Let me tell you the best thing about being editor-in-chief of Kotaku There’s a writer or a producer on the team. They have an idea. It’s something real, something they need to tell people, something worth knowing. They write it. They post it. And the readers show up. Maybe I’ve helped make that space for…
The recent Cyberpunk 2077 review fiasco has people asking (again) why reviews of big budget games are what they are. Let’s talk about it. This won’t be the first time I’ve covered the topic here. About eight years ago, halfway through the Obama administration, I wrote about the strings attached to many major video game…
Google Stadia, the late 2019 streaming platform that promised to revolutionize gaming by letting users stream games without needing to own a powerful PC or console, is altering course, getting out of the game-making business and will now offer its platform directly to game publishers alongside offering Stadia Pro to the public. The company is…
András Neltz, a Budapest-based writer and editor who worked the morning shift at Kotaku from 2012-2016, died last month at the age of 31. Today, we mourn the loss of a cherished former colleague. András joined Kotaku near the start of my run as editor-in-chief, as part of an expansion of editorial duties to then-Gawker…
As many year-end articles will remind you—not that you needed reminding—2020’s been rough. That made it harder than usual to pick specific people for our annual list of influential game-players. Anyone who brought a smile to a friend, a loved one, or even a stranger this year by playing a game with them did a…
Every time my viking hero Eivor dies in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, she returns to life drunk. This is a known bug that the developers appear primed to patch, but in trying to just bear with it last night, I somehow made it worse. Though, in this case, “worse” also means “better.” And now I’m conflicted…
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…
I am not very surprised when Ubisoft announces that one of its big games will get piles of post-release expansions. It’s news when they don’t. But I am surprised at how interesting and unusual the recently announced expansions for next month’s Immortals Fenyx Rising seem to be. The first one, “A New God,” sounds like…
The Switch’s next big game, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, is a flashy prequel to 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s set 100 years earlier, before a war wrecks much of the kingdom of Hyrule. Because of that, the new game offers a look at what the Zelda kingdom looked like…
I’ve had a PS5 for a couple of weeks and my feelings about it keep changing. On the most basic level, hey, it’s a means to play the next generation of PlayStation games. On another, there isn’t yet a next generation of PlayStation games, and the console’s interface doesn’t feel quite ready. I’m not worried…
Remember when Ubisoft said the PS4 version of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate wouldn’t run on the PS5, then said never mind? Well, the quietly excellent 2015 Assassin’s Creed game mostly works on Sony’s new system. There’s just a lot of flickering. I downloaded Syndicate to my PS5 a few days ago and was pleased to see it…
The most successful video game about spreading disease got a long-promised new mode today that lets you try to stop a pandemic. Plague Inc’s new Cure mode challenges you to find the right mix of contact tracing, lockdown enforcement, vaccine research, economic assistance, and similar measures to bring society to the moment we’re all dreaming…
I like a lot of things about Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. I like the setting. I like the new quest system. I like the changes to the loot system that frees my character from hauling dozens of the same sword. What’s also great? I can read the game’s lore text from my couch with ease. Too…
I’ve had an Xbox Series S since late October, and I am surprised at how I feel about it. I wouldn’t say I’m excited to have this new system. The word I’d use—a word that is actually a very high compliment—is “pleased.” I should clarify, before you judge me too jaded, too snooty, or too…
Time passes strangely these days, so it is easy to forget things that happened or were said or were pledged just five months ago. But it was indeed in June 2020 that institutions around the world, including video game companies, vowed to do better by their Black customers and Black workers for the cause of…
Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today we’re hopping into a blue backpack that is…being carried by a bear? Rare’s Banjo-Kazooie (playlist / longplay / VGMdb), released in 1998 for the Nintendo 64, faced the near-impossible challenge of measuring up to another…
Twenty-two days ago, I wrote: “If Nintendo has hidden some amazing twist at the end of Pikmin 3 Deluxe, if the epilogue really delivers, the joke will be on me.” Today I am here to tell you there is no twist, at least not a plot twist at the end of the new Switch port…
Watch Dogs Legion, out today for a bunch of major video game platforms, is one of the most elaborate anecdote generators ever created. So, before we get into how the game handles its ambitious design goals, its politics, and even its Ubisoft-ness, let’s start with an anecdote that could only have happened in Legion About…
There’s nothing normal about interviewing Xbox chief Phil Spencer these days. First, there’s the location. We’re in a pandemic, of course, so our latest interview wasn’t at a gaming trade show, nor did we do a call from our work offices. On Wednesday afternoon, I logged into a Microsoft Teams video call from my home.…
Seven years ago, I wrote seven reviews of the terrific Wii U game Pikmin 3. I had played the game Switch-style before there was a Nintendo Switch. There’s a photo of this. I’m at the Daytona Beach airport, Wii U plugged into a wall socket and no TV in sight as I played Pikmin 3…
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