Jason Schreier

Watch Us Play Video Games All Day

Today from 10am to 6pm Pacific (1pm-9pm Eastern), Kirk and I will be streaming video games. We’ll be speedrunning Super Mario World, killing bosses in Mega Man X, and trying to figure out if Red Dead Redemption is a good enough real-life version of Westworld You can watch it all on our Twitch channel right…

It’s Finally Time For Telltale To Shake Up Its Formula

Today in Austin, Texas, we put on a live episode of Kotaku Splitscreen to talk about Telltale’s formula and much more. Joining me and Kirk on stage was Kotaku freelancer and The Guardian games editor Keza MacDonald as well as Telltale’s vice president of creative, Leah Hoyer. We talked about storytelling in video games, games…

Black Panther Shows Us The Power Of A Good Villain

Straight out of Austin, we’re bringing you a bonus episode of Kotaku Splitscreen to talk Black Panther and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Former Kotaku and current io9 writer Evan Narcisse, who’s also writing a six-issue Marvel comic called Rise of the Black Panther, reunites with me and Kirk to talk about the adventures of T’Challa…

Shadow of the Tomb Raider Will Be Out This Fall [Update: Trailer]

A new teaser countdown from Square Enix promises big Tomb Raider news tomorrow, but a quick HTML check will give it to you right now: Shadow of the Tomb Raider is coming out this September. Head to the official Tomb Raider website and you’ll see a message promising an announcement on March 15, 2018 at…

The Legend of Zelda Games, Ranked From Worst To Best

It is now time to rank all the Zelda games. UPDATE (3/13/2018): Now that Breath of the Wild has been out for a year, I’ve updated this post (which originally ran in February of 2017) and added Nintendo’s latest Zelda to the list. Enjoy. Before we start, some quick notes: I’m skipping the CD-I games,…

Ni no Kuni II Lets You Build Your Own Kingdom, And It’s Lovely

If you have spent the past decade wishing there was more Suikoden in your life, then oh boy do I have some news for you: Ni no Kuni II is as close as we’ve gotten since 2006, thanks to an elegant kingdom-building system that’s a lot of fun to use. I finished the second Ni…

The ‘Magic Formula’ Behind Horizon: Zero Dawn‘s Success

SURPRISE! It’s a bonus episode of Kotaku Splitscreen, featuring Guerrilla Games’ boss Hermen Hulst, who shares some insight as to how Horizon: Zero Dawn turned out so special. In this 20-minute interview, Hulst and I talked about how Guerrilla went from the dark gritty landscapes of Killzone to the vibrant world of Horizon, how they…

Watch The Nintendo Direct Right Here

It’s time for some Nintendo news, as the company behind the red-hot Switch holds a Nintendo Direct to talk about what else is coming in 2018. Nintendo says it’ll talk Mario Tennis Aces and offer news on upcoming Switch and 3DS games. Will we see more Metroid Prime 4? A bunch of new AAA ports?…

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Officially Announced

After weeks of rumors, a basketball tease, and lots of snickering about Roman numerals, today it’s finally official: Call of Duty Black Ops 4 (IIII) is coming this fall. Publisher Activision did not reveal much more information than that, adding that it and developer Treyarch will share more details on May 17, with the game…

The Loot Box Madness May End On Its Own

Is Donald Trump going to take away our video games? Are loot boxes going to go away? Today on Kotaku Splitscreen, let’s discuss. First, Kirk and I talk about Trump, loot boxes, and Diablo for Switch (6:27). Then we dig into some of the games we’ve been playing (41:14), like Dishonored: Death of the Outsider,…

Trump Vs. Video Games: What To Expect From Tomorrow’s White House Meeting [UPDATE: Full List Of Attendees]

On Thursday, March 8, the White House will hold a meeting with members of the video game industry to talk about gun violence. Few people know who will be at that meeting or why it is taking place, but one thing is clear: Like all things involving the Donald Trump administration, the process has been…

The Next Call of Duty Is Almost Certainly Black Ops IIII [UPDATE: Yes, That’s The Logo]

It’s not quite official yet, but it’s a near-certainty that the next Call of Duty is Black Ops IV. Rumors have been swirling about this for a few weeks now (as first reported by Eurogamer), and Kotaku can confirm via our own sources that those rumors are true. Plus, there’s tonight’s assist from a future…

Final Fantasy XV Sure Looks (And Runs) Great On PC

Final Fantasy XV looks good on consoles, but on PC, it feels like the game that we were meant to play two years ago. The PC version of Square Enix’s boy band extravaganza launched today, and from some initial testing (with me on a GTX 1080 and Fahey on a Radeon Vega RX 64), it’s…

Mario Is Officially A Plumber Again

In September, Nintendo crushed hearts across the world by declaring that Mario was no longer a plumber. This week, the publisher has remedied that horrible mistake, changing Mario’s bio to note that he is, in fact, a plumber. Previously, as translated by Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft, the official Japanese Mario bio had read: “All around sporty,…

The White House has finally sent out invitations to the video game industry for a meeting on Thursday, and the ESA says it will attend. “Video games are plainly not the issue: entertainment is distributed and consumed globally, but the US has an exponentially higher level of gun violence than any other nation,” said a…

Final Fantasy XV: Royal Edition Adds A Big New Scene To The Final Act

Final Fantasy XV may be one of the strangest video games ever created, in large part because the developers have spent the past year and a half updating, changing, and adding new features to the game. And as of tomorrow, there’ll be a whole new story in the final act. We already knew that the…

StarCraft II Just Had One Of Its Best Tournaments In Years

StarCraft II might not pull in the massive viewer numbers of Overwatch or League of Legends, but a tournament in Poland this past week proved that Blizzard’s real-time strategy game is still thriving as an esport. Zerg player Rogue took home the $150,000 grand prize at the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) tournament in Katowice, Poland,…

GameStop said today that Paul Raines, who served as CEO of the retailer from 2010 to 2017, has died. He had stepped down from his position in November 2017 due to a brain tumor.

The Secret Hunters Of Destiny

Imagine there’s a video game that you’ve played for hundreds and hundreds of hours. It’s the only game you really play. You think you’ve seen everything there is, and then one day, you see a YouTube video, or a thread on Reddit, or maybe a tweet. Someone says they’ve found something new. Someone says they’ve…

After The Loot Box Fury, The People Behind The Next Battlefield Are Being Very Cautious

The people who make Battlefield, just like many other developers across the video game industry, have heard the loot box furor loudly and clearly. The next Battlefield’s microtransaction plans remain in flux, as they are in many games until close to release, but it’s unlikely they’ll inspire as much anger as Star Wars: Battlefront II’s…