Culture

Gears 5’s Next Update Lets You Recast Marcus Fenix As Dave Bautista

Back in the summer of 2019, the internet was pushing to get former wrestler Dave Bautista cast in the recently announced Gears of War movie. It doesn’t seem like that will happen, with Bautista saying on Twitter last year that he had “tried everything” to be in the film. But an upcoming update will at…

Mass Among Us Hack Forces Players To Advertise Hacker’s YouTube Channel, Trump

Unprecedented, globe-spanning popularity is cool and all, but it comes with drawbacks. The three-person development team behind AOC-approved deception sensation Among Us has been struggling with hacking issues for quite some time, but late last night, one particular hack forced their hand. The hack, which many players have encountered over the past couple days, is…

Our Low Down Dirty (Character Creator) Shame

This week on Kotaku’s Splitscreen podcast we play god and fiddle with the fabric of creation. Whether to perfect our imperfect selves or make a creature so hideous it begs for the sweet release of death, character creators offer players the ability to express themselves with their own customized avatars. But not all character creators…

The Division 2’s Summit Mode Is Now Easier To Actually Finish

Last month, The Division 2 received a new action-focused mode called The Summit. It was good, but some bugs and other issues soured the experience. Ubisoft made some changes to the mode in a recent update, and now it’s a much better experience, especially for casual Division players like me. In The Summit, players fight…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for transforming into an airplane. Possibly a truck. I don’t know much about Transformers: Battlegrounds. I know it’s a tactics game that’s out today for the PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and PC. I know it features characters from the Transformers: Cyberverse cartoon. I know it’s developed by UK developer Coatsink, which is…

Sayonara Wild Hearts’ OST Is Basically Chvrches From A Parallel Vniverse

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool sounds they make. Today, let’s shine a dreamy neon purple light on one of the most confident video game soundtracks in recent years: Sayonara Wild Hearts, the arcade rhythm game that developer Simogo even describes as a “pop album…

Google Backs Slowly Away From Stadia Guy’s Very Bad Tweet

Earlier today Alex Hutchinson, creative director at Typhoon Studios (bought by Google last year to make Stadia games), made a tweet suggesting that Twitch and YouTube users should be “paying the developers and publishers” of the games they stream. It blew up, and the reaction went about as well as you’d expect. It’s a Very…

Surviving The Aftermath Is A City-Builder At The End Of The World

It’s not enough these days for a city-builder to just be about building a city. There’s always a catch, or a weird setting, and I like it, because it’s giving us all kinds of new and weird ways to enjoy the genre. The latest example: Surviving the Aftermath Now out in Early Access on Steam,…

The Art Of Hades

Ah, this is exciting. Welcome to The Art of Hades, a look at the work that went into what’s easily one of the best-looking video games of 2020. The team at Supergiant were kind enough to send in a ton of pieces from the development of the game, from early sketches through to the character…

Xbox Brazil Host Says She Was Let Go In Part Due To Fan Harassment, Though Microsoft Denies

Last Friday, Xbox Brazil video host Isadora Basile announced that Microsoft had severed ties with her. In a tweet, she said she’d been regularly harassed by members of the local Xbox community since being hired in early September, and that that mistreatment was part of the decision to end her contract. Kotaku has been in…

Thanks To My Childhood, I Can’t Throw Out My Console Boxes

My first console was a PlayStation, a gift from my mother’s boyfriend. I don’t remember asking for it; I think it was a gift to curry favor. My mother had an antipathy towards video games that bordered on hostility, so while she didn’t outright ban my sister and me from playing them, it was very…

Cozy RPG Ikenfell Uses Cats As Save Points

Ikenfell, released earlier this month on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC, is an excellent little RPG that puts a tactical spin on the reflex-based battle mechanics of the Mario franchise’s role-playing spin-offs. It also uses cats as save points which, come on, of course I’m going to write about. Cats snooze in every…

30 Years Later, The Original Fire Emblem Is Getting Localized For Switch

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, the game that kicked the turn-based strategy series off, is finally getting an English version on Switch on December 4. The game will be $6 to download, but Nintendo is also releasing a special 30th Anniversary edition of the game for $50 complete with a replica…

Fake MMO CrossCode Sounds Like A Real SNES RPG

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today we’re listening to the soundtrack from CrossCode, a 2018 game that sounds like an early ‘90s RPG classic. Radical Fish Games’ CrossCode (playlist / longplay / VGMdb) is a thoroughly modern action role-playing game that’s…

Look At These Metal Gear Solid Air Jordans

Last year, film director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (Kong: Skull Island) showed off some epic Pikachu Air Jordans. Now in 2020, he’s back with a pair of excellent Metal Gear Solid themed ones. Vogt-Roberts posted the custom AJ1s this week on Twitter to mark the anniversary of Metal Gear Solid’s PlayStation release in North America. Bud Sanfilippo…

Track: Wednesday Campanella | Artist: Shakushain | Album: Wednesday Campanella (single)

On Your Marks

Denis Melnychenko is an artist from Ukraine. You can see more of Denis’ stuffat his ArtStation page

Nintendo Nerfs Steve’s Meat

Steve Minecraft, the latest addition to the ever-growing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster, has been nerfed. He’s lost his mojo, so to speak. When Steve joined Super Smash Bros. Ultimate last week, players were surprised to see him holding a piece of grilled meat in a very…let’s say provocative position. So provocative that we here…

EA Accused Of Running “Unlicensed, Illegal Gaming System”

A pair of Canadians have filed a class action lawsuit against Electronic Arts, alleging that the company’s use of loot boxes violates the country’s Criminal Code. As The Patch Notes report, the civil action has been instigated by Mark Sutherland, who bought some stuff in Madden, and Shawn Moore, who did likewise in NHL. The…

NBA 2K Just Keeps Putting Unskippable Ads In A $60 Video Game

One of the many shitty things about the NBA 2K series is the fact that, for the last few years, there have been unskippable ads that sometimes load before a game. This year is no exception. The ads usually turn up as part of a pre-game video, and while in previous years they’ve been for…