Ian Walker

Street Fighter V Is Getting Dan, Rose, Oro, and Akira From Rival Schools

Street Fighter V’s final season will see Dan, Rose, Oro, and Akira Kazama of Rival Schools join the game, Capcom announced during a special live stream this afternoon. The developers explained that these specific fighters were chosen for Street Fighter V thanks to the presence of storyline acquaintances already existing in the game. Dan, for…

Activision Blizzard Boasts Record Results While Employees Protest Pay Inequity

Activision Blizzard boasted of “record results” for Q2 2020 in an earnings report released earlier today, with an eye on long-term growth thanks to the boost received in the previous quarter from the ongoing covid-19 pandemic. This financial victory lap, however, comes just days after workers collaborated on a spreadsheet designed to highlight pay inequity…

This year’s Call of Duty will be a collaborative effort between Treyarch and Raven Software, publisher Activision Blizzard announced during today’s earnings call. This confirms a Kotaku report from last year, in which sources indicated the Call of Duty for 2020 would be a Cold War-based Black Ops 5

Yakuza: Like A Dragon Battle Menus Now Spell ‘SEGA’ Thanks To Joking Tweet

Game development is a collaborative effort between designers, programmers, and writers, which on big productions can number in the hundreds. It can take years to get a specific mechanic or cutscene right, and even then, it might still fall flat with players. But in the case of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, some of the best…

Super Mario 64 Took 622 Days To Develop, Suggests ‘Gigaleak’ Document

Super Mario 64 is arguably one of the best games of all time, not only due to how fun it is but also because of the technological leap it represented for the platforming genre. According to a document included in the recent “Gigaleak,” however, this monumental project took less than two years of actual development.…

Analogue Pocket Preorders Sell Out Immediately, Leaving Many Disappointed

I woke up early today to make sure I could snag an Analogue Pocket when preorders for the long-awaited handheld went live at 8 a.m. PST. Eight minutes past 8, Analogue’s online shop informed me it had completely sold out. I didn’t even get to enter payment information, and I clearly wasn’t the only one…

Arc System Works has announced that Guilty Gear Strive will be on PlayStation 5 and Steam as well as PlayStation 4. The new trailer also shows off returning character Leo Whitefang and newcomer Nagoriyuki. Strive will be available in spring 2021.

Beyond Good & Evil Is Being Made Into A Netflix Movie

Ubisoft’s portfolio of TV and movie spin-offs continues to expand. The Hollywood Reporter reports that the developer will be working with Netflix on a Beyond Good & Evil movie that combines live-action and animation. The new project will be helmed by Detective Pikachu director Rob Letterman and produced by Ubisoft’s Jason Altman and Margaret Boykin.…

Smoking Toad, F-Zero Beavis, And Other Weird Nintendo Gigaleak Finds

The recent “Gigaleak” of Nintendo assets has given us an inside look at the development of some of our favorite games. But as one might expect from a massive collection of prototypes and early builds that were never meant to see the light of day, there’s a good deal of weird and otherwise out-of-place stuff…

Throwing Paper Mario‘s Confetti Is My Happy Place

Sadly, it feels like I’m reaching the end of my time with Paper Mario: The Origami King. I’ve loved everything about it—well, almost everything—but my favorite part has got to be the simple act of tossing confetti around. The Mushroom Kingdom is in total disarray by the time you get to explore it thanks to…

Splinter Cell Is Getting An Anime Adaptation On Netflix

Ubisoft and Netflix have partnered to develop a Splinter Cell anime with John Wick creator Derek Kolstad as writer and executive producer, a representative for Ubisoft has confirmed to Kotaku According to earlier reporting by Variety, the Splinter Cell anime has already received a two-season, 16-episode order from Netflix. In speaking to Kotaku, Ubisoft would…

Animal Crossing Characters Can Hilariously Eat Shit Again

While the latest Animal Crossing: New Horizons update mostly focuses on fun summertime diversions, it’s time we give it up for the greatest addition to the island getaway simulator: tripping. Previous games in the Animal Crossing series included a hidden luck mechanic that would influence things like how much money dropped from trees, the rate…

Offbeat ’90s RPG Moon Finally Heads West August 27

The official English translation for “anti-RPG” Moon: Remix RPG Adventure will come out for Nintendo Switch on August 27, almost 23 years after it launched on the original PlayStation. Moon was the brainchild of the now-defunct Japanese studio Love-de-Lic, which was founded by a team of developers who had previously worked on games like Chrono…

Grounded‘s Arachnophobia Slider Turns Spiders Into Cute Floating Blobs

We learned back in April that Grounded, the new miniaturized survival game from Obsidian Entertainment, would include an “arachnophobia mode” for players with an aversion to spiders. Let’s take a look at how this accessibility option works now that the game is out in the wild. Upon booting up Grounded for the first time, the…

Israel Wants To Use Xbox Controllers In Its Tanks, Which Is Horrifying

Israel is currently testing a new armored vehicle prototype that uses a wide array of modern technology, most notably an Xbox controller that allows soldiers to perform combat functions as if they were playing a video game. According to The Washington Post, the tank was developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), which employed the feedback…

Sekiro Getting Boss Rush, New Costumes, and Message System In Free October Update

From Software’s excellent shinobi adventure Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is getting a free update on October 29 to coincide with the game’s arrival on Stadia, publisher Activision announced this morning The update will add an official boss rush mode to Sekiro (modders already did this last July), as well as brand new outfits for the…

Anthrax, Suicidal Tendencies Tracks Will Be In Tony Hawk Remasters After All

The folks behind the upcoming Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 remaster have confirmed to Kotaku that the soundtrack will include classic tracks from Anthrax and Suicidal Tendencies when the game launches on September 4 despite previous comments to the contrary. The band names were first spotted in a new promotional campaign hyping up the game’s…

Brand-New Animal Crossing Villager Found In The Gigaleak

The hits just keep on coming thanks to the recent “Gigaleak” of internal Nintendo data. Some of the latest findings include a trove of assets from Animal Crossing’s Japan-exclusive N64 predecessor Animal Forest, including the complete source code, a never-before-seen villager, and weird versions of Nook’s shop. I’m sure most of you are aware of…

Developer Announces Snowboarding Game, Updates Forum Thread He Started 13 Years Ago

When you do one thing long enough, it can be a trip to look back at your previous work and chart your progress. That’s exactly what a developer on upcoming snowboarding simulator Shredders, launching on Xbox Series X in 2021, did after his game was announced last week. Shredders was an inevitability for I-Illusions project…

Mario Kart Wizard’s Clutch Play Reveals The Game’s True Depth

I’ve never really thought of Mario Kart as a game with “plays” à la League of Legends or Street Fighter, but I’m more than happy to have been proven wrong by this amazing moment from a weekend Mario Kart 8 tournament. Bassem “Bear” Dahdouh is a prolific tournament director in both the Smash and traditional…