Culture

They Are Billions, the tower defense-RTS hybrid that took Steam by storm last year, is now out of early access. The 1.0 update, free to all who previously purchased the game, adds a long-awaited (if, so far, divisive) campaign and new survival mode maps. It also includes a host of bug fixes and addresses stability…

Final Fantasy XV‘s Lead Designer’s New Game Is A Love Letter To Live Music

No Straight Roads is a rhythm game inspired by the strong visual storytelling of Psychonauts. Playing it feels like rocking out in front of a surreal, vibrant crowd. At E3 last week, I was able to play a short demo that included the first boss fight, and as someone who also loves live music, I…

Astral Chain Director Says It Actually Can Be Two-Player, But It Makes The Game Harder

Platinum Games’ upcoming Nintendo Switch exclusive, Astral Chain, involves controlling two characters at the same time during combat. The game is not necessarily designed to be played by two people at once, but according to Astral Chain director Takahisa Taura, there is a way to do it that he described as both “challenging” and “really…

The Division 2‘s Developers Have A Plan For Overcoming The Backlash

The people making The Division 2 always expected that their fans would start grumbling about the game. “When we had the very positive feedback at launch, we knew there would be a moment where the honeymoon would be over and people would start scratching beneath the surface,” the game’s live content manager, Yannick Banchereau, told…

It’s ’90s Nostalgia Week With Toy Story, Crash Bandicoot, And A Spiritual Successor To Castlevania

This week we’re taking simulated vacations, making new friends, and reconnecting with old friends too. Here’s your heads up for the things making waves, both big and small, this week in the world of games and beyond. Watch the video above, or find out what’s coming in the post below. Lovely Planet 2 releases today…

How One Large Game Studio Avoids Crunch

How does the Chicago-based studio Iron Galaxy maintain a healthy work-life balance for all of its employees? On Kotaku Splitscreen, we talk to founder and Giant Bomb jokeman Dave Lang about his leadership philosophies and how Iron Galaxy avoids crunch. Last week in Los Angeles, I sat down with Lang to talk about founding Iron…

In Planet Zoo, You Can Only Get Good By Learning Facts About Animals

Planet Zoo is the latest simulator from Frontier Developments, the creators of Roller Coaster Tycoon and the recent Planet Coaster. In this one, you’re building a zoo and making sure all the animals are well cared for, which comes with unexpected challengers for players used to making theme parks. Modern zoos have a strong focus…

Shark Role-Playing Game Maneater Is Like Grand Theft Auto, Of All Things

“Picture Grand Theft Auto, but as a shark,” game designer Bill Munk said near the end of a demonstration of Maneater at E3 in Los Angeles last week. Well, not quite. There are no cars to jack. There are no radio stations. Although, the designers have considered letting the shark get drunk, if it eats…

Track: Sail On | Artist: Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds | Album: Black Star Dancing Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment. 

Meiji Shrine. Tokyo, Japan. By The Cloofer JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line!

We Ate Lots Of Snacks At Fortnite‘s E3 2019 Booth

E3 might be over on paper, but not in our hearts. In the video above, Tim Rogers checks out the Fortnite booth, eats a lot of free food, and rightfully mocks Peely, because that character is a monster. Check it out!

Dr Disrespect Doesn’t Seem To Be Taking His Twitch Ban Very Seriously

Last week, Dr Disrespect, a popular streamer who parodies toxic gamers by just straight up being one (except in a wig), got banned from Twitch and booted from E3 for streaming from inside a public bathroom, an act that’s illegal in the state of California. Immediately after, he went radio silent. But not for long.…

We Went To Bandai Namco’s E3 Booth And Gushed About Goku

Tim Rogers is, according to Tim Rogers, a man who “lives to be correct in as weird a fashion as possible.” He checked out Bandai-Namco’s E3 booth to peep at Code Vein, survive a power outage, and give you the cold hard facts about Goku. Check out the whole booth in the video above. Check…

Pokémon Sword And Shield Director Says It’s About ‘Growing And Evolving’—For The Trainer, Too

For Pokémon producer Junichi Masuda and Pokémon Sword and Shield director Shigeru Ohmori, the spirit of Pokémon is all about metamorphosis. I have played Pokémon since I was around 8 years old, and every time a new game comes out, I wonder what it is about Pokémon that has kept me coming back for two…

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot Gets The Anime Right, Down To The Unbalanced Showdowns

In the original Dragon Ball Z anime, fights are not balanced. Goku and his pals often end up in situations where they are outmatched by a far stronger and more experienced opponent. The series has had frequent fighting game adaptations, most recently Dragon Ball FighterZ, in which all of the characters must be balanced for…

Twitch Sues Trolls Who Turned Artifact‘s Page Into A Porn-Riddled Disaster

Late last month, the Twitch game category section dedicated to embattled Valve card game Artifact briefly rocketed back into relevance. That was almost entirely thanks to the concerted efforts of trolls, who created dummy channels and violated the heck out of Twitch’s terms of service with broadcasts that included anime, porn, and anime porn. Twitch…

The Outer Worlds Is An RPG About Controlling The Narrative

If you fall into the category of people who believe that 2010’s Fallout: New Vegas was the best game in the series, then The Outer Worlds might be for you. Last week at E3, I spoke to the game’s co-director, Leonard Boyarsky, for a bonus episode of Kotaku Splitscreen digging deep into this cyberpunky role-playing…

Why I Left Breath of the Wild Unfinished

Some time before I actually finished The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I stopped playing. It wasn’t because I got carried away by other games, and it wasn’t because I was tired of it. I just stopped. New Zelda games are rare things that only come once or twice a console generation, and…

Luigi’s Mansion 3 Developers Promise Better Bosses And More Puzzles

Preventing one of the biggest shortcomings of the second Luigi’s Mansion from making it into the third is a high priority, the game’s top producers from Nintendo told Kotaku during an E3 interview in Los Angeles last week. Both Yoshihito Ikebata and his boss, Kensuke Tanabe, said that they’ve worked with Vancouver-based Next Level Games…

The Week In Games: If You Ain’t Outta Control, You Ain’t-A Bandicoot

Crash Bandicoot and his crew are racing on to consoles soon when Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled releases later this week. Just remember: Speed kills, but you can always respawn. So when do we see a new Crash Bandicoot game? Not a remake of older games, but a brand new platformer using the new art style…