Retro Studios Is Now Developing Metroid Prime 4 For Nintendo Switch

Shinya Takahashi, Nintendo’s development head, just announced that Retro Studios, maker of the original Metroid Prime series, is now developing the fourth installment. Make that, restarting development from the beginning. Metroid Prime 4 was announced back in June 2017. At that time, details were scant and only the logo was shown. Nintendo did reveal that…

Toei Offers Refunds After Censoring Dragon Ball Z Blu-ray In Japan

Last month, it was discovered that the Blu-ray release of Dragon Ball Z: Bio-Broly was censored. Now in Japan, Toei is apologizing and offering customers a refund. Below are the edits made to Dragon Ball the Movies Blu-ray #6 disc release. You can see the original version, which included characters flipping the bird and how…

Massive Lines In South Korea For The PlayStation 4

This week, PlayStation Korea rolled out price cuts for the PS4 and PS4 Pro for a limited time only. Folks have lined up in droves. The PlayStation 4 launched in South Korea on December 17, 2013. The PS4 Pro is originally 498,000 South Korean Won ($444), but it’s marked down to 348,000 KRW ($311), while…

Japan Celebrates Kingdom Hearts III‘s Launch With Excellent Fan Art

Today in Japan, it finally happened. Kingdom Hearts III went on sale in Japan. What better way to celebrate that than with lovely fan art? On Twitter, Japanese fans have been posting their celebratory art and writing omedetou (おめでとう) or “congrats,” among other well-wishes Here are some of the standouts: Expect the game to be…

Google’s DeepMind AI Just Beat Two Pros At StarCraft II

Add StarCraft II to the list of increasingly sophisticated games at which well-trained AIs can smash fallible, meat-fingered humans to chunky bits. Google’s DeepMind AI beat two professional players of Blizzard’s StarCraftin two multi-game series that happened in December, the companies jointly announced today. The AI, which the DeepMind team has named “AlphaStar,” beat Team…

A Highlight Reel Of 2018’s Biggest Cosplay Shows

Throughout 2018, our photographer and videographer Mineralblu travelled the country covering cosplay conventions. To celebrate, and to recap some of the amazing stuff spotted at the shows, he’s put together this 15 minute highlight reel. There are 21 shows covered in all, from DragonCon to Comic Con to BlizzCon to New York Comic Con. Cons…

At The Gates Is A Gruelling Strategy Misfire

Jon Shafer, lead designer of Civilization V, has spent the last seven years working on a 4X strategy game of his own called At The Gates, which puts you in control of a barbarian tribe during the last days of the Roman Empire. There’s a lot of exploration and expanding to be had, but also…

Some Fortnite Guns Fire More Slowly On Switch

It turns out that people playing Fortnite at 30 frames per second are at a slight disadvantage in shootouts compared to opponents who are operating at higher frame rates. Speculation on the subject has been going on for some time in the Fortnite community, but a recent test by Digital Foundry has introduced some interesting…

We played Kingdom Hearts III live on our Twitch channel earlier today. We played on an Xbox One X and skipped all the cutscenes. Here’s two hours of sweet 60fps battle action in Hercules town!

Alien: Blackout Is A Great Concept But Falls Flat

Alien: Blackout sounds great on paper. Take the grimy world of the films and boil the terror experience into a tense management game during which you direct survivors, lock doors, and watch for the alien on your motion tracker. Mixing real-time strategy and survival is a smart concept, but Alien: Blackout is a bit too…

For Honor‘s Third Year Looks Promising

Ubisoft detailed upcoming plans for For Honor’s third year in a developer livestream today, showing/hyping new heroes, maps, and balance changes, alongside narrative driven seasonal events. The first major update of year three goes live on January 31 adding a new heavy class fighter belonging to the Black Priors, a cult-like group of “dark agents”…

Survey Of 4,000 Game Developers Says Half Of Them Want To Unionize

In a survey of nearly 4,000 game developers published today by the Game Developers Conference, half of developers surveyed said they thought game industry workers should unionize. Unionization has been a hot topic among game developers over the last few years, as anecdotes of 100-hour work weeks and $28 million CEO salaries circulate among game…

Games Are Made By More Than Just One Famous Figurehead

We all know that Cory Barlog didn’t single-handedly make the latest God of War, and Hideo Kojima didn’t go it alone on making Metal Gear. Yet as human beings, we can’t help but latch onto figureheads and their personal successes and failures. On this week’s Kotaku Splitscreen, Kirk and Jason and I discuss video game…

Overwatch‘s New Skins Are Based On Historic Figures

It’s that time again: Another year has passed, sapping us all of precious vitality and slowly pulverizing our faculties until we’re unidentifiable powder in the wind. But in return, we get new Overwatch skins as part of the game’s annual Lunar New Year event. Really, it’s a pretty even trade. Overwatch’s “Year of the Pig”…

Bethesda Outlines How Fallout 76‘s New PVP Mode Will Work

In a blog post today Bethesda announced that Fallout 76’s upcoming new player-vs.-player mode will go into beta in March and will be called Survival. Unlike in the regular game, the stakes in Survival will be higher, with no rules of engagement and the potential to lose more valuable items if you die. According to…