Jason Schreier

“Player choice and female playable characters are here to stay.” – DICE GM Oskar Gabrielson, delivering an excellent smackdown to Battlefield fans upset that you can play as a woman in the next game.

The developers of Fortnite are adding some new quality-of-life improvements, including custom controller bindings and better load times. They’re also adding a new event, Playground, with extra spawns, friendly fire, and… llamas? More here

The World’s Biggest Game Company Just Keeps Getting Bigger

Early this week, the studio behind Path of Exile received a majority investment from a Chinese corporation called Tencent. If that’s a name you don’t know, it’s worth learning, because Tencent is, without a question, the largest company in video games. Yet, many fans don’t even know it exists. Tencent has its hands in so…

World of Tanks publisher Wargaming has shut down its Seattle office, laying off 150 people. “Wargaming will be assisting the current employees of the Redmond studio, if they decide to apply for open positions in other offices within the company,” the publisher said in a statement to Kotaku. “We would like to express our gratitude…

Here’s Our First Look At Battlefield V, Which Goes Back To WWII

Battlefield is going back to World War II, developer DICE said during a livestream today, promising that the newly announced Battlefield V will tell “real stories about men and women who changed history” over the course of the second World War. Battlefield V will be out October 19 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Like…

The next PlayStation is three years away, Sony boss Tsuyoshi “John” Kodera told reporters in Japan last night, confirming Kotaku’s reporting from last month that we won’t see the PS5 for a long time. Despite rumors floating around earlier this year, the PS4 is going to stick around for a while.

Destiny 2‘s Coolest New Mode Is Hobbled By Team Size Limits

Destiny 2’s new Warmind expansion is equal parts promising and frustrating, a step in the right direction that has also served to underline some of the game’s biggest problems. Case in point: Escalation Protocol, a new mode that’s frustrating players not because it isn’t fun, but because it’s almost impossible to properly play it. Anyone…

Unhewn Throne Is One Of The Best Fantasy Series I’ve Ever Read

I have read many fantasy books over the years, many of them mediocre, and few as captivating as George R.R. Martin’s now-ubiquitous A Song of Ice and Fire. So it was refreshing and thrilling to discover a trilogy that’s nearly as good: Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, one of the best fantasy book series I’ve…

What It Was Like To Play D&D For The First Time

I recently played Dungeons & Dragons for the first time ever, and it sure was fun. We talk about that and much more on this week’s Kotaku Splitscreen First, Kirk and I talk about cults and audio tricks (clearly it’s Laurel), then get into the news of the week on Boss Key shutting down, a…

Nobody Is Saying How Many People Call of Duty‘s Battle Royale Will Support

When the makers of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 announced yesterday that the upcoming game will come with its very own battle royale mode, Blackout, they refrained from answering one big question: How many people will it support? The answer, it appears, is that developer Treyarch just doesn’t know yet. Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds…

No Man’s Sky Is Getting Full Multiplayer

Nearly two years after it first launched, the space exploration game No Man’s Sky will finally get a proper multiplayer mode, developer Hello Games said last night. Speaking on the Inside Xbox YouTube show, No Man’s Sky director Sean Murray said that alongside the upcoming Xbox One launch on July 24, the game will start…

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Is Getting A Battle Royale Mode

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is getting a battle royale mode, developer Treyarch said today, following in the footsteps of PUBG and Fortnite with a mode called Blackout. It confirms Kotaku’s report from last month that Activision will be the first major publisher to join the battle royale craze. Treyarch did not say how…

Everything We Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops 4

Today at an event in Los Angeles, developer Treyarch put on a show to reveal new info about Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, which will be out October 12 for PC (on Battle.net), PS4, and Xbox One. Seems like this will be a break from traditional Call of Duty in a whole lot of…

If you’re curious about Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, check out a livestream of the big reveal event right here. We’ll also be covering all the news on Kotaku as it happens.

Ubisoft’s pirate game Skull & Bones is delayed to next fiscal year, the publisher said today—it’ll now come out somewhere between April 1, 2019 and March 31, 2020. “Ubisoft has decided to give itself more time to develop Skull & Bones to offer players an even more engaging experience,” the company said in a press release.

Sony Ends Production Of Physical Vita Games

Sony is ending physical production of Vita games, Kotaku has learned. Although the hardware manufacturer says digital distribution will continue, this move will mark the end of physical cards for the maligned portable game system. Sony’s American and European branches “plan to end all Vita GameCard production by close of fiscal year 2018,” the company…

Inside The Wild New Mash-Up Of Link To The Past And Super Metroid

Imagine: You’re playing Link to the Past, the seminal Super Nintendo action-adventure game, and you walk into a fortune-teller’s house, where you’d expect to find a soothsayer taking rupees in exchange for hints. Instead, the screen goes black for a few seconds. Suddenly you’re on Zebes, fighting aliens as a suited bounty hunter. Whoops, you’ve…

Bethesda Announces Rage 2 [UPDATE: Gameplay Trailer]

After a week of teasing, viral leaking, and marketing plans, today it’s finally official: Rage is getting a sequel, out in 2019. UPDATE (5/15, 10am): Here’s the gameplay trailer: And here’s the Mad Max-ish teaser trailer: This one will be developed byAvalanche Studios, the studio responsible for the 2015 open-world Mad Max game. The first…

Rumors Suggest That Retro Studios Is Making A Star Fox Racing Game

A piping hot new E3 rumor suggests that Retro Studios, the Nintendo-owned developer behind the Metroid Prime trilogy, is making a Star Fox racing game. These rumors have been floating around gossipy Nintendo fan and writer circles for at least a few weeks now, but they’ve only gone public today, suggesting that Retro’s new game…

Radical Heights Developer Boss Key Games Shuts Down

Boss Key Productions, the studio behind the recent battle royale Radical Heights and last year’s Lawbreakers, is closing its doors. The news comes from studio co-founder Cliff Bleszinski, previously of Gears of War and Unreal Tournament fame, who said that Lawbreakers had “failed to gain traction” and described Radical Heights, which launched last month to…