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CultureCiv-Style Strategy Game Humankind Delayed To August
Humankind, the next 4X strategy game from the makers of Endless Space and Endless Legend, has been delayed until the summer, Amplitude Studios announced today. Previously set to arrive next month, the latest rival to Civilization will instead come to PC and Stadia on August 17 so that the developers can add more “polish” to…
By Ethan Gach -
CultureFormer Nintendo Of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé Leaving GameStop Board Of Directors
Serving on GameStop’s board of directors was just one of long time video game executive Reggie Fils-Aimé’s post-Nintendo of America pastimes, but less than a year into his tenure the company announced it expects him to step down in June. Fils-AimĂ© is one of eight other board members set to be replaced at GameStop’s 2021…
By Ethan Gach -
CultureA New Rocket League Game Is Coming To Phones
Rocket League Sideswipe is a new 2D mobile version of car soccer sim Rocket League coming to iOS and Android later this year, developer Psyonix announced today. Sideswipe matches will be two minutes long and feature 1v1 and 2v2 modes to accommodate people playing on mobile (the original game’s matches are five minutes and allow…
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OpinionYou Don’t Have To Run The Exclusive Reveal For The War Crime Game
Rebooted war crime simulator Six Days in Fallujah got its official gameplay reveal yesterday in a new trailer that seems to confirm some people’s criticisms of the game as one-sided propaganda for the U.S. war machine. The trailer was debuted exclusively by IGN, the same website that just days earlier ran an in-depth report on…
By Ethan Gach -
CultureGameStop’s Most Popular Earnings Call Ever Is A Bust
After weeks of record-breaking days on Wall Street thanks to a meme stock frenzy engineered by Reddit, people were hoping for some answers from GameStop’s executives during today’s call with investors. They got none. Today’s earnings call—the first since GameStop stock skyrocketed to the obscene value of over $400 a share earlier this year because…
By Ethan Gach -
CultureAmazon Doubles Down On Trying To Make Games With New Studio Led By Ex-Rainbow Six Siege Developers
Amazon is opening a new game studio in Montreal led by former Rainbow Six Siege developers to work on a new multiplayer game, the company announced today. The new studio, which joins the company’s existing ones across Seattle, Orange County, and San Diego, will be led by Ubisoft veterans Luc Bouchard, Xavier Marquis, Alexandre Remy,…
By Ethan Gach -
CultureOdds and EndsModded GameCube Keyboard Is The Controller Of My Dreams
In 2002 Nintendo released a ridiculous-looking GameCube controller with a keyboard embedded in it so that Phantasy Star Online players could type to their friends. In 2021 someone’s modded it into an equally impractical but much prettier custom keyboard that I wish I could use to type all of my shitposts. “Y’all thought the gamecube…
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CultureFallout 76‘s 2021 Roadmap Shows More Story Content Coming This Summer
Fallout 76 needs some new content, and based on today’s roadmap players will have to wait until the summer to get it. While welcome new gameplay features and continued quality-of-life improvements are planned throughout the rest of the year, new story quests aren’t coming to Fallout 76 until closer to July at the earliest, based…
By Ethan Gach -
CultureBreath Of The Wild Mod Aims To Add A Whole New Story Expansion
Breath of the Wild has gotten quite a few mods over the years, but few with the scope and ambition of Second Wind, a story-based expansion adding new characters, side-quests, and bosses. “Second Wind is a large-scale expansion for Breath of the Wild that aims to add new content to the game in a similar…
By Ethan Gach -
OpinionXbox Smart Delivery Turned Out To Be A Pretty Big Deal
When Microsoft started slipping the made-up phrase “Smart Delivery” into all of its Xbox Series X/S marketing last year, it seemed like just another pair of empty buzzwords. Surely all games would just simply work after you installed them on your expensive new hardware, whether they supported Microsoft’s catchphrase or not. Not quite! Nothing has…
By Ethan Gach -
CultureNext Big Cyberpunk 2077 Patch Will Fix Cops And Cars
CD Projekt Red released a weird update on Cyberpunk 2077‘s next big patch today, including a brief explanation of changes coming to how its open world works, delivered by an in-universe news broadcaster. *Sigh*. You can listen to Night City news anchor Gillean Jordan cryptically tease these changes in a series of videos that show…
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CultureActivision Yanks Crossbow It Accidently Released Early Even After Players Spent Time Grinding For It [Update]
What Call of Duty giveth, Call of Duty taketh away. Yesterday, a fancy new crossbow went live in Call of Duty: Warzone and Black Ops Cold War by accident, and now players who spent hours trying to unlock it are frustrated that Activision has taken it back out of the game. As Eurogamer reports, players…
By Ethan Gach -
CultureResearchers Name Newly Discovered Insects After Legendary Pokémon
Two entomologists decided to name their recently discovered new species of Australian beetles Binburrum articuno, Binburrum moltres, and Binburrum zapdos, bringing PokĂ©mon full circle back to what originally inspired the hit video game series. In the world of scientific research those who do the hard work of delivering new findings also get to name them,…
By Ethan Gach -
CultureAmong Us Gets Airship Map And New Update Later This Month
Hit murder mystery sim Among Us will get an account system, new mechanics, and its long-awaited airship map on March 31, maker Innersloth announced yesterday. First revealed last December, the airship map will have new tasks associated with it, and be the 2018 party game’s biggest to-date. Here’s everything else this month’s free update is…
By Ethan Gach -
CultureEverything We Saw In Today’s Square Enix Presents
Square Enix held its first Nintendo Direct-style “Square Enix Presents” showcase today, and while most of what was shown was stuff we’ve seen before, there were a few surprises. For one, Life is Strange: True Colors, the latest game in the visual narrative series, is coming later this year. Square Enix’s upcoming PS5 console-exclusive Project…
By Ethan Gach -
CultureFinal Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis Will Have Loot Boxes
Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis, the mobile compilation aiming to bring all of the Final Fantasy VII extended universe’s stories together in one place, will have loot boxes, creative director Tetsuya Nomura confirmed yesterday in a new interview with Famitsu While the smartphone game itself will be free, there will be monetization mechanics built in…
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CultureGeForce Now Video Game Streaming Service Doubles In Price
Nvidia is raising the price of its GeForce Now game streaming service from $5 a month to $10, the company announced in a blog post this morning GeForce Now has two tiers. A free version lets users stream games they own in sessions of up to one hour, while a premium tier lets them stream…
By Ethan Gach -
CulturePS5 VR Controllers Ditch The Magic Wand Look
Sony shared a glimpse of the new controllers that will be apart of its next-gen VR add-on for the PS5 in a blog post today and they look nothing like the glowing wands used for the company’s existing PSVR headset. The new controllers almost look like an optical illusion, and also have a lot more…
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OpinionDying Light 2‘s Developers Are Indulging Toxic Gamers
As promised, Polish developer Techland put out a video today updating the world on the state of zombie parkour thriller Dying Light 2. It’s actually an extremely concise look at one of the most toxic cycles underlying the video game industry. In the first half of the roughly three-minute video, various Techland developers read expletive-filled…
By Ethan Gach -
CultureXbox Gets New Suspend Feature To Help With Slow Download Speeds
Download speeds on consoles are notoriously bad, especially if your internet isn’t lightning fast to begin with. A new feature rolling out now on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S for Xbox Insiders is aimed at improving them by making it easier to suspend existing games while downloading new ones. “Suspend in the queue will…
By Ethan Gach
Ethan Gach
I'm a senior reporter who's been writing about games and internet culture at Kotaku for almost 10 years. I cover everything from company earnings and player boycotts to emerging trends in gaming like AI, creator economies, and the changing console landscape. You can share story and news tips securely and anonymously at [email protected] or over Signal at +12673263042.
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