Jason Schreier

Some Real Talk With Tim Schafer 

Today on Kotaku Splitscreen, Double Fine CEO Tim Schafer joins us to talk about his piles and piles of money. Plus: how Day of the Tentacle holds up today, what it’s like inside the LucasArts barn, and some Real Talk about the relationships between journalists and game developers. Originally posted 3/10/16, but it’s Sunday now,…

WildStar developer Carbine Studios laid off a number of people today, publisher NCSoft confirmed to Kotaku this afternoon. The company says they “remain committed” to updating and maintaining service on their sci-fi MMO.

Trails in the Sky: The 3rd Is Actually Coming West

Well, this is unexpected. The next Trails in the Sky game is coming to North America, publisher XSEED said today. It’ll be out for PC in 2017. This is the third game in the Trails in the Sky trilogy, which first hit U.S. shores in 2011. After a long, twisted journey full of all sorts…

Hearthstone Expansion Whispers of the Old Gods Announced

The next Hearthstone expansion is called Whispers of the Old Gods, Blizzard said today. This new add-on for the addictive digital card game will add 134 more cards to Hearthstone, all of them themed around the old gods of Warcraft lore. It’ll be out in April or May. Says Blizzard in a press release: Whispers…

People Sure Like Asking If E3 Is Still Relevant

In the wake of news that game publishers EA and Activision will have reduced presences at this year’s E3—both will show off their games at various press conferences, but neither will have booths—analysts and Hot Takers across the web have been asking a simple question: Is E3 still relevant? This semi-backlash led Rich Taylor, a…

It Took A Lot Of Work To Make Destiny‘s Guns Sound Cool

It’s clear that the developers at Bungie put an insane amount of work into the sound effects in Destiny, a video game in which players travel through the solar system waiting for announcements of announcements of announcements of new content. This 15-minute mini-documentary, posted by Bungie today, illustrates just what that work looked like. It’s…

Last Monday, Microsoft closed Lionhead Studios; next Monday, Sony is holding a job fair for the former employees. Ex-Lionhead developers will be able to network with folks from various SCEE studios: Guerrilla, Evolution, Media Molecule, etc.

Unexpected Job Requirement For Video Game Streamers: ‘Be Comfortable Wearing A Bikini Top’

Well here’s an unusual job requirement: A Craigslist call for a “Lady Video Game Streamer” asks for applicants who are OK with wearing bikinis on camera. “The ideal candidate will have experience working with computers and social networking websites,” reads the advertisement, which was posted earlier this week on Craigslist’s job listings for the DC…

This YouTube Channel Is Definitely The Best Place To Listen To Video Game Music

If you are looking for good, high-quality video game music from all of your favorite video games, hunt no further than GiIvaSunner, who has done us all a great service with these uploads of songs we all know and love. For example, who could forget the iconic Slider song from Super Mario 64 (above)? Or…

The New Doom‘s Multiplayer Looks Just Like Unreal

Arena shooters are back, if the new DOOM is any indication. It looks pretty great, too—today’s new trailer showcases the shotguns, sniper rifles, and demon transformations that’ll take centerstage in DOOM’s multiplayer modes. The road to this new DOOM has been rocky, to put things mildly, so it’ll be fascinating to see how the game…

New PS4 Game Everything Lets You Play As… Everything

“In Everything, every single thing is a playable character,” writes artist David O’Reillyon the PlayStation Blog today. “If you can see it, you can be it.” Well. Alright then. In this newly announced, insane-sounding PS4 game by O’Reilly—who also designed Mountain—the pitch is simple: You can be everything. Rather than bother with typical video game…

The remastered PS4 version of Valkyria Chronicles will be out on May 17, Sega said today. It’ll be $30 and run at 1080p resolution/60 frames-per-second, the company says.

The Division Trolls Are Blocking Other Players’ Progress By Standing In A Doorway

The Division has been live for just a few hours, but it’s already got a hilarious griefing problem. As discovered by Eurogamer—and documented in their video, below—Division players with an inclination to troll can simply stand in the doorway of the game’s opening safehouse. As you can see, this makes it tough to leave the…

House of Cards‘ Newest Video Game Cameo: Agario

With every new season of House of Cards comes a new video game reference. This year’s slate of episodes is no exception. On the fourth season of House of Cards, which went up on Netflix last Friday, embattled president Frank Underwood spends some valuable campaign time with the online multiplayer game Agar.io. In Agar.io, which…

Shadow of Mordor producer Michael Forgey passed away on Friday. He had been fighting an inoperable form of brain cancer. We wish the best to his friends and family.

IGN Ad Leaks Overwatch Release Date [UPDATE]

We already knew that Overwatch would be out this spring; now, thanks to a leak from IGN’s advertising folks, we have more specifics. Blizzard’s hero-based shooter will release on May 24. The news isn’t official yet—as a publicly traded company, Activision-Blizzard has to do things very formally—but this is pretty clear. Overwatch is currently in…

Podcast: Rachel Bloom’s Journey From YouTube Hit To Golden Globe Winner

Onthis week’s podcast, we’re joined by my old friend Rachel Bloom, who tells us what it’s like to star in a TV show and win a friggin’ Golden Globe. Bloom writes, produces, and stars in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, one of the funniest shows on television. (Seriously.) Today on Kotaku Splitscreen, she talks about how she pulled…

Nintendo Is Leaking Like Crazy

In 2013, when I visited Nintendo’s Redmond HQ for a feature on the company’s Treehouse localization team, staffers there opined that secrecy was essential to their operations. “We’re keeping things confidential until we’re ready to share them with the world,” Treehouse manager Leslie Swan told me then. “We work really closely with the development teams…

The Division‘s New Anti-Destiny Advertisement Is Incredibly Misleading

A recent advertisement for Ubisoft’s upcoming The Division suggests that a gaming website declared it to be better than Destiny. Problem is, the website never actually said that. The Division, which comes out next week, has drawn all sorts of comparisons to Bungie’s Destiny thanks to their shared genre; both games are online-only RPG-shooter hybrids…

Epic Games Founder Slams Microsoft For Trying To ‘Monopolize’ PC Gaming [UPDATE]

This week, Microsoft has touted a new initiative that they’ve said will unify platforms, making it easier to for developers to release games on both PC and Xbox One. But at least one major developer isn’t thrilled with Microsoft’s plans. In an opinion piece published in The Guardian this morning, Epic Games co-founder Tim Sweeney…