Culture

Modded GameCube Keyboard Is The Controller Of My Dreams

In 2002 Nintendo released a ridiculous-looking GameCube controller with a keyboard embedded in it so that Phantasy Star Online players could type to their friends. In 2021 someone’s modded it into an equally impractical but much prettier custom keyboard that I wish I could use to type all of my shitposts. “Y’all thought the gamecube…

Report: Upgraded Switch Will Use New Nvidia Chip To Upscale To 4K

Outputting native 4K graphics is hard. Upscaling to 4K is a little easier. According to a Bloomberg report posted early this morning, Nintendo’s long-rumored upgraded Nintendo Switch will leverage a new Nvidia system-on-a-chip to upscale its docked graphics to 4K. The current Nintendo Switch model is powered by a Nvidia Tegra X1+ system-on-a-chip (SoC). An…

Track: Train Radio | Artist: Pterodactyl Squad 

Report: Microsoft Wants To Buy Discord For “Over $10 Billion”

Bloomberg is reporting that Microsoft is one of several companies “in talks” to purchase chat and community platform Discord, for a price said to be in excess of $10 billion. The report says Microsoft is “in the running”, but that talks are continuing and no deal has yet been made. It’s not clear who those…

Half-Life & BioShock Come Together In A Very Strange Mod

Return to Rapture is a “campaign” made for Half-Life: Alyx that takes Valve’s star and drops her into the completely unrelated first-person world of 2007’s BioShock There’s a “plot” to explain this—basically, the Combine have found Rapture—but in essence you’ll be using the same controls and VR stuff you did in Alyx, against the same…

A Pikmin Game Is Coming To Phones

Nintendo and Niantic, the same pair behind mobile juggernaut Pokemon Go, are going to release a new augmented reality game later this year that’s all about Pikmin It’s going to launch “globally later in 2021″, and doesn’t even have a name at this point. Indeed all we know is that it’ll use Pikmin and augmented…

Global Chip Shortage, Affecting Everything From PS5s To Graphics Cards, Is Becoming A “Crisis”

While anyone reading this will know it has been hard finding a PS5 lately, loads of other markets are experiencing shortages as well, thanks to a global “crisis” affecting the supply of semiconductor chips to—well—anything that uses them. And that’s a lot of stuff. As The Guardian reports, while the supply of chips should be…

RIP, Xbox Live (2002-2021)

The name “Xbox Live” is dead. You’ll still be able to play Xbox games online, but the suite of Xbox’s online services will now be known as “Xbox network,” Microsoft confirmed today to The Verge This morning, many Xbox users noticed a small change on the the Xbox dashboard. While uploading a screenshot to Xbox…

Genshin Impact Won’t Let Me Spend Money Anymore, And I’m Finally Free

I have a complicated relationship with Genshin Impact. I adore its vast, lovingly handcrafted world and charming characters. I hate how its intertwining systems whisper to me in a million different voices: “Spend money.” But there’s no denying that the system works; to date, I’ve probably spent around $60 on the technically free game. Now,…

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Is Even More Heartbreaking In French

I do not speak a lick of French, and yet the first thing I did upon (finally) unlocking Heavensward, Final Fantasy XIV’s first expansion, was switch to French audio. It was a recommendation of a dear friend who’s further into her first journey through FF14 than I am. Neck-deep in Heavensward’s main story quest, (I…

Tekken 7’s Newest Fighter Is The Fictional Prime Minister Of Poland

The real prime minister of Poland, 53-year-old Mateusz Jakub Morawiecki, does not look like much of a fighter. Fictional Polish prime minister Lidia Sobieska, joining Tekken 7’s roster on March 23, seems a much more sensible choice. Teased seemingly forever and the subject of a recent Bandai Namco press mailing which included an official invitation…

Fallout 76‘s 2021 Roadmap Shows More Story Content Coming This Summer

Fallout 76 needs some new content, and based on today’s roadmap players will have to wait until the summer to get it. While welcome new gameplay features and continued quality-of-life improvements are planned throughout the rest of the year, new story quests aren’t coming to Fallout 76 until closer to July at the earliest, based…

What’s New In Fall Guys Season Four Today

Fall Guys neon-soaked season four is officially out today. The update introduces a number of changes to the platformer royale, including seven new levels: Basketfall: Yes, Fall Guys is getting another team-based ball-tossing mini-game. Didn’t we already learn this lesson with Egg Scramble? Skyline Stumble: Earlier this month, Mediatonic showed off Skyline Stumble as the…

Breath Of The Wild Mod Aims To Add A Whole New Story Expansion

Breath of the Wild has gotten quite a few mods over the years, but few with the scope and ambition of Second Wind, a story-based expansion adding new characters, side-quests, and bosses. “Second Wind is a large-scale expansion for Breath of the Wild that aims to add new content to the game in a similar…

Steam Flat-Out Refuses To Sell Sleazy Pick-Up Game Super Seducer 3

The third game in dating guru and author Richard La Ruina’s Super Seducer series of full-motion-video dating sims will not be releasing on Steam, because the service does not “ship sexually explicit images of real people,” just tons and tons of anime porn. After weeks of back-and-forth between La Ruina and Steam, much of which…

The Week In Games: Monster Hunter Rise Arrives

Get your big sword ready, we going monster hunting this week in Monster Hunter Rise, releasing for Switch on March 26. One day I’ll play a Monster Hunter game for more than 40 minutes. Probably. They do look neat and I know loads of people who have fun with them. But none have clicked with…

Famicom Graffiti‘s Metroid Remix Kills, But Oh Dear, That One Zelda Track…

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s ongoing hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today’s vintage selection from Nintendo has a real unpredictable streak and features one of the best Metroid covers you’ll hear. And, well, other things. Video game soundtrack albums were kind of a wild west in the…

The Incredible Story Of A Trackmania Shortcut 13 Years In The Making

I know almost mothing about Trackmania, but this video about the quest for a particular shortcut is one of the most fascinating video game clips I have ever seen. Put together byTrackmania YouTuber Wirtual, it goes for 18 minutes. I, too, wondered, “What the hell could make this go for 18 minutes, I’ve got stuff…

Bomberman Board Game Cancelled, Which Sucks

Of all the video games out there being turned into board games, few are as perfect a fit for the tabletop treatment as Bomberman. So it sucks to hear that, having originally been planned for a 2020 release, IDW and Konami’s Bomberman board game has been cancelled. Designed by Sean McDonald at Tower Games—the same…

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s Post-Launch Woes Continue

I loved Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. So much so that, had I been given more time with it during the calendar year, it would have made a serious run for my Game Of 2020. But boy, at the same time, I have not been happy with the support the game has got after launch. The game…