Ash Parrish

Dawn Of The Final Day

While doomscrolling through Twitter the past few days, I noticed a lot of people making the same Majora’s Mask joke. Today does feel like the Final Day, doesn’t it? Either the moon will crash into the Earth, or the clock will reset and Americans will have another chance to maybe get it right this time.…

Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity Demo Is More Breath Of The Wild And Less Dynasty Warriors

The Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity demo plays like a game that inherited more from its Zelda: Breath of the Wild parent than its hack-and-slash parent Hyrule Warriors. Developer Koei Tecmo repurposed major elements of Breath of the Wild’s gameplay—from the Sheikah slate, to cooking, crafting, and even Korok hunting—and integrated them into Warriors’ musou-style…

Yakuza 0 and Part Time UFO Are Giving Me My Crane Game Fix

Crane games are sinister, alluring bedevilments with their bright flashing lights and happy jingles that tempt suckers like me into feeding them money. For just a few dollars you too can own this ugly yet endearing horse plushie you have no space for but look how precariously it’s perched and how its long neck is…

Case Closed: Mankrik’s Wife Found In Shadowlands

The folks at Blizzard: SVU have finally put to rest a 16-year-old cold case—Mankrik’s wife has been found. As reported by Wowhead, Olgra, wife of Mankrik, can be found in World of Warcraft Shadowlands’s Maldraxxus zone, where vengeful and warlike spirits are sent to rest. According to Wowhead, reporting on the Shadowlands beta, Olgra is…

Amnesia: Rebirth Makes Motherhood Scary

The only scary thing in Amnesia: Rebirth is motherhood. The monsters are rare and dispersed enough to be manageable threats, and the atmosphere is less oppressive than other Amnesia games. Rebirth did not scare me the same way The Dark Descent or its far more terrifying older sibling Penumbra: Overture did. But it’s a game…

Control Is Now Available To Stream On The Switch

Control, the atmospheric suspense game from 505 Games is now available on the Switch as Control Ultimate Edition- Cloud Version, but there’s a catch. Since the Switch is not powerful enough to natively run Control, players can only play the game if their internet connection is stable enough to stream it. Players are invited to…

Too Many Baldur’s Gate 3 Players Choose Basic-Ass Romance

Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios has been steadily releasing updates on the progress of their new game, including information on popular player choices. A couple of weeks ago, they jokingly chided players for choosing boring character creator options. This week’s new peek into the data includes how many times players have pet the dog…

On The Eve Of PlayStation 5 Season, Let’s Remember My PlayStation 2

Today, a handful of my colleagues have published PlayStation 5 impressions, detailing where the power button is, how it fits in various spaces, and how those slick-ass Dual Sense controllers feel. But did you also know that this week marks the 20th anniversary of the PlayStation 2? How can we appreciate where the next-gen consoles…

Geguri, The Only Female Overwatch League Player, Leaves The Shanghai Dragons Amidst Off-Season Roster Changes

The weeks immediately following the crowing of the Overwatch League grand champion are generally a stressful and melancholy time for fans. Not only do they have to contend with long winter months without League matches (which is a fine time to catch up on the goings on of its academy league, Contenders) but they also…

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…

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…

Cynthia Harrell, The Woman Who Sang ‘Snake Eater,’ Is Ready To Be Heard Again

Her powerful vocals suffuse “Snake Eater” with such gravitas, elevating it from a simple song on a video game soundtrack.

I Can’t Stop Playing Picross, Send Help

I’m going to make this quick so I can get back to the game that’s making me write this in the first place: Picross has taken over my life. Mario’s Super Picross (pronounced PIE-cross) is a free puzzle game on the Super Nintendo service available to all Nintendo Switch Online subscribers. (Yes, I know the…

Dear Double Fine, What The Fuck Dude?

Nope! Nope. Noooope. NOPE! NOOOOPE. NOPE. What the fuck? No really, Double Fine. What. The. Fuck.? Psychonauts 2 comes to Xbox in 2021 and I really hope they leave this part out. (Seriously. Leave it out.) Note: Former Kotaku staffer Heather Alexandra now works at Double Fine in comms and community.

In Baldur’s Gate 3, Some Of The Simplest Abilities Are The Most Powerful

I’m new to Baldur’s Gate, so the concept of video games based on Dungeons & Dragons mechanics is completely foreign to me. As I navigated the game I encountered a number of occasions where I’d get my tiefling’s well-crafted ass handed to me in battles because I was too underleveled or too unlucky with my…

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit: The Kotaku Review

I experienced legit childlike glee upon first laying eyes on Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit during Nintendo’s recent Mario 35th Anniversary Showcase. A real-life Mario Kart? “Holy shit, that’s cool!” But that glee soured quickly as my 12-year-old inner Ash gave way to the cynicism of 32-year-old adult Ash. Could Mario Kart Live deliver more…

The San Francisco Shock beat out the Shanghai Dragons, the Philadelphia Fusion, and the Seoul Dynasty to become 2020’s Overwatch League grand champions. This win is the second championship for the Shock and marks the first time an Overwatch League team has won back-to-back titles.

We’re Rebooting Kotaku Splitscreen With An Episode About Reboots

Rising like Godzilla from Tokyo Bay after a long 1,000 year slumber, it’s Kotaku Splitscreen! Yes, Splitscreen is back with both a brand-new cast and the blessing of the old one. (And by the way, if you’re missing the old crew, check out Maddy, Kirk, and Jason’s new podcast Triple Click.) For this new iteration…

Baldur’s Gate 3 Players Called Out For Their Basic-Ass Character Creations

Mere minutes after I posted my take on Baldur’s Gate 3’s character creator, Larian Studios (coincidentally) announced the release of a third hotfix for its long-awaited CRPG, which contained this intriguing morsel: “Before the fixes, let’s share something you’ve created yourselves (this is your own fault) through your choices in character creation. We took the…

I Spent Three Hours In Baldur’s Gate 3’s Character Creator And It’s Pretty Good

I love me a character creator. Buried in the deepest recesses of my brain lies the eight-year-old me who loved dress-up Flash games. Character creators in today’s games scratch the same itch, letting my inner child play with an even greater freedom of expression. So when Baldur’s Gate 3 hit early access earlier this week,…