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Legendary Final Fantasy Composer May Be Done Making Full Soundtracks For Games

Composing the entire score for a game must be demanding work, and it’s something that famed Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu has done time and time again over the course of his long and storied career. Now it sounds like the 64-year-old composer, who has dealt with unspecified health issues in the past, may wish…

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Baldur's Gate 3 Dev Responds To Fan Toxicity: 'Please Stop That'

Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios has announced it’s working on official mod support for the award-winning RPG for both PC and consoles. This will roll out sometime in 2024, but in the meantime, the studio has responded to fans who have been less than patient, calling out “threats and toxicity” within the…

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The Week In Games: A Rebirth, A Remake, And A Remaster

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Did Yoko Taro Just Tease Nier 3? Not Really

It’s been just over seven years since the release of action RPG Nier: Automata took the world by storm and familiarized a wider audience with series creator Yoko Taro. Since its 2017 launch, Nier: Automata has remained a constant presence, from its 2022 anime adaptation, to a 2019 crossover with Final Fantasy XIV, and…

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Here’s Why The Nintendo Switch 2 Might Not Launch Until March 2025

If it feels like you’ve been hearing a lot about the Nintendo Switch 2 recently, it’s because you have. Over the past month or so, a proverbial dam of info about the highly anticipated follow up to the Nintendo Switch has seemingly leaked, including that the console’s launch was delayed to 2025 and news of titles

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Helldivers 2 Team Seems To Have Fixed The Game's Biggest Problem

Helldivers 2 is the game of the moment, garnering massive attention but also buckling under the weight of its soaring player counts. Arrowhead Game Studios prepared the third-person, live-service shooter for a busy weekend as more folks drop into the game, raising the player cap to 700,000 in the hopes of combatting…

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Pedro Pascal Was Not Ready For His Last Of Us Award Win

HBO’s live-action adaptation of The Last of Us took home two big awards at this year’s Screen Actors Guild Awards out of its four nominations. One was for the series’ stunt actors, who won the award for Outstanding Performance By a Stunt Ensemble in a Comedy or Drama Series. The other one, which you may have seen…

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Pacific Drive Is Unlike Anything You've Ever Played On PS5

I was lowkey terrified the first time I tried to start my station wagon in Pacific Drive. I turned on the ignition and listened to the old engine whir. It sputtered for a fraction of a second longer than I was expecting, reminding me of the dread I feel every time I put the key in my beat-up 2006 Toyota Rav4 wondering…

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Skull and Bones: The Kotaku Review

There are too many Dutch. Six warships are actively engaged with me, lobbing mortars, zipping torpedos, and peppering my vessel with all manner of cannon shot. Along the horizon I count 13 more ships, all hostile. I’ve already plundered a cache of documents from this innocuous seaside lumber camp, so my duty to the…

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FF7 Rebirth Demo, Helldivers 2, And More Of The Week's Essential Tips

We’re just days away from the launch of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and if you’re still (somehow) on the fence about diving into one of 2024's most anticipated games, the PS5 demo is a great way to get a taste of what’s in store. We’ve put together several guides on what to do in Rebirth’s Junon region and how to make…

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10 Bloody Good Horror Movies Streaming on Netflix Right Now

Thanksgiving is killing it on Netflix—it’s currently ranked among the streamer’s top flicks. When one horror film does well, that’s great news for the genre at large, so if you head to the streamer for John Carver’s merry Massachusetts massacre, why not stick around and feast on these other titles, too?

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FF7 Rebirth's Pacing, The Starship Troopers Renaissance, And More Of The Week's Gaming Opinions

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is almost here, and while we still have to wait a few more days for the game itself, we can now start talking about how its excellent card game, Queen’s Blood, rivals even FF8's beloved Triple Triad, and how turning the original 1997 RPG into a trilogy may be messing with the story’s pacing…

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Kotaku’s Essential Guide To Helldivers 2

Available exclusively on PlayStation 5 and PC, Helldivers 2 from Arrowhead Game Studios feels like a 2000s-era throwback in the best possible way. Whether you’ve been playing since day one or are curious what all the fuss is about, here’s a comprehensive rundown of all our coverage of the hit shooter.

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*That* Borderlands Movie Trailer, A Nintendo Direct, And More Of What Went Down This Week

As yet another week passes, we get more proof that 2024 is shaping up to be a very busy year in gaming—if not for game releases, then certainly for big stories around game exclusivity, adaptions, and, as always, streamers. This week we got our first look at the highly anticipated Borderlands movie (lol), learned about…

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Kotaku’s Essential Guide To Persona 3 Reload

Fans of sprawling RPGs with intricate plots and ensemble casts sure have been eating good the first couple months of 2024. Late January saw the release of RGG Studio’s bodacious Hawaiian-style adventure, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth. The end of February brings with it the extravagant second installment of Square…

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New Roguelike Game Mixes Deckbuliding With Poker

Poker isn’t the most exciting game to play alone. Even against computer players in a video game,poker isn’t much fun. Balatro—out now on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC—understands this. Instead of playing other opponents and placing bets, this roguelike deck builder is all about making winning hands and collecting…

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Naruto Live-Action Movie In The Works From Shang-Chi Director

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’s co-writer and director Destin Daniel Cretton is making the leap from comics to manga with a live-action adaptation of Naruto. One of the most popular anime and manga properties of the last several decades, Naruto has lived many lives as a comic book, several animated shows,…

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The Halo TV Series Just Killed Off An Iconic Character

The latest episode of the Paramount+ Halo series is an action-packed throat punch from the moment it starts. That punch to your windpipe will sting a little more if you’re a big fan of a certain character from the games, who bit the proverbial dust this week.

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New Overwatch 2 Changes Continue An Upsetting Trend

Since Overwatch 2’s controversial launch, Blizzard has made a lot of massive changes to its hero shooter formula. First, it changed the core team makeup from 6v6 to 5v5, then it gutted its promised PvE mode, reworked heroes, added new game modes, and gave every character passive healing abilities. The more these big,…

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The 15 Best Simpsons Musical Numbers

The Simpsons has been on for over 30 years at this point. In that time, the show has produced some amazing episodes and some real stinkers. But let’s not forget that Fox’s hit animated show about a suburban family trying to make ends meet in Springfield has also provided us with some incredible songs, often mixing…

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Tekken 8 Gives Grieving Family A Way To Remember A Loved One

Video games are the way a lot of us bond with our loved ones. Whether it’s family, a partner, or a group of friends gathering to play Helldivers 2, some of our most cherished memories with people we care about are facilitated through games. Thankfully, some games give us a means to immortalize those who are gone, and…

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It’s Time For Game Devs To Kill The Killmonger Swoop

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The Ones Who Live Proves It's Time To Let The Walking Dead Die

A decade ago, The Walking Dead wasn’t a mere TV show, it was an impossible-to-escape cultural phenomenon. Crafted with precision, powerful performances, and prosthetics, early TWD rose above regular zombie fare upon its 2010 premiere—that pilotremains flawless even today. In its first few seasons, the AMC series…

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Helldivers 2 Is Committed To The Bit And So Are We

I haven’t had the chance to play much of Helldivers 2. At first, server issues due to the game’s swell in popularity kept me from playing, but as the situation’s improved, I’ve also found myself too busy or tired to play. Last night, I opted to watch my friends play it and commentate over their largely successful runs…

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PlayStation Plus Just Added 2022’s Most Stylish Arcade Racer

Driving games can loosely be divided into two sub-genres: simulation and arcade. The former category includes the likes of Gran Turismo or Forza (not the Horizon series) and focus on more realistic racing. But the latter is all about fun over realism. 2022’s Need for Speed Unbound, the latest release in the…

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Ultra-Rare Zelda Game Could Snag More Than $700,000 At Auction

As physical video games become harder to find due to never-ending digitization, folks love collecting tangible items, especially if they’re of the rare and sealed variety. A 22-year-old Californian named Kiro recently came up on one such rarity: a sealed copy of 1987's The Legend of Zelda, and damn-near let it go for…

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After Palworld, Pokémon Needs To Come Out Swinging

The annual Pokémon Day Presents showcase takes place this Tuesday, February 27 in celebration of the series’ anniversary. This is where The Pokémon Company typically announces its next big game, and offers updates on its various live service projects. It’s usually an exciting day, and it probably still will be, but…

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New Kojima Disney Doc Is Shorter Than MGS4’s Longest Cutscene

Announced and premiered last year, Connecting Worlds—the documentary about famed game director Hideo Kojima—is now available on Disney+ for everyone to watch. And while it might only appeal to Kojima super fans, it’s at least not very long, clocking in at a cool 60 minutes, or about 11 minutes less than the famous…

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Baldur’s Gate 3 Devs Working On ‘Robust’ Cross-Platform Mod Support

Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios is keenly aware of the mods that exist for the Dungeons & Dragons-based role-playing game. They’re all unofficial, of course, living in the mod bank that is Nexus Mods—but not for long. The studio said that official mod support is coming to the critically acclaimed game, though…

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FF7: Advent Children Paved The Way For Rebirth, For Better And Worse

If you want to understand how the Final Fantasy VII universe got to where it is today, then you need not look any further than Advent Children. The 2005 animated movie that acts as a sequel to the original 1997 title is something of a flashpoint for the beloved characters. Advent Children paved the way for the…

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