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OpinionNow That’s How You Do A Damn Game Reveal
After being utterly underwhelmed by BlizzCon, last week’s Nintendo Direct, and yesterday’s PlayStation State of Play, I wasn’t expecting much out of today’s Pokémon 25th Anniversary presentation. But it feels like The Pokémon Company took a good look at the competition and said, “Alright, now watch a master work.” No shade at all to those…
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CultureOdds and EndsDeathloop’s Sultry ‘Déjà Vu’ Will Be My Summer Anthem
Outside of Square Enix announcing a new story DLC for Final Fantasy VII Remake, yesterday’s PlayStation State of Play event was kinda a dud. But there was a notable exception: Deathloop’s new original song “Déjà Vu.” Deathloop, an upcoming game from Prey developers Arkane Studios, is Hitman meets Groundhog’s Day in which you play Colt,…
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CultureAfter Anthem‘s Failure, Dragon Age 4 Will Reportedly Be Single-Player Only
We praise dancing in the Chantry y’all! According to a report from Bloomberg, EA is allowing BioWare to ditch “all multiplayer components” originally planned for the latest game in the Dragon Age series. EA is a company known for its dogged insistence on adding multiplayer and microtransactions to every one of its games, pushing its…
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CultureReport: Chat Logs Reveal Pervasive Racism In Top World of Warcraft Raiding Guilds
Two raiding guilds in the upper tiers of World of Warcraft’s North American ladder, Clout Gang and Instant Dollars, have come under fire for using racial and homophobic slurs. First reported by PC Gamer, an Imgur album containing screenshots of Clout Gang’s Discord and in-game chats was posted in the r/WoW subreddit showing members using…
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CultureIllinois Rep Becomes 723,556th Lawmaker To Threaten Banning Violent Video Games
Another year, another attempt to ban the sale of violent video games. House Bill 3531 is the brainchild of Illinois State representative Marcus Evans, Jr. and is actually an amendment to a statute passed in 2005 that already bans the sale of violent video games to minors. HB3531’s proposed changes would instead ban the sale…
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CultureKotaku Game DiaryPersona 5 Strikers’ Menus Are As Vibrantly Alive As Its Cast
Video game menus are like assholes—every game has them and more often than not, they stink. They are often the least-pretty, least splashy part of an otherwise beautiful game, partly because they aren’t central to gameplay (unless it’s Crusader Kings or something). But Persona 5 Strikers shows us a world in which menus do not…
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CultureOdds and EndsFinal Fantasy Got It Right With Two Black Fathers
Lately, dads have become the video game industry’s pet trope. There are a ton of games that have won a lot of awards about trying, failing, and in very few cases, succeeding at being a dad. But that trend largely excludes Black fathers (with one extremely notable exception), since the video game industry generally ignores…
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ReviewsMultiplatformPersona 5 Strikers: The Kotaku Review
It’s now or it’s never, and I’ve got to Make my decision This time it could be my moment Is this a mirage or a chance to fulfill my mission? Between Persona 5 and its Royal variant, I’ve sunk over 200 hours into the Atlus role-playing game series that pits Japanese teenagers against malevolent, would-be…
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CultureKotaku Game DiaryWe Gotta Talk About This Main Story Quest In A Realm Reborn
My journey through Final Fantasy XIV continues apace. My bard and black mage are now at level 46, and I’m currently questing through the icy Coerthas, which seems oddly French with all the names ending in -x and -eau. When I first started playing, my circle of FF14-playing friends all told me to be patient.…
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CultureThe Overwatch 2 Panel Was Cool But Please, Give Us The Damn Sojourn Reveal
Judging from its complete absence from BlizzConline’s opening keynote, you’d never guess Overwatch 2 was part of the Blizzard family of games, much less in the works. Thankfully, watching the “Behind the Scenes of Overwatch 2” panel put to rest any fears that the game might’ve been forgotten. Led by lead designer Jeff Kaplan, the…
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CultureWorld Of Warcraft Leak Includes Showdown With Sylvanas, Burning Crusade Classic [UPDATE: Confirmed]
[Update 5:20 p.m. February 19: During Blizzconline’s opening ceremony, Blizzard debuted the newest story trailer for Shadowlands and a trailer for Burning Crusade Classic confirming some of the information leaked a day prior. Original story follows.] A leak surfacing the day before Blizzconline’s opening ceremonies revealed possible details of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands’s first major…
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CultureStrixhaven, Magic: The Gathering’s Newest Set, Is Hogwarts Without The Terf
Do you still love the Harry Potter franchise but absolutely cannot abide supporting its terfy author? If so, Magic: The Gathering’s latest card set, Strixhaven: School of Mages, might be for you. More than being a simple card game played to demoralize your friends, Magic: The Gathering has its own story, with each new card…
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CultureOdds and EndsIn Bugsnax, Grumpuses Used To Be Frogs With Thicc Butts
Bugsnax developer Young Horses shared some early design concepts for its what-if-we-ate-the-Pokémon-instead, body-horror game, and they are as out there as you’re probably hoping. Starting on the more mild but technically ambitious front, the developers original experimented with making the Grumpus’ relationships more dynamic and fungible: Procedurally generated relationships between Grumpuses could’ve been interesting! It…
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CultureMorning MusicSay Whatcha Wanna About Final Fantasy XIII, You Can’t Deny Its Amazing Soundtrack
Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s ongoing hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today we’re continuing to indulge my terminal case of Final Fantasy brain with a deep dive into Final Fantasy XIII’s mold-breaking soundtrack. I’m not here to discuss the merits of Final Fantasy XIII (playlist / longplay / VGMdb) itself,…
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CultureKotaku Game DiaryFriendship Ended with Azeroth, Now Final Fantasy XIV Is My Best Friend
I’ve done it. I’ve finally begun my journey with Final Fantasy XIV, after six years of aborted attempts I made it through the still strangely unfriendly onboarding process and am now roaming free in the world of Eorzea. This was a long time coming. This previously glaring omission in my Final Fantasy record lead to…
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CultureThere’s A Nintendo Direct Tomorrow, Finally
Earlier today, Nintendo announced their first Nintendo Direct of 2021 will take place tomorrow at 5 p.m. ET. According to Nintendo, the showcase will run a beefy 50 minutes and feature news on already available games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as well as new games coming to the Switch in the first half of…
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CultureA Pokémon And Post Malone Concert Is–Wait, Why Are You Laughing?
Pokémon and Post Malone sounds like the follow-up album to Post Malone’s 2018 Beerbongs & Bentleys, but it is a real thing that is actually happening because 2020 isn’t done fucking with us I guess. The “Circles” rapper is teaming up with The Pokémon Company to put on a concert this month in celebration of…
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CultureEpic’s MetaHuman Creator Helps Devs Pump Out Fancy ‘Digital Humans’
Today, Epic Games launched a sneak peek at its newest Unreal Engine creation tool that promises to drastically cut down on the time needed to create realistic-looking digital humans. “Creating one high-quality digital human is difficult and time-consuming,” the announcement post says. “Scaling that effort to create many diverse digital humans of the quality required…
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CultureThe Blizzconline 2021 Schedule Is Available And God, I’m Going To Miss The Overwatch World Cup
Blizzconline 2021, Blizzard Entertainment’s digital answer to their yearly in-person Blizzcon event, posted its schedule today. In addition to offering updates on the development progress for Diablo IV and Overwatch 2, Blizzconline also boasts a number of community events. Viewers can choose from Hearthstone streamer matches, arts and crafts tutorials, and an Overwatch League exhibition…
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CultureKotaku Game Diary17 Years Later And I Still Can’t Beat Hannibal In Age Of Empires
Xbox Game Pass has once again proven its worth by allowing me to confront a bully of my past: the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca. Yes, I’m serious. Every night for the last two weeks, when normal people would wind down for bed with a nice hot mug of tea and their favorite background noise show,…
By Ash Parrish
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