Kotaku

Roger Craig Smith announced this morning that he will return as the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog in future games.

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Citing the complicated nature of coordinating a live event for thousands of people, evolving California in-person event guidelines, and the fluctuating status of the global covid-19 pandemic, Blizzard has announced BlizzCon will be skipping another year.

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Masahiro Sakurai has a regular column in Japanese game magazine Weekly Famitsu. In the latest issue, just released and read by Kotaku, Sakurai’s article is titled, “Everything comes to an end.”

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I’m tired of Heisenberg’s Factory in Resident Evil Village. So much so that I, once again, might quit playing. The difference here from Village’s infamous Dollhouse—that also caused me to almost quit the game prematurely—isn’t because the factory is particularly scary or difficult. It’s just tedious. It’s a…

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June’s Xbox Live Games with Gold aren’t too exciting, but hey, they’re games. As always, these games are only “free” if you have an active Xbox Live Gold subscription.

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Just when you thought you were done hunting monsters, bam! Capcom drops a free title update adding two new ferocious beasts to conquer and “a new ending to advance the story,” which is not how endings work but that’s what Capcom says, so we’ll run with it.

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Make sure to kiss your mom goodbye and stock up on your Max Potions, because the three latest Pokémon games finally have release dates. Today, The Pokémon Company announced that the Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl remakes will launch on November 19, and a new open-world game Pokémon Legends: Arceus will come later…

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Yesterday Echtra Games released the “Cursed Captain” update for Torchlight III, adding a playable class, new pets, and applying several bug fixes and quality-of-life changes to the dungeon crawler. The developer also announced this update would be its last, due to its acquisition by Zynga in March.

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In a recent episode of Super Cub, the anime about schoolgirls and the Honda motorcycle, two characters are shown riding on the same motorcycle. That is illegal in Japan.

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Japan is famous for its canned coffee. But with consumption on the slide, canned coffee makers needed to wake up sales. They found it: Anime.

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Typically, patches correct bugs and glitches or add new features and content. The latest Final Fantasy XIV patch does that, but it also changes the ages of two non-playable characters, Mikoto Jinba and Menenius sas Lanatus.

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You’ve seen The Thing, right? Well this is the board game adaptation.

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Cyberpunk 2077 has been through the ringer over the last six months, but despite all the hotfixes and attempts to rectify the biggest crashes and oversights, CD Projekt Red still doesn’t know when the game will be allowed on the PlayStation Store.

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Widescale reporting of terrible working conditions at video game studios is a relatively recent thing, but crunch has always been with us, and as we can see in this rare story about the practice from the 1990s, when it’s bad it can be life-threatening.

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Following the long-standing convention of complicated role-playing games, Biomutant makes you customize your character—their stats, class, and so on—before you actually know how the game plays. You’re essentially funneled into a situation in which you make lasting decisions without fully understanding their context or…

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If the Nintendo Switch has proven anything, it’s that being able to play previously PC-only indies on the go rules. Soon, though, you might not need to wait for Switch ports of your Steam-powered faves: a new report claims Valve is working on its own handheld.

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On June 5, 1997, Nintendo filed a patent titled “Video game system and method with enhanced three-dimensional character and background control due to environmental conditions.” I can’t even begin to parse what the heck that means on a technical level, but what I do know is that the document’s contents are ripe for…

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Games Workshop is launching a new streaming service called Warhammer Plus (also stylized as Warhammer+). The service was revealed by Games Workshop staffers Adam Troke and Eddie Eccles on May 22 during a Twitch stream on the company’s official channel.

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Wanna feel old? I sure don’t but I do now anyway, all thanks to one astute yet extremely mean tweet that popped into my timeline and instilled in me a sudden urge to burn my savings on a premium Botox job: As amateur video game historian Chris Chapman pointed out, Skyrim is officially as old as Morrowind was on Skyrim…

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After teasing the classic fighting game franchise’s return last fall, this morning Sega announced Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown, a PlayStation 4-exclusive update to a game that’s almost 15 years removed from its original release at this point. Oh, and it’s launching June 1, also known as next Tuesday.

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Today’s release of update 5.55 for Final Fantasy XIV delivers the second part of the final main story quest before the Endwalker expansion, adds additional story for the YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse quest line, and marks the official launch of the PS5 version of the game. Most importantly, the update lets me rock out on a…

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In Overwatch, B.O.B., Ashe’s robot companion and ultimate ability, doesn’t do much beyond shoot where Ashe tells him to. But yesterday, an AMA revealed that the Big Omnic Butler initially had a lot of thoughts on how players performed in Overwatch matches.

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Like any open-world role-playing game, Biomutant is a hodgepodge of interweaving parts, many of which aren’t exactly explained in the early goings. Two of us—staff writer Ari Notis and weekend editor Zack Zweizen, who reviewed the game—have spent a whole lot of time in Biomutant’s vividly colored yet morally gray…

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Apex Legends introduced a new 3v3 Arena mode with Season 9 in early May, and I’ve been enjoying it for the handful of times when I’ve been able to play out a full match. Most of the time, a player will bail after a few bad rounds, leaving me at a severe disadvantage or giving me a victory that feels hollow and…

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Biomutant is out today and if you’ve played the game for more than 30 minutes you probably have a question on your mind: How the fuck do I shut this narrator up? Good news! There’s a slider to do just that buried in the menus.

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Settling the island of Catan in Klaus Teuber’s classic board game has never looked quite as eye-poppingly lush as it does in the new $300 3D edition.

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The biggest update to Harmonix Music System’s music mixing game since launch, Fuser’s “Headliner Spotlight” update brings players closer to the DJ fantasy by letting them take the Diamond Stage and play live to hundreds of live spectators in real-time.

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Get curious and set out for adventure Biomutant’s decent-sized map chock full of a prolific discoveries and big choices.

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Earlier today, there were Japanese news reports of a single-story wooden house catching fire in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. According to anime maker Studio Nue, the house’s inhabitants were Kazutaka Miyatake and his wife Tomoko.

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This week, a completely new Metal Saga has been announced to mark the franchise’s 30th anniversary. It’s called Metal Saga: Hangyaku no Rouka (The Beacon of Rebellion) and is bound for the Nintendo Switch.

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Pavel Hristov is a freelance artist working in the video game business.

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Back in March, I spent a very long time watching Trackmania videos, despite it being a game I don’t really play and know almost nothing about. Today we’re back with another one, just as good, only this time about something less celebratory than a world record.

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Halo’s original PC port, released in 2003 and handled by Gearbox, was mostly fine, but it also had some weird issues, mostly related to funky textures. Fans have just kinda put up with them ever since, but in 2021 Microsoft is finally getting around to fixing them.

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Watch Dogs started life as a Driver game, according to a new report from VG 24/7. But through development it grew beyond what that series was about and into something pitched to Ubisoft’s CEO as their “own GTA.”

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Dodgeball sucks. I recall, during some school recess years ago, getting beaned in the face with a dodgeball. Blood, everywhere. Across the pitch, some kid stood, sneering, as all the other kids laughed. I think he broke my glasses? The specifics are lost to the fog of memory, but the feeling—total, abject…

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After last week’s Overwatch 2 developer livestream, one fan created some of the changes coming in the new game in Overwatch’s workshop mode.

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Last week, Twitch finally responded to controversy surrounding the so-called “hot tub meta” by clarifying its rules and creating a new section called Pools, Hot Tubs, and Beaches. Given that many complaints about hot tub streams stemmed from the idea that they represented a “loophole” in Twitch’s rules, it has…

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It’s Monday and time for Ask Kotaku, the weekly feature in which Kotaku-ites deliberate on a single burning question. Then, we ask your take.

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The official Apex Legends subreddit hosted an AMA last week with the game’s development team. Fans had questions about everything from weapon balance to character tweaking, and most controversial of all, how the Apex Legends team monetizes its offerings.

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A lot of new stuff arrived with Call of Duty’s mid-season “Reloaded” update last week. It’s easy to get distracted by the ‘80s Action Hero event’s challenges and modes, but hidden in the mix is “Multi-Team Elimination,” a Fireteam mode for Black Ops Cold War that’s worth checking out.

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