Ari Notis

Dear Video Games, I’m Begging You: Cut It Out With The Spiders

Torchlight III, an action role-playing game that came out this week, starts innocuously enough. You choose from a cadre of traditional fantasy roles (mage, archer, soldier, or person with mountainous biceps and a murder train) and go on your merry way killing goblins. In short order, you’re sent into a dungeon that’s loaded up with…

Borderlands 3 Is Getting Another Wave Of Downloadable Content

Borderlands 3 isn’t over. Last month, the looter-shooter’s first season pass wrapped up with a meaty story campaign that sent Vault Hunters inside the mind of Krieg, a popular character from the second game. Today, Gearbox revealed that a second wave of add-on content is en route. The two new add-ons are called the Designer’s…

Spider-Man: Miles Morales Lets You Wear A Cat On Your Back

Spider-Man: Miles Morales has a lot going for it. (Just to note, former Kotaku staffer Evan Narcisse was one of the writers on the game.) But everything—the visuals, the web-slinging, the pedigree of an extremely popular character from an extremely popular cross-media franchise—pales in comparison to one thing: the cat suit. It’s not a suit…

Minecraft‘s Steve Is Super Weird In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Earlier this month, Super Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai revealed the latest fighter for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It wasn’t Crash Bandicoot, as rumors suggested. It wasn’t Master Chief, as hopes and dreams did. It certainly wasn’t the long-clamored-for Waluigi. It was Steve, from Minecraft. Last night, Steve officially joined the Ultimate roster as the…

Tales of Vesperia Comes To Game Pass This Week

Tales of Vesperia, a stalwart entry in Bandai Namco’s long-running Tales series, will become available on Xbox’s games-on-demand service on Thursday. Better yet, it’s the definitive edition, a 2019 re-release that offered high-definition graphics, more playable characters (at least stateside), and exactly the same amount of Troy Baker’s iconic silky pipes. Like many of the…

Tips For Playing Torchlight III

After being announced in 2018 as Torchlight: Frontiers, falling off the radar for a bit, and then resurfacing earlier this year as a proper numbered sequel, Torchlight III is out today for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. If you’ve played the first two—or, hell, any fantasy-themed action role-playing game—you know what to expect. Still,…

How Hades Speedrunners Clear The Game In Under Eight Minutes

Supergiant Games' roguelike has been mastered by speedrunners

Borderlands 3’s Bloody Harvest Event Is Back, And Just As Fun As Last Time

No trick, Vault Hunters, Borderlands 3’s latest event is quite a treat. Yesterday, the well-liked “Bloody Harvest” kicked off again. On a surface level, “Bloody Harvest” bears similarity to any other Borderlands event—shoot everything, get guns—but it stands apart by being a total blast with minimal slog. That, and the fact that you get more…

Fall Guys Introduces Four New Stages And A Mode Selector In Season Two

After a morning of shaky login issues, Fall Guys’ medieval-themed second season is officially here. If you’ve fallen off Mediatonic’s platformer royale in recent weeks, today’s update might be enough to draw you back in—for a little bit, at least. The main draw here is the prospect of playing new rounds. All of the stages…

Sonic Adventure 2’s Peppy Pop-Punk Is The Escape From The City I Need Right Now

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today, we’re finally rolling around (at the speed of sound) to a song that has a money-back guarantee on putting a pep in your step: Sonic Adventure 2’s “Escape From the City.” We’ve run this feature…

Pikmin 3 Deluxe is getting a demo later today on the Nintendo eShop. You’ll be able to transfer your save data to the full game, and completing the demo will also unlock an extra difficulty tier in it, too

What To Do Before Getting Rid Of Your Xbox One Or PS4

A little more than a month from now, next-gen consoles will be out in the wild. At this point, you might be regarding your PlayStation 4 or Xbox One as a slowly degrading plastic box that’s doomed to waste space and collect dust. You might have even considered [gasp] getting rid of them. Of course,…

Watch Dogs Legion Will Include (Another) Assassin’s Creed Crossover

There’s a throughline in Ubisoft’s open-world games. You know, by now, to expect enemy outposts, tight combat, and roughly 99,000 points of interest. When you play one, you learn how to play them all. But two of Ubisoft’s biggest series have a bit more in common. Ubisoft revealed today that a member of the Assassin’s…

PSA: Bloodborne Is Currently Free On PS Plus [UPDATE: No Longer Free]

Update, 4:20 p.m.: Bloodborne was quickly re-listed at its MSRP, $20. We’ve reached out to Sony for clarification. Original story follows: Starting next week, members of PS Plus will be able to get free copies of Need for Speed: Payback and Vampyr through the end of October. But members can snag a terrific game for…

Genshin Impact Gets A Lot Better After The Lengthy First Quest

Genshin Impact, a free-to-play totally-not-Zelda game that came out this week for PC, PS4, and mobile, starts slow but quickly picks up the pace. If you’re just starting out and aren’t immediately gripped, that’s fair, but don’t throw in the towel just yet. Stick with it through the first, lengthy prologue quest. Yes, it’s a…

Everything You Need To Know About Hades’ Endgame

Hades doesn’t really start until you beat it. In many roguelikes, you’re encouraged to play through the game ad infinitum. Hades is no different. Once you beat the final boss (well, for the first time), a new gameplay mechanic opens up, and the game fundamentally changes. After you take down Hades, you’re soon sent right…

Genshin Impact Is More Than A Breath Of The Wild Clone

There’s a lot to like about Genshin Impact, a free-to-play action-RPG that came out this week for PC, PlayStation 4, and mobile. While it might look a bit like Breath of the Wild, with its art style and mechanics, Genshin Impact stands on its own thanks to its combat, its quest and leveling systems, and,…

Let’s Debate The Merits Of Super Mario Sunshine

Super Mario Sunshine. Mario’s second foray into a three-dimensional plane built on the foundation of 1996’s Super Mario 64. It gave Mario a new way to get around (the F.L.U.D.D. jetpack-gizmo) and sent him out of the Mushroom Kingdom. It also featured an unmistakable pro-environment bent, wherein Mario had to clean up an island coated…

It’s in the Game (Pass). Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members will get free access to EA Play starting November 10, the same day Microsoft’s next-gen consoles launch. Members of Game Pass for PC will get it some time in December.

Today’s Xbox Series X Previews Revealed Mostly Good News

Over the past week or so, Xbox Series X preview units were made available to select members of the media. Microsoft did not send us one of these units. I’m not sad, but, earlier today, I was cutting onions and peppers while listening to Phoebe Bridgers, and then, without thinking, I rubbed my eyes. True…