Kotaku: Posts

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Assassin's Creed Shadows' Afflictions, Demystified

How exhausted are you by stagger? It’s unironically the worst status affliction in video gaming history. Thankfully, it’s not much of an issue in Assassin’s Creed Shadows—at least for the player. The action-adventure from Ubisoft does have a similar status effect—Daze—but you’ll most often be the one inflicting it…

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Welp, GTA 6 Is Definitely Going To Be At Least $80 Now

Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to launch later this year. Maybe in October? Regardless of when it arrives, it seems very likely now—after Nintendo and Microsoft have both announced $80 games—that the open-world sequel will cost at least $80 as well, if not more.

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Polygon Sold To Valnet And Hit With Mass Layoffs

The video game website Polygon has been sold to click-farm powerhouse Valnet and much of its masthead has been laid off, Kotaku has learned. Multiple staff members have posted online about losing their jobs or about colleagues now being out of work.

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How To Defeat The Naginata In Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Naoe and Yasuke’s ongoing journey through the Wide Wide World of Bastards continues with The Naginata, a panicky, flopsweaty stooge who doesn’t even have the honor of fighting an old drunk one-on-one given the opportunity.

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Fans React To Xbox Price Hikes And $80 Games

An Xbox Series X with 2TB of storage now costs more than a PlayStation 5 Pro. The next Call of Duty could be Microsoft’s first $80 game. Microsoft announced major price hikes for the entire Xbox ecosystem on Thursday and fans are in shock.

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Stardew Valley Creator Steps Away to Finish Haunted Chocolatier: “I Might Just Disappear”

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Ubisoft Drops Heavy Hints Of A Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown Sequel

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown’s developers got done dirty. The side-scrolling Metroidvania entry into the 36-year-old series sold an extraordinary 1.3 million copies, and yet despite this, Eurogamer reported last year that the internal team at Ubisoft Montpellier that had created the game had been disbanded and…

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Yeah, You Might Just Have To Resort To Save Scumming To Secure This Item In Monster Hunter Wilds

Monster Hunter Wilds has a habit of keeping things vague when it comes to various mechanics or how items work. Not everything can be as obvious as how to interact with Wounds. No matter if you find it charming or frustrating, you’re bound to be confused here and there. A great example of this is Commission Tickets,…

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Microsoft Announces Massive Xbox Console Price Hike, Xbox Games To Cost $80

Microsoft has announced it will be raising the prices of all Xbox consoles, accessories, and games, and the increases are huge. Console and peripheral prices will go up today, May 1, by an enormous amount, while new first-party game prices will all hit $80 by the holidays.

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13 Things We Learned About Borderlands 4 After Today's Big Event

Today, we learned a lot more about Borderlands 4 during a roughly 20-minute PlayStation State of Play dedicated exclusively to Gearbox and 2K’s upcoming sci-fi looter shooter sequel.

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Even Atari Game Cartridges Are Getting More Expensive Because Of Tariffs

Atari has put out updated versions of multiple classic consoles in recent years, following up its Atari 2600+ replica console from 2023 with the 7800+ in late 2024, all accompanied by honest-to-god physical cartridge releases containing classic Atari games like Berzerk, Space Duel, and Ninja Golf. However, the retro…

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Ubisoft Reveals Massive Post-Launch Road Map For Assassin's Creed Shadows

Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Ubisoft’s latest entry in its long-running historical fiction franchise, is set to receive some big updates over the next few months as explained in a new content roadmap released on April 30.

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Prepare For Balatro To Take Over Your Life When It Hits PS Plus In May

I can already feel how much sleep I’m about to lose when Balatro becomes one of the free monthly games for PlayStation Plus in May. The 2024 GOTY contender and viral high score chase sensation is only a year old and about to win over a whole new group of converts to its Joker-worshipping cult.

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EA Abandons One Of The Longest-Running Racing Franchises After 25 Years

Earlier today racing game developer Codemasters announced that it was no longer developing any future dirt rally racing games, ending a 25-year run that started back in 1998.

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Nintendo Quietly Made A Big Change To The Nintendo Switch eShop

The Nintendo Switch received a major firmware update today that paves the way for its integration with the Switch 2 and institutes a less than stellar new regime of virtual game sharing. But firmware version 20.0.0 also made some other equally notable but less advertised changes, including a major shift to how…

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Jack Black's Minecraft Chicken Song Just Broke A Billboard Charts Record

A Minecraft Movie is a box office juggernaut and has convinced loads of kids and teenagers to go out to the movies again (and cause chaos). And a song from the the live-action adaptation of the hit video game has set a new record: it’s the shortest track to ever make it on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

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Creepy Horror Series Rusty Lake Celebrates Its 10th Birthday With A Surprise New Game And Film

It all began with Cube Escape back in April 2015. Two mobile games were released simultaneously, Cube Escape: The Lake and Cube Escape: Seasons. Each, at first glance, appeared to be part of the current trend for both digital and real-world escape room games, in which you solved puzzles to set yourself free from some…

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Evil Dead Disappears From Stores Just Three Years After Release

Evil Dead: The Game arrived in 2022 to mixed reviews but strong fan support for its asymmetric multiplayer. Now, just three years later, the survival horror game is disappearing from store shelves, presumably because of expiring licenses.

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Turn Off Car Damage In Forza Horizon 5 So You Can Race Around Like The Maniac You Are

Some players adore realism in their racing games, including mechanical and cosmetic damage that forces them to drive perfectly or risk breaking down mid-race. Other folks enjoy a more leisurely racing experience that lets them get away with being a bit more reckless (or a lot more reckless).

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Be A Pal And Gift Some Cars To Your Friends In Forza Horizon 5

They say that giving is better than receiving. I say that depends on what’s being given or received. But it’s definitely great that Forza Horizon 5 gives you the ability to gift cars to your friends or random folks in the game. I mean, surely you’re not planning on driving literally every car you obtain in the game,…

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A Beginner's Guide To Mastering Lune In Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Lune’s already a boon to us all for being the person to shake Gustave out of his post-massacre fugue state and get this Expedition on the road. But now that you’re a dynamic duo, you have a whole new set of options in battle.

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Tom Cruise Endorsing Sinners Is Actually A Pretty Big Deal

As “Sinners” remains at the number one spot at the box office, it’s getting major love from some major stars, namely Tom Cruise. And his latest move—and what he’s telling people to do is just further proof of that.

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Everything You Need To Know About Overwatch 2’s Gundam Wing Collaboration

People in the center of the Overwatch and Gundam Venn Diagram got some fantastic news last week when Blizzard announced the collaboration of the iconic mecha anime with one fo the most popular hero shooters out there. Overwatch 2’s Gundam Wing event starts on April 29, 2025, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Gundam…

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Nintendo's Big Switch Update Adds Virtual Game Sharing And More, With One Important Catch

The Nintendo Switch just got a major update to prepare for the arrival of Switch 2 in June. Ver. 20.0.0, released overnight, adds system transfers to Switch 2 as well as support for the new console’s GameShare feature and the sharing of virtual game cards. Players have quickly discovered a major caveat for that last…

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Stardew Valley Creator Is Focused On Finishing His Next Game

Last year, Stardew Valley received a massive free update because its creator, Eric Barone, didn’t want to stop improving the beloved cozy farming game even eight years after it had launched. But now, he sounds committed to moving on from Stardew Valley for a few years while he finishes up his previously announced next…

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Moldwasher Is A Power-Washing Sim For Pixel Art Perverts

A humble piece of sushi cleans mold off leftovers in the fridge. That’s the premise of Moldwasher, a small pixel art curio with serene ambient tunes that is coming to Steam later this year. It recently landed on the the r/powerwashingporn subreddit where it became a mini-sensation.

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Marvel Fighting Game With Over 300 Characters Finally Coming To Steam

Marvel Contest of Champions, a long-running fighting game from mobile developer Kablam, is getting an official PC port and Steam release in the near future.

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Star Wars: Jedi Studio Doesn't Mention Layoffs In Announcement About Laying Developers Off

Between Apex Legends, the Star Wars: Jedi series, and other projects, Respawn Entertainment has a lot on its plate, so it’s a little shocking to hear that EA is laying off even more members of the studio this year. It raises ongoing questions about what’s going on inside the team that’s seemingly working on everything …

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Where Does Sinners Rank Among The Best Vampire Flicks Of All Time?

Originating from folklore and legends across different cultures and centuries, the supernatural creatures with a lust for blood and a fear of garlic and crucifixes have become some of the most iconic figures in horror and popular culture. And some of the most popular. The Twilight film series alone grossed over $3…

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Thunderbolts Sounds Like The Best MCU Movie In Years

Thunderbolts, the next big Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, lands in theaters this weekend. But after a few misfires and meh movies, like February’s Captain America: Brave New World, it started to feel like the MCU couldn’t score a home run. Thankfully, according to critics, Thunderbolts might be the return to form…

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