Culture

Nintendo Of America President Calls Artificial Purchase-By Deadlines A ‘Celebration’

Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser was asked during a recent interview why some popular Nintendo games are only being sold for a limited time. His answer? “[T]his is a celebration.” Earlier this year, Nintendo released Super Mario 3D All-Stars to coincide with the 35th anniversary of the original Super Mario Bros. for the NES.…

Cyberpunk 2077 Comes To Death Stranding On PC, Bringing Items And New Missions

Given how Hideo Kojima appears in Cyberpunk 2077 as an NPC, it should be no surprise that the world of CD Projekt Red’s sci-fi yarn is coming to Death Stranding in a just-released update. The new, free patch for Death Stranding’s PC version brings a number of unlockable items, including: • Cyberpunk 2077 themed Reverse…

Track: Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence | Artist: Ryuichi Sakamoto | Album: Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence OST 

Ubisoft Waits A Month To Start Selling XP Booster For Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

What do you do when you launch an Assassin’s Creed game, include the option for your customers to pay $10 to level up faster, draw all kinds of negative reactions—many of them suspicious, wary—and then launch a new Assassin’s Creed two years later? Launch with that controversial paid booster again? Not quite. If you’re publisher…

Rabbits Won’t Stop Jumping In Front Of My Fucking Horse

With the release of the PlayStation 5, I’ve taken the opportunity to go back and play through a few games from the previous generation to see how they take advantage of the new console. One of those games is Rockstar’s western epic Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s great fun, but I can’t help but wonder…

Cyberpunk 2077 On Ultra Low Settings Looks Like Pixel Hell

Continuing the fine work he’s done on previous games like The Witcher 3, the LowSpecGamer has picked up Cyberpunk, dropped all the settings to low and then gone further, poking around in the game’s code to turn one of the year’s most visually demanding titles into a blurry shitstain. His stated goal is to see…

Return Of The Obra Dinn Is Scratching My Cyberpunk 2077 Itch

There are a lot of “want to play something cyberpunk without playing Cyberpunk 2077” posts going around and I have an addition to suggest: claims adjuster with a twist simulator Return of the Obra Dinn Wait, let me explain. I’ve played very little of Cyberpunk 2077, confining myself to the character creator and the prologues…

Smash Community’s Conduct Panel Reaches Breaking Point After Tumultuous Summer

The independent Super Smash Bros. Code of Conduct Panel is formally disbanding after a summer that saw the competitive Smash community explode with allegations of sexual misconduct “[T]he reality is that at, our current pace of work, we would need five or ten years just to go through all the accusations and possible cases brought…

Controversial Taiwanese Horror Game Returns, GOG Immediately Pulls It [Update]

In February of last year Devotion, a Taiwanese horror game, was pulled from Steam after a controversy regarding a hidden Easter egg. Today GOG, the online PC gaming store run by CD Projekt, announced it would be selling Devotion. Then, hours later, declared it would not “Earlier today, it was announced that the game Devotion…

CDPR Is No Longer Telling PlayStation Owners To Ask Sony For Cyberpunk 2077 Refunds

The Cyberpunk 2077 refund situation only gets weirder and weirder. Developer CD Projekt Red is now telling players who requested a refund for the game’s PlayStation 4 version to sit tight. Following a weekend of ire about Cyberpunk 2077’s subpar performance on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, CD Projekt Red publicly apologized and directed dissatisfied…

Ubisoft’s Game Subscription Service Is Now Available On Stadia

Ubisoft+, the $15-a-month service that gives subscribers access to premium versions of games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Immortals: Fenyx Rising, and Watch Dogs Legion, is now available as part of Google’s Stadia streaming platform. Finally an alternative to streaming Ubisoft games on Amazon Luna. One does not need to stream games to enjoy the benefits…

Marvel’s Weird New Multiplayer Mobile Game Goes Live

Available worldwide today for iOS and Android devices, Marvel Realm of Champions is an online team-based brawler that taps into 2015’s Secret Wars comic crossover to give players access to strange, alternate-dimension versions of their favorite heroes. Not to be confused with developer Kabam’s popular fighting game, Marvel Contest of Champions, Realm of Champions is…

Final Fantasy VII’s Snow Theme Tops My Go-To Blizzard Mix

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today, we take a trip up north to gaming’s colder climates and the music that makes them so enchanting. Specifically, I want to invite you up to the humble wintery retreat of Final Fantasy VII’s Icicle…

Track: Out Of Control (The Avalanches Surrender To Love Mix) | Artist: The Chemical Brothers | Album: Surrender (20th Anniversary Edition)

Cyberpunk 2077 Has Logos, Logos Everywhere

While the Blade Runner universe gets to use actual company logos all over its buildings, Cyberpunk 2077’s developers had to create all their brands, departments and services from scratch. For tonight’s Fine Art, we’ll be looking at a selection of those, done by Adrian and Ramona Marc, some of them clean, some of them busy,…

Modified Cartridge Gets Ray Tracing Working On A Super Nintendo

Ray tracing, currently the big thing in video game visuals, is a perk for those running bleeding edge hardware on PC or next-gen consoles. Or, conversely, anyone who owns a SNES. This demo for SuperRT shows real-time ray tracing running on a Super Nintendo—a console first released in 1991—thanks to the use of a modified…

Twitch’s Top Clips Are Full Of Cyberpunk 2077 Nudity

Once the year 2077 rolls around, people apparently won’t bat an eyelash at unclothed dicks, breasts, and butts. In 2020, however, this is still very much an issue, especially on Twitch, where on-screen nudity frequently results in temporary or indefinite suspensions. But the platform does make exceptions for big games, with Cyberpunk 2077 being the…

Cyberpunk 2077 Execs Say They ‘Ignored’ Signals That The Console Versions They Hyped Were In Rough Shape

It’s clear by now that Cyberpunk 2077 is a bit of a disaster, especially on consoles. During a recent conference call with CD Projekt Group’s management board, executives said they knew the game was busted before its December 10 launch. CD Projekt president and co-CEO Adam Kiciński opened a presentation to investors yesterday with comments…

CD Projekt Is Adjusting Cyberpunk 2077‘s ‘Distracting’ Amount Of Dildos

The first time I stepped out of my character’s apartment in Cyberpunk 2077, I expected to be greeted by a vast world of machine-powered possibility. Instead, I found a dildo. It was sitting next to a random NPC’s foot in my apartment building, near a discarded magazine and some other trash. “That’s weird,” I thought.…

Everything Nintendo Showed During Today’s Indie World Showcase

Nintendo aired a brief livestream today dedicated to indie games coming to Switch in the next few months, and there are a lot of them. The biggest news in the 15 minute presentation was that popular murder mystery party game Among Us is coming out on Switch later today. Developer Derek Yu of Mossmouth also…