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I Hate Call Of Duty’s Launcher So Much

A few years ago, my best friends convinced me to play Call of Duty: Warzone, the series’ battle royale installment that had shot up the charts. While I was aware of it for work reasons, I’d largely sworn off the franchise about a decade prior, returning for brief stints and forays into the Black Ops subseries that I’d…

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Here's Why You Should Make Action-RPG Ys X: Nordics Your First Ys Game

Ys X: Nordics marks the tenth mainline game in the beloved action-RPG franchise, extraordinarily now in its 37th year. Originally released in Japan in September 2023, Ys X now at last has a worldwide English-language release. And yet, despite all this, you’ve never played a Ys game! Let us convince you this is the…

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A Ton Of Classic PC Games Are A Bargain During GOG’s Halloween Sale

Even with only two days until Halloween, more themed sales seem to be consistently popping up as we get closer to the holiday. While there have already been a massive number of spooky season sales, including a truly impressive one from Steam, storefront GOG is not to be outdone, and has entered the fray with a big…

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Robert Downey Jr. Says He’d Sue If Marvel Ever Copied His Likeness With AI

AI looms over us daily, encroaching upon creative territory long held by human artists in various forms. It would seem the film industry is feeling the sting of this new technology, as renowned movie stars such as Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson have spoken out against the possibility of AI replicating their…

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Sony Names PlayStation's New Bosses

Sony has named existing company veterans Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino as the new heads of PlayStation. Hulst will take over and run a new Studio Business Group while Nishino is in charge of the Platform Business Group. The division of roles replaces former CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment Jim Ryan, who…

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18 Cool Things Metal Gear Solid 2 Doesn’t Outright Tell You

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and its follow-up expanded release, Substance, released on the PS2 all the way back in the early 2000s, dramatically expanding the gameplay systems of Metal Gear Solid and opening the narrative up to wild and unexpected twists and turns.

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Hi-Fi Rush: The Kotaku Retrospective Review

There’s a scene late in Hi-Fi Rush, the rhythm action game by the now-defunct Tango Gameworks, in which protagonist Chai explores a museum dedicated to the antagonistic, oppressive megacorp Vandelay Technologies. In it, the corporation tells a sanitized version of its own history, one that glosses over the impact of…

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Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree Has A Freak Straight Out Of Bloodborne

The team at FromSoftware is really good at making the most fucked-up creatures imaginable. Some of the stuff that team has fit into its games are utter nightmares ripped out of the deep dark recesses of the human mind. Parts of its catalog, like Bloodborne, have explicitly leaned into that haunting aesthetic more than…

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Fallout 4 Fans Are Begging Bethesda To Stop Updating The Game

Last month, Bethesda released a “next-gen” update for Fallout 4 across all platforms intended to improve the aging RPG. Instead, it broke tons of popular mods and made the game buggier for some players, too. To fix that, Bethesda has released another update. The reaction from fans has mostly been negative, with people…

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It Looks Like Red Dead Redemption's PC Port Is Finally Happening

Rockstar has updated its PC launcher files and included text that appears to reference a still-unconfirmed PC port of 2010's Red Dead Redemption. It’s just the latest bit of evidence that the open-world cowboy sim might soon be arriving on personal computers after a decade of console exclusivity.

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Last Of Us Season Two Set Photos Show Bella Ramsey Sporting The Part II Look

The second season of Max’s The Last of Us show is currently filming in British Columbia. While Joel actor Pedro Pascal is reportedly done with his part of the season, somehow, Ellie actor Bella Ramsey is still shooting their scenes alongside series newcomer Isabela Merced, who is playing her girlfriend Dina in the…

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Awesome Helldivers 2 Mod Lets Players Reenact Their Star Wars Fantasies

Helldivers 2 may be a video game analog for the satire of the 1997 sci-fi film Starship Troopers, but there’s an entirely different space-faring movie franchise fans have been clamoring to see in the game. That franchise is, quite predictably, Star Wars, and folks have especially wanted to see characters and…

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Fans Spot Powerpuff Girls In New MultiVersus Trailer

Last week, WB Games announced that The Joker—voiced by Mark Hamill—is going to appear in its franchise-mash-up platform fighter, MultiVersus, when it re-launches later this month. And now, via a new gameplay trailer for The Joker, it seems the Powerpuff Girls could also be a part of WB’s fighting game.

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Xbox Boss Can Finally Get His Revenge, Unlocks Ability To Nuke Other Players In Fallout 76

Amid turmoil and disillusionment over recent studio closures, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has continued grinding through Fallout 76 and has just finished the “Officer on Deck” questline, granting him the ability to launch the survival MMO’s infamous nukes. The new capability was unlocked just days after a fan…

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Marvel's Answer To Overwatch Blasted For Trying To Ban Criticism

Marvel Rivals, the Overwatch-like starring Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch, and other Marvel superheroes, came under fire over the weekend during its ongoing closed alpha playtest. After reading through developer NetEase’s contract for access to the playtest, streamers noticed a section that precludes them from speaking…

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GameStop's Meme Stock Explodes Again After YouTuber Roaring Kitty Returns

It’s been three years since GameStop’s stock originally exploded during the pandemic as big-time investors capitalized on an internet feud between deep-pocketed hedge funds and very online Redditors. Now the meme stock is back for round two after Roaring Kitty, AKA Deep Fucking Value, AKA Keith Gill, the…

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Final Fantasy Maker Promises 'Quality Over Quantity' And Fewer Exclusives In Major Strategy Reboot

Square Enix has announced that it will be moving away from releasing games exclusively to select platforms, opting instead to pursue multiplatform launches in the near-future to amplify the sales of its flagging games. It’s all part of “aggressively pursuing” a new business strategy after a few years of bizarre…

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Starting Out Right In Hades 2, How Not To Suck In V Rising, And More Of The Week's Gaming Tips

Hades 2 is here, bringing with it all kinds of questions about how to gather materials, unlock the ward, and a whole lost of other things. Well, we’ve got answers. We’ll also shine a little light on the darkness of Shadow Moses with some fun tips for Metal Gear Solid, get you started right in V Rising, and more.

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The Buck Stops With Phil Spencer, 1000xRESIST Is A Must-Play, And More Gaming Opinions For The Week

People had strong feelings, to put it mildly, after Xbox shuttered Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and other studios, and we share some of our own. Also,PlayStation finally relented on a requirement that PC players maintain a PSN account, but not before colossal fan uproar, and as the dust started to settle, we had…

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Xbox Shutters Studios, Switch 2 Specs May Have Leaked, And More Of The Week's Gaming News

This past week started with a shock, as Microsoft announced it was closing a number of studios including Tango Gameworks, responsible for the very well-liked Hi-Fi Rush, leading many to wonder just what a studio has to achieve in this day and age to be deemed successful enough to exist. Also, one of the most…

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GameStop Wants You To Start Trading In Your Valuable Pokémon Cards

The market for high-end collectibles like rare Pokémon cards has exploded in recent years, and GameStop seems to want a piece of it. The gaming retailer told some store managers this week that it would begin testing buying Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) graded trading cards later this month as it flails…

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Destiny 2: The Final Shape Is Changing How Some Of Its Bounties Work

Bungie has made it abundantly clear that Destiny 2’s upcoming expansion, The Final Shape, is a pretty big deal. It’s not only ending the 10-year story that began with Destiny in 2014, but it’s ushering in a new era of the game, dramatically changing how classes and perks will work, introducing a new content model, reve…

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Kotaku's Weekend Guide: 9 Incredible Games We Can’t Stop Thinking About

Whether you have a bunch of free time or hardly any at all, whether you’re playing on console or PC, there are plenty of great games to obsess over right now. Our recommendations for what to play this weekend include everything from sci-fi thrillers and loot-driven action-RPGs to esoteric puzzle games and action…

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People Watched More Fallout Than Bluey And Grey's Anatomy Combined

Amazon’s Fallout TV show, which premiered last month, was a big success and has already been greenlit for a second season. However, new data reveals that it is likely Amazon’s biggest show ever and was also one of the most watched things in April, beating out shows like Bluey, Grey’s Anatomy, and NCIS.

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Helldivers 2’s Latest Major Order Suggests Player Choices May Not Really Matter

Helldivers 2’s major orders are supposed to be objectives that unite the community to work toward a common goal, one that often paves the way for momentous beats in its ongoing galactic war. Past major orders have led to incredible player-led stories like the liberation of Malevelon Creek and the securing of mechs on…

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The Xbox Fallout: Breaking Down Microsoft's Worst Gaming Week In Years

It has been a very bad week for Xbox Game Studios. On Tuesday, May 7, Microsoft announced it would shut down three studios: Redfall developer Arkane Austin, Hi-Fi Rush creators Tango Gameworks, and Mighty Doom studio Alpha Dog Games. On top of this, Roadhouse Games is being absorbed into Elder Scrolls Online developer…

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Classic Sci-Fi Shooter Marathon From The Makers Of Halo Now Free

Marathon is now available on Steam! But wait, I don’t mean the Marathon revival that Bungie is currently working on. I mean the original Marathon from 1994. The studio announced the shadow drop on X (formerly Twitter) on May 10 with one extra bit of good news—It’s free!

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13 Nintendo Ports, Remasters, And Remakes We’d Love While We're Waiting For The Switch 2

Fans have been waiting for Nintendo to launch a Switch 2 for years now. It was reportedly due out sometime in 2024 before getting delayed to next year. And while the company recently hinted that the Switch successor will be revealed later this year, it could still be a longtime before it actually comes out. What games…

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Bethesda Promises New Fallout 4 Update To Fix The Last Big Update

Last month’s disastrous Fallout 4 update was intended to fix and improve the old RPG, but instead broke a lot of stuff and angered fans. Now Bethesda is patching the patch with a just-announced upcoming update to Fallout 4.

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9 Demos You Need To Play During Steam’s LudoNarraCon 2024

It’s that time of year again, LudoNarraCon! The annual Steam festival organized by indie publisher Fellow Traveller (known for games like Citizen Sleeper) is back as of May 9 and will run until May 13. Like previous years, the festival brings with it sales, panels with interesting developers, and exciting demos for…

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