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CultureDiablo II: Resurrected Will Work With Your Decades-Old Saves
Have a special Necromancer youâve been farming Diablo II with for years? Thereâs good news: Diablo II Resurrected will let you import them to continue commanding armies of the dead over 20 years later. Out later this year on consoles and PC, the new remaster will still work with playersâ original save files, Blizzard confirmed…
By Ethan Gach -
CultureValve’s Card Game Is Officially Dead
Artifact has now failed twice. After a messy launch and a failed attempt to reboot it last year, Valve announced today itâs calling it quits on the beleaguered Dota 2 card game. âItâs now been about a year and a half since the current Artifact team began work on a reboot in earnest,â the gameâs…
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OpinionImpressionsLoop Hero Is A Wonderful New RPG About Overcoming Despair
Loop Hero is a lot of things: an RPG, a roguelite, an auto-battler, a card game, a city builder, an evocative visual novel. Itâs also excellent, and I canât stop playing it. Developed by Four Quarters (maker of 2015âs brilliant behavioral experiment Please, Donât Touch Anything) and out today on Steam, the appropriately titled Loop…
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CultureOdds and EndsSakurai Hides Figures Of Unreleased Smash Bros. Fighters In His Desk At Work
In his latest episode of âMr. Sakurai Presentsâ, Smash Bros. Ultimate director Masahiro Sakurai revealed that he often keeps figures of upcoming fighters locked away in a drawer at work while developing them. Not just Amiibo either, but the good stuff. After giving a detailed look at Xenoblade Chronicles 2‘s Pyra and Mythra, who are…
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CulturePyra And Mythra Join Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Later Today
A new presentation by direct Masahiro Sakurai provides a deeper look at the latest fightersâPyra and Mythraâbeing added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate later today. Yes, they might be yet another set of sword fighters, but the duoâs complimentary move sets look like a really fun combination. You can see the video below. The Xenoblade…
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CultureActivision Blizzard Hires Bush-Era Torture Apologist As Chief Compliance Officer
Activision Blizzard announced yesterday that Frances F. Townsend, a former George W. Bush-era counterterrorism appointee and torture apologist, would become its new head of compliance, in charge of making sure the company doesnât run afoul of the varying laws and regulations throughout all of the countries the Call of Duty maker does business in. According…
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CultureMorning MusicLegend Of Manaâs Grand Score Helps Me Take Its BS Seriously
Welcome to Morning Music, Kotakuâs ongoing hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today, itâs time to revisit an obscure PS1 classic from Square Softâs JRPG heyday, which had some of the chillest city-builder tunes around. Iâm talking about Legend of Mana, of course. Legend of Mana (playlist /…
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CultureFinal Fantasy Creator’s New JRPG Lets You Procrastinate With Its Random Encounters
Fantasian, the next game from Mistwalker, the studio founded by Final Fantasy creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, is coming to Apple Aracde later this year. Now weâve a new trailer finally showing off gameplay of the diorama-based JRPG, including its unique take on random encounters, called the âDimengeon system.â In classic JRPGs, like the ones Sakaguchi made…
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CultureEpic Games Buys Fall Guys Studio
Epic Games has bought Mediatonic, maker of last yearâs hit battle royale Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, the company announced today According to Epic, âgameplay isnât changingâ and the company will continue to support Fall Guys âacross platforms,â including PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch. âYour gameplay isnât changing and neither is our mission to bring Fall…
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CultureKotaku Game DiaryBravely Default 2âs Level Up Screen Is So Satisfying
Sixty hours later I still love watching these numbers go up. Like many other JRPGs, Bravely Default II is extremely long and extremely grindy, but the game is also full of small touches that occasionally punctuate the tedium with joy. One of those is the level up screen. After killing a mob of enemies you…
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CulturePlayStation Store Will Stop Selling Movies Nobody Bought
Have you ever bought a movie or TV show through the PlayStation Store? Me neither. As a result, Sony announced today it will remove them, starting August 31, 2021. âWeâve seen tremendous growth from PlayStation fans using subscription-based and ad-based entertainment streaming services on our consoles,â Sony wrote in a post over on the PlayStation…
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CultureNavy’s ‘Women Of Warzone‘ Twitch Stream Spammed With Bomb Emotes
The Navy turned off text chat for todayâs âWomen of Warzoneâ boot camp Twitch stream, so some viewers took to spamming the chat with bomb and fire emojis instead The boot camp sessions were in preparation for a $10,000 prize pool Call of Duty Warzone tournament, open to the public, that the Navy will be…
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CultureDestiny 2 Glitch Lets You Launch 12-Player Raid Parties [Update]
Destiny 2 fireteams are usually capped at six, but players have recently discovered a glitch to bump up the size and are using the exploit to take on gameâs raids in massive groups. Twelve-player parties might be chump change for a traditional MMO, but in Destiny it can transform even the deepest, darkest stone crypt…
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CultureReport: Elden Ring Has Pages
Fans of Elden Ring, the joint collaboration between Dark Souls maker FromSoftware and Game of Thrones writer George R. R. Martin, have been desperate for confirmation that the game is still real and will eventually come out. It now sounds like they have an answer: according to a new report by VGC, trailer footage of…
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CultureReport: Stadia Blew Millions On Red Dead Redemption 2 And Other Ports
Just how badly did Googleâs Stadia video game streaming service flop when it launched back in 2019? According to a new report by Bloomberg, it underperformed its sales target by hundreds of thousands of users, despite spending âtens of millions of dollarsâ secure ports of big blockbuster games. Itâs not hard to see why either,…
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OpinionSquare Enix Is Finally Making The Final Fantasy VII Cinematic Universe Playable
Yesterdayâs most important Final Fantasy news wasnât delivered at the end of Sonyâs lackluster State of Play livestream presentation but was instead casually tweeted out afterward: a new mobile game called Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis is coming. This latest FFVII remix will tell the story not just of the original game but also of…
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CultureSwitch Is Getting Pokémon Brilliant Diamond And Shining Pearl Remakes In Late 2021
PokĂ©mon Diamond and Pearl for the DS are getting âfaithfulâ remakes in the form of PokĂ©mon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl on Switch later this year, the PokĂ©mon Company announced in a livestream today. The games take place in the Sinnoh region, one of the seriesâ more naturalistic settings, with players adventuring while accompanied one…
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CultureHere’s March 2021’s PlayStation Plus Lineup
PlayStation Plus seems to be on a roll right now with another great slate of games. There are, countâem, four games, headlined by the excellent Final Fantasy VII Remake, which released less than a year ago. As always, these games are only âfreeâ if you have an active PlayStation Plus membership. Februaryâs PS Plus games…
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CultureDestiny 2 Is Sunsetting Sunsetting
Bungie announced today itâs getting rid of Destiny 2‘s most beleaguered mechanic: sunsetting. Starting in Season 14, new weapons will no longer have an expiration date. âThis is a big change for Destiny and one that we did not make lightly,â assistant game director Joe Blackburn wrote in a sweeping new State of Destiny post…
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CultureDestiny 2‘s Next Big Expansion The Witch Queen Delayed To 2022
Destiny 2 has gotten a big expansion every year since it released, but 2021 will be different. Bungie announced today that The Witch Queen, originally planned to launch in the second half of this year, will be delayed until 2022 due to its size and ongoing issues around working from home during the covid-19 pandemic.…
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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