitman or its past titles, codenamed “Project Fantasy.” And unlike Hitman, this upcoming game will be an online fantasy RPG with a focus on teamwork and comradery, with IO further confirming that, after Project Fantasy releases, it will “expand”…