The first time the internet saw DCU Superman star Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia in Netflix’s adaptation of The Witcher, it howled in collective laughter over the terrible wig. Four years later, fans are losing their minds that Hollywood’s leading himbo won’t be reprising the role after season three ends. One obvious…
Due to an ancient witch’s curse, Myst, officially the worst game ever made, will never go away. Further proof of this affliction is that original creator Cyan Worlds has just announced it’s remaking Myst’s almost-as-awful sequel, Riven. So if you love randomly flipping levers between sitting through the most dreadful…
Adriana Chechik, who made headlines earlier this month after she broke her back in two places at TwitchCon, has returned to streaming with some updates—and a close look—at how her recovery has been going.
The upcoming God of War Ragnarök, one of the biggest PlayStation games of the year, isn’t supposed to be out until November 9, but over the past 24 hours video and social media sites have been flooded with clips of people playing their way through the entire game.
Today, Netflix announced that The Witcher will be back for a fourth season. However, it wasn’t all good news, as the streamer also confirmed that Henry Cavill will not be returning for season 4. Instead, Liam Hemsworth will be the new monster slayer, Geralt of Rivia.
Gotham Knights came out a week ago and I’ve found it exceedingly difficult to find anything to love about the open-world loot brawler. Red Hood’s snickerdoodle recipe, maybe? The latest Batman game borrows from a ton of other, mostly better rivals, and struggles to craft a clear identity in the process. Kotaku’s Levi…
On an average day, my friends might ask me how my job is going. I’ll smile, tell them “It’s going great,” and then launch into a story about one of the most fucked up things they’ve ever heard of. And now I get to give the recap to you.
The former voice of Bayonetta has gone from calling out bad pay for gaming industry talent to plugging the controversial anti-abortion group Billboards 4Life. This all started out with her boycott of Bayonetta 3, after misleading fans about her removal from the project. She’s now urging them to take the money they…
In an unexpected move, furniture giant Ikea has sent a solo indie developer a cease and desist letter reviewed by Kotaku, demanding he make changes to his unreleased survival horror game set in an Ikea-like furniture store. Lawyers representing Ikea are claiming that the game commits trademark infringement because…
Burger King’s proprietary Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II operator skin, a man with a beautiful mustache and Burger Town t-shirt, is selling on eBay for about half of the full game’s $69.99 asking price.
Marvel Snap players everywhere are sharing end-of-game match results with eye-popping numbers. But no matter what your scorecard says at the end, I’m willing to bet it’s child’s play compared to what I’m about to show you. Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a limit to how high your Marvel Snap score can go. And one man has…
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is ostensibly a game about shooting people in the face. But like lots of other modern games, it’s also about playing dress-up and navigating an endless sea of unlocks and monetizable cosmetics. While the shooting is good, the stream of menus in-between has some players raging and wishing…
There has been a lot of commotion and complaining about Overwatch 2’s in-game store prices and its lack of free loot boxes. It’s much harder in the recently released shooter sequel to earn credits and unlock new outfits for free compared to the first game. And a new example of just how pricey Overwatch 2 is was…
If you’ve been following the fighting game community, you might’ve noticed something strange happening at some recent Guilty Gear tournaments. A player hailing from the U.S. named Joe Biden has been sweeping the competition, placing in the top 10 in the last 20 or so tourneys he’s competed in. But…wait a minute, Joe…
Anyone playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, which got released today, on Xbox or PC is finding themselves in the shallow video game trenches, but not the kind they had hoped for. Infinity Ward’s first-person shooter seems to have a console preference, with Xbox players unable to switch off crossplay, a function…
It’s very likely you don’t give a great deal of thought to where the digital colors you use originally came from. Nor, probably, have you wondered who might “own” a particular color, when you picked it when creating something in Photoshop. But a lot of people are about to give this a huge amount of their attention, as…
It hasn’t been a great month for Adidas, but if the German sportswear giant can be counted on one thing these days (or over the last 20 years), it’s finding ways to squeeze some cash out of licensed sneaker deals. Next up: The Simpsons.
The NBA 2K League, the official esports competition that’s a team effort of both the NBA and NBA 2K publishers Take-Two, has just “indefinitely disqualified” six players and a coach for their role in a betting scandal.
In June 2018, a brawl over a Pokémon Go gym erupted in a park in St Louis that led to a victim suffering a “traumatic eye injury.” The fight was captured on video, and led to two men being arrested on serious assault charges. Those men have finally been tried, with a court finding both guilty of felony third-degree…
Gotham Knights got its first significant post-launch patch on PC yesterday. The update was aimed at fixing online multiplayer errors and squashing some bugs. Unfortunately, it also temporarily squashed the Batman game’s Denuvo DRM protections, seemingly leaving it vulnerable to pirates. That’s one way to take them by…
These days it’s rare to see an online game without built-in live-service monetization, let alone one that’s getting rid of that stuff. But that’s exactly what the Subnautica devs behind Moonbreaker are doing. Recently launched in Early Access on Steam, the tabletop RPG is throwing out both its premium paid currency…
Usually, when a game’s online servers are sunsetted, players don’t get the opportunity to go out in a self-aware blaze of glory before the final dawn arrives. But then again, most games don’t have the bizarre Nier creator, Yoko Taro, as their director.
Sometimes the scariest thing isn’t a giant monster or an army of zombies. Instead, it can be something so believable and straightforward that it feels like it could happen to you one day. Take, for example, a new trailer for an upcoming bodycam horror game going viral online. It only features one strange woman and a…
It’s difficult to know how to start talking about obsessive-compulsive disorder, the debilitating anxiety condition that has made persistent laps around my life for 14 years, like a flickering koi fish, and I’m the swampy backyard pond.
As Kotaku reported last week, retail giant GameStop has been increasingly stocking its retail stores with weird, random junk instead of, well, video games. Dissatisfied GameStop employees have been grousing online about the massive amounts of toys the warehouses are sending. And as it turns out, customers aren’t even…
As Halloween draws near, more and more people are loading up their favorite scary games to enjoy some digital frights. But this isn’t a new tradition. In fact, many of us here at Kotaku have been playing spooky, creepy games since we were old enough to pick up controllers or mash keyboards. And when you are a kid,…
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 drops on October 28, though if you preordered it, you’ve likely already gotten some time with the campaign. But ahead of the game’s full release, which will give folks full access to the multiplayer component, some are decrying the game’s skill-based matchmaking (SBMM).
If you’ve spent any time at all playing the new hit mobile card game Marvel Snap, you’ve probably wondered whether the person on the other side of the virtual board was human or not. And you’re not alone. The game doesn’t make it clear when you’re playing against a real person, and as a result, players are now…
Players who received early physical copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II have reported that the discs included contain only about 72MB of data, forcing players to connect to the internet and download the other 100+ GB of data to actually play the game.
Marvel Snap, Disney’s NFT psyop that’s quickly destroying my life, has a bluffing mechanic that’s simple but genius. The card battler allows you to “snap,” except instead of deleting half the world, the mechanic immediately doubles the bet on the game you’re playing. Your opponent then has to make a calculation. Do…
Halloween is nearly upon us, my ghouls, gals, and nonbinary pals. To celebrate the goblins of the night, Overwatch 2 will host its annual spooky in-game event, Halloween Terror, through November 8. The event introduces new terrifying skins and a co-op PvE mode, pitting you against hordes of zombie heroes. That’s cool,…
Hey, punk. You wanna be like the The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl? Okay, maybe let’s not start an argument over who the most powerful Marvel character really is because nobody is coming out of that one alive. We are here to help you hulk out in the best new card battler around, and by the time we’re done, your Marvel Snap…
Out of the thousands of games I’ve played, a handful have worlds so vivid and memorable, I can immediately call them to mind.The bustling Holy Land of 2007's Assassin’s Creed, the industrial Midgar of 1997's Final Fantasy VII (and its solid 2020 remake), the vast Tamriel of 2011's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. These…
Rieko Kodama, one of the most important developers in the history of both Sega and the wider role-playing genre, has died at the age of 59.
Zoo Tycoon has been a management gaming mainstay for over two decades now, and quite frankly I’m shocked and appalled that it has taken this long for someone to be allowed to make a board game about it.
Many of us are living through an inflationary crisis the likes of which haven’t been seen for decades, meaning the price of pretty much everything—from clothes to power to food—has gone through the roof over the last 12 months. Video games are no exception.
Right now there’s a Halloween event running for Overwatch 2, but a fair amount of players are facing a different kind of terror: A previously known server error with the code “LC-208” appears to be disproportiantely hitting players after the most recent update.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II may nail its core gunplay and feature some standout characters across the board, but it also features some of the series’ most questionably awful depictions of violence and military power yet. One level in particular in which tensions rise between civilians and law enforcement stands…
Blizzard has announced it is temporarily disabling Mei from Overwatch 2 following reports of bugs associated with her Ice Wall ability. According to the statement, these bugs have allowed players to reach unintended locations. The team is currently working to address the issues and aims to have the Arctic explorer back in play on November 15.
[#OW2] We are temporarily disabling Mei to address a bug with her Ice Wall ability that allows heroes to reach unintended locations. We are working to address these issues as quickly as possible and aim to bring Mei back in our next upcoming patch which is set for November 15. pic.twitter.com/dHP65pMCsX
— Blizzard CS - The Americas (@BlizzardCS) October 31, 2022
In addition to pushing characters to out-of-bounds areas, some players have reported issues with Mei's Ice Wall failing to block attacks or lift team members. In a clip shared by Twitter user stefayylmao1, running into Mei's Ice Wall causes Kiriko to enter an undetected area where she can exploit being unable to be hit while taking out enemies.
really bro pic.twitter.com/271mOrJkSb
Resident Evil producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi has started a new studio that is building a new IP that aims to "impress the whole world." NetEase Games announced that it has opened a new development shop in Japan called GPTRACK50 that hopes to create "entertainment concepts" that appeal globally.
Kobayashi is also known for producing games in Capcom franchises such as Devil May Cry and Dragon's Dogma. The new studio will be staffed by "experienced professionals" from across gaming, film, and TV.
NetEase said its goal is to build "original IPs that would impress the whole world."
"The studio strives to build original game contents and to broaden the spectrum from just games to film and entertainment series," the company said.
GPTRACK50 will be a wholly owned internal studio at NetEase Games. It will focus primarily on PC and console games to begin with the aim of "growing into an establishment with a global media portfolio." The newly established developer doesn't have any announced projects as of yet.
NetEase has been making moves in the world of video games lately. Earlier this year, the company acquired Heavy Rain studio Quantic Dream and started a new studio with the creator of the Yakuza series. NetEase is also funding a new game from Destiny developer Bungie.
Kobayashi spent more than 27 years at Capcom, where he worked on the original Resident Evil and many of its sequels, as well as a number of other Capcom franchises in the world of video games and anime.