Cecilia D'Anastasio

For Honor Player Wins Official Tournament Using Exploit [UPDATE]

This weekend at fighting game For Honor’s big Season Three tournament for PC, a big, long-standing exploit forged one player’s path to victory. After the match, the victor stated: “I didn’t think it’d be this easy. . . Before the tournament, I hadn’t played the game for two weeks.” For months, For Honor players have…

Anime Film About Hiroshima Bombing Opens In U.S. Theaters Today

The latest in a series of tear-jerking anime moviesto make their way over to North American theaters is a coming-of-age story set in 1940s Hiroshima. In This Corner of the World, a tender World War II anime rendered with hand-drawn animation, will open to theaters across the country today. Suzu Urano is an artist and…

GKIDS Takes Over U.S. Studio Ghibli Distribution From Disney

Disney is no longer distributing most Studio Ghibli movies in America, sparking hope that the beloved anime films will finally be more accessible both in American theaters, as well as DVD and Blu-Ray. 20 years after Disney struck a landmark deal with Japanese anime titan Studio Ghibli, the American media conglomerate has quietly backed away…

Popular Twitch Streamer Banned From Battlegrounds After Exploiting Glitch

“I’m getting banned, dude,” Twitch streamerDestinylaughed to his viewers last night while running over Battlegrounds players with a jeep. Vehicular manslaughter is something the game actually encourages, but although it didn’t look like it, a lot of those players were actually inside houses. Destiny was apparently taking advantage of a glitch, and in the process,…

Playing With One More Life Could Revolutionize (Or Hurt) Smash 4, Pros Argue

Spurred by a Tweet from a top player, Super Smash Bros. pros are debating whether adding one stock, or life, to competitive matches could mean fairer fights or a dissolution of how the game is played. Pros compete in 2014’s Super Smash Bros. 4 with two stocks. High-stakes and punishing, the ruleset makes spectating an…

Team SoloMid is producing an episodic documentary about the controversial Super Smash Bros. Melee pro William “Leffen” Hjelte, whom they sponsor. So far, it’s a candid look at the Hjelte’s approach to the game and how the community’s received him.

We’re headed to Gen Con this year! What upcoming tabletop games are you excited about?

Inside The Fan-Made Pokémon MMO Played By Tens Of Thousands

For decades, a Pokémon game where players can catch and train monsters, together and online, has been a distant fantasy for fans around the world. The camaraderie and competition so integral to the Pokémon story—the tale of a young hopeful going out into the world to make friends and self-actualize—has always felt a little lacking…

This Summer’s Standout Anime Is About A Mysterious Pit Full Of  Monsters

Early on in this summer’s standout fantasy anime Made in Abyss, the troublemaking 12-year-old orphan Riko reveals a compass that always points to the bottom of the netherworld. It’s an artifact she pocketed while cave-diving in the endless pit around which her hometown formed. Boasting to her friends, Riko explains that the compass is what’s…

Fortnite Developers Apologize For Surprise Change That Wiped Out Several Players’ Bases

Developer Epic Games issued anapology this morning after several fans of Fortnite, a surprisingly cute player vs. environment game about surviving the apocalypse, were caught off guard when their labored-after bases disappeared. The unannounced change was a part of an early morningpatch for the Early Access game. Players say they spentseveral dozen hoursconstructing bases on…

Battlegrounds‘ New First-Person Servers Are Intense

Survival shooter Battlegrounds’ substantial update this morning added two special servers specifically for first-person play. They’re brutal. Early last month, developer PlayerUnknown announcedthe first-person server update. Fans were thrilled. I couldn’t put it better than Kotaku’s Nathan Grayson: “Expect a tense game to get even tenser, with limited powers of astral projection no longer in…

Splatoon 2‘s Lobby Is Full Of Furries

If you’ve found yourself in Splatoon 2’s lobby sometime in the last day, you might have asked yourself: “Why is there so much furry art here?” Well, dear readers, we have answers. Furries are people who imagine alter egos in the form of humanoid animals. A lot of the time, it’s good, clean fun. It’s…

So Far, Nintendo’s Arms Does Not Have Legs

Nintendo’s version of Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, Arms, has struggled to stay relevant since its release back in June. Arms is by no means a bad game, and Nintendo’s been enthusiastically supporting it with post-release updates. But a month in, there isn’t much to grab onto with Arms Early on, Arms’ prospect as an…

Battlegrounds Developer Addresses Paid Cosmetics Complaints, Says They’re ‘Testing’

Last week, Battlegrounds players were upsetafter director PlayerUnknown announced that the game would charge for cosmetics even prior its official release, indicating that the beloved survival game was going in a skeezy direction. Today, PlayerUnknown addressed players’ overwhelmingly negative reactions, apologizing for the company’s previously unclear communication. The new feature, which will go live on…

Sansar, the new Second Life, opened its wild, new virtual world to the public today.

Battlegrounds Is Most Fun When You Stop Trying To Win 

This may come as a surprise, but Battlegrounds is not about winning. With everyone’s obsession with achieving the coveted “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner,” it’s easy to mistake Battlegrounds for a game you should aim to win. And maybe, if you’re a very certain type of person, it could be. But the vast majority of us…

Twitch Plays Battlegrounds, Manages To Win Third Place

Yesterday, TwitchPlaysBattlegrounds, a bot playing Battlegrounds through Twitch viewers’ crowdsourced gaming inputs, miraculously obtained third place in a solo Battlegrounds game—a feat I have not yet accomplished as a mundane human player. TwitchPlaysBattlegrounds is a 24/7 Twitch channel where anyone who tunes in can tell the computerized Battlegrounds player what to do by entering commands…

Altspace, which billed itself as “the leading social platform” for VR, is shuttering on August 3rd. Investors like Comcast poured over$15 million into the project, which attracted 35,000 users per month. In a blog post, Altspace’s developers explain that funding fell through and VR market growth has been slow.

For Honor Is Finally Getting Dedicated Servers

Medieval fighting game For Honor is finally adjusting its ambitious and controversial online system and adding dedicated servers. The move, announced today, follows months of player complaints that the online-only fighting game’s connectivity issues made it too frustrating to play. For Honor players have struggled with lag, slow matchmaking and random disconnections since the game’s…

Our Top Four Summer 2017 Anime Picks

Face it—August is for binging anime. You might think you have bigger plans. But, no. You’re going to be curled up with your AC and a glass of lemonade, watching lots of anime. Luckily, this summer boasts some high-quality goods. Sorry—none of them are on Crunchyroll. After picking through dozens ofseasonal anime offerings, I’ve got…