-
Tips & GuidesHow To Make Short Work Of Any Enemy In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla isn’t a difficult game. If you venture at all off the beaten path, you’ll quickly accrue enough experience and gain enough Power levels to become an unstoppable Viking tank. Still, some boss fights—and other high-level enemies, like zealots—can be a pain. That is, unless you’ve equipped the best ability in the game:…
By Ari Notis -
Tips & GuidesHoly Cayde-6, You Can Buy Back Your Old Colors In Destiny 2
Earlier today, I wrote about how I’ve been playing a whole lot of Destiny 2 these days. I messed around with Bungie’s hilariously good-vs.-evil shooter at launch, then dipped out. Returning after a few years away for the recent Beyond Light expansion meant reacquainting myself with a whole lot of stuff, but nothing threw me…
By Ari Notis -
CultureKotaku Game DiaryCatching Covid-19 Sucked, Though Video Games Helped
Some call it a hoax. Others say it’s no worse than the common cold. But make no mistake: the covid-19 pandemic is very, very real. If you don’t believe the mountain of scientific literature, the army of medical professionals, the frontline reporting from countless reputable sources, the firsthand accounts, the secondhand accounts, the politicians, the…
By Ari Notis -
CultureIt’s Official: Control Is Coming To Xbox Game Pass
Well, the rumors were true. Control is coming to Xbox Game Pass. Starting December 3, you’ll be able to play the darkest third-person shooter in human history on Xbox consoles via Microsoft’s games-on-demand services. It’ll also join the list of playable Game Pass games available on Android. On Sunday, a post on the Xbox Game…
By Ari Notis -
CultureOdds and EndsYep, That Was A Baseball Cameo In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
The most fascinating characters in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla are the bit players. There’s the unmistakable nod to a popular anime. There’s the cadre of musicians paying tribute to the Prodigy, an electronic band whose frontman, Keith Flint, tragically passed last year. There’s Axehead. But the one who’s most likely to make you go, “Wait, what?”…
By Ari Notis -
CultureMorning MusicBorderlands 3’s Final Song Makes Me Miss The Heck Out Of Live Music
Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today I’ve a very specific pick to share: the song that plays during the end credits of the fourth expansion for Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3’s string of downloadable content has been hit or miss. In fact,…
By Ari Notis -
Tips & GuidesBeware This Weird Blindness Bug In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
Like any massive open-world game, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has its fair share of bugs. Most of them are slight (graphical hiccups, audio tweaks, things of that nature) or laughably irreverent (super-sized children), stuff you’d expect from a game of this size and scale. One, however, is worth raising the alarm about: a world event in…
By Ari Notis -
CultureTwo Weeks After Launch, Xbox Series X’s Quick Resume Feature Isn’t Working Great
For several days after the launch of the new Xbox Series X and S, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla supported the consoles’ best new feature, Quick Resume. Today, that no longer appears to be the case, another sign that something is awry with what was supposed to be a key next-gen Xbox perk. For those who don’t…
By Ari Notis -
CultureOdds and EndsDear Microsoft, Here’s Our Xbox Series X (And S) Wishlist
Microsoft didn’t break new ground with its two new consoles, the Xbox Series X and S. The individual boxes look new, sure, but both share a near-identical operating system with their predecessor, the Xbox One. In other words, these two new machines don’t bring much new to the table. Rather, it’s the same dish, except…
By Ari Notis -
Tips & GuidesHow To Easily Uncover Every Skill In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
Ever spend dozens of hours with a game only to discover something so blindingly obvious yet critically helpful that you can’t help but kick yourself in a fit of despair? Yeah, me neither. On an unrelated note, after I hit the 40-hour mark in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, I learned something essential about the skill tree.…
By Ari Notis -
CultureSunset Overdrive Was Good
The last console generation saw the release of approximately one metric bazillion games. Some were great, some not so great. Some were unforgettably remarkable, some remarkably forgettable. Some were Fortnite. We can debate such things until the heat death of the universe, and likely will. But one case is inarguable: Sunset Overdrive was awesome. Insomniac’s…
By Ari Notis -
OpinionImpressionsBorderlands 3 On PS5 Is What The Original Should Have Been
Consider the slate of cross-platform games coming out on both new consoles. It’s a modest list, featuring Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition, Watch Dogs: Legion, some requisite sports and driving games, and… Borderlands 3? Yes, of all games, Gearbox’s performatively raunchy looter-shooter received a makeover for the Xbox Series X (and…
By Ari Notis -
CultureMorning MusicGris’ Ethereal Soundtrack Fits Together Like An Extremely Pretty Puzzle
Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Let’s start today off slow with the soundtrack from Gris, Nomada Studio’s ethereal, contemplative platformer. Maybe you’ve heard that playing through Gris is like playing through a poem, or a painting, or just a really, really…
By Ari Notis -
Tips & GuidesHow To Zoom In On Small Text In Any Xbox Series X / S Game
As the saying goes, nothing in life is certain except death, taxes, and painfully tiny video game text. If you were lucky enough to beat the queues and snag a new Xbox Series X or S, know that you can zoom in on any game’s text at more or less any time. All you have…
By Ari Notis -
Tips & GuidesHow To Make Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Feel More Like Classic Assassin’s Creed
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is not a subtle game. Ubisoft’s latest well-rendered history lesson, out now for basically every platform but the Switch, puts you in the shoes of a muscular Norse raider. You often wield weapons so large they’d make Cloud Strife blush. Stealth is almost always optional. Yes, Valhalla is as much a far…
By Ari Notis -
CultureOdds and EndsDear Sony, Here’s Our PlayStation 5 Wishlist
The PlayStation 5 is officially out. It’s a tremendous boon for progress, a near-universal step above its predecessor, the PlayStation 4 (well, if you can look past the performance issues of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate). Still, the new user interface could use some improvements. Seeing as it’s the season for making wishlists, we at Kotaku thought…
By Ari Notis -
Tips & GuidesHow To Share Games Between Accounts On Your PlayStation 5
These days, with downloadable games being the norm, sharing your games isn’t as easy as handing your friend a disc. Maybe you’ve run into a situation on your PlayStation 4 where, even though a game is downloaded on your machine, you can’t play it, since the license is technically owned by a different user. The…
By Ari Notis -
Tips & GuidesPSA: Turn Off Your PS5 Faster By Scrolling Left, Not Right
Turning off the PlayStation 4 was a piece of cake. You’d hold down the PS button, maneuver to the “Power” menu, and click “Turn off.” After years with the system, it likely became second-nature: hold PS, down, right, down, X. You could probably do it with your eyes closed—or, more likely, and more helpfully, with…
By Ari Notis
Ari Notis
Ari Notis's posts
