Kirk Hamilton

I Squished A Bug Inside My Monitor’s Screen And Now I Want To Die

It all started when I thought I saw a bug crawling across my computer monitor. Huh, I thought, it’s a bug crawling across my computer monitor. I reached out to flick it off, and found that I could not. I stared at it, unsure of what I was seeing. The bug was there, but I…

The Six Biggest Announcements Of E3 2017

E3 is drawing to a close, and the rain of game announcements has abated. EA, Microsoft, Bethesda, Ubisoft, Sony, and Nintendo all did their thing. It’s up to us to sort through the rubble. Among the dozens of hype reels, hardware breakdowns, marketing buzzwords and game announcements, a few things stood out. If you don’t…

E3 Day Five Podcast: The Director Of South Park: The Fractured But Whole

We’ve almost survived E3 2017! Just a couple more weeks to go. Today on Kotaku Splitscreen, Jason sits down with two more game developers: the director of South Park: The Fractured But Whole and the executive producer/lead programmer of Pillars of Eternity 2 Listen here: Jason and I start out by catching up on how…

Destiny 2 Director Answers Our Questions About The Open World, The Darkness, And Titan Bubbles

Yesterday at E3, my Kotaku Splitscreen co-host Jason Schreier sat down with Bungie’s Luke Smith, game director on Destiny 2. They hit a wide variety of topics including what The Darkness is, how the game’s open world levels will work, and why they’re taking away Jason’s Sunsinger res. If you’re into Destiny, you should really…

E3 Day Four Podcast: Luke Smith On Destiny 2

The press conferences may be over, but E3 2017 is still going strong. Today on Kotaku Splitscreen, Jason sits down with two game directors: Destiny 2‘s Luke Smith and Days Gone’s John Garvin. Listen here: (Quick technical note: If you subscribe to our show, for some reason a five minute version of this episode initially…

Women Play Video Games

Hello! I’ve come here today to explain something that apparently still needs explaining: Women play video games. I know, it’s a radical concept. (As plenty of you are doubtless aware, it is not a radical concept.) Yet here in the year 2017, it’s apparently still really easy to assume that despite the fact that A)…

Here’s Destiny 2 Running At 60fps On PC 

When I played Destiny 2 last month, the most striking difference wasn’t anything about the game itself. It was how it felt to play it on PC. Today Nvidia posted a video that shows what the game looks like on PC in 4K resolution, running at 60fps. This won’t be of interest to anyone but…

E3 Day Three Podcast: Nintendo, Super Mario Odyssey

Jason and I continue our Kotaku Splitscreen E3 coverage with Nintendo’s morning announcements. Were two Metroid games enough to energize an otherwise low-key E3? Is Super Mario Odyssey as weird and ambitious as it looks? (The answer to both, basically, is yes.) Listen here: This is our third E3 episode—check out our day-one reactions to…

Everything Nintendo Announced At E3 2017

Nintendo made a bunch of hopes and dreams come true today at E3. After a seemingly endless wait, they finally announced Rocket League for Switch! Oh, also Metroid Prime. They announced a new Metroid Prime Nintendo has got these pre-recorded E3 videos down to a science at this point, and this year was their usual…

E3 Day Two Podcast: Sony, Ubisoft, Bethesda

Jason and I continue our Kotaku Splitscreen E3 2017 coverage discussing press conferences from Sony, Bethesda, and Ubisoft. Which company had the best show? Or rather, which was the least disappointing? Listen to find out. (Actually, I’ll just tell you. It’s Ubisoft.) We kick off the chat with Bethesda, then hit Ubisoft at 7:36 and…

Everything Sony Showed At E3 2017

Sony just wrapped their E3 2017 press conference, where Insomniac’s Spider-Man almost managed to distract from the fact that they didn’t announce Bloodborne 2 Not a ton of new stuff for Sony, but they did keep with the current trend of showing games that are coming within the next year or so. Let’s break it…

Assassin’s Creed Origins Has An $800 Collector’s Edition

Ubisoft just announced the preorder collector’s editions for their upcoming adventure game Assassin’s Creed Origins. One of them kinda sticks out. It’s now commonplace for Ubisoft games to have so many preorder exclusives and tie-ins that you need a spreadsheet to keep them straight. Even within that context, one of Origins’ editions is not like…

Everything Ubisoft Showed At E3 2017

Ubisoft hit the stage Monday afternoon at E3 to show a new trailer for Beyond Good & Evil 2, along with some other stuff that was completely overshadowed by the fact that OH MAN THEY ACTUALLY SHOWED BEYOND GOOD & EVIL 2 It was a brisk show that didn’t waste much time on games we’d…

What A Video Game ‘Exclusive’ Means In 2017

Merriam-Webster defines exclusive as “limiting or limited to possession, control, or use by a single individual or group.” If you follow video games, your understanding of the word is probably more refined. At Microsoft’s big E3 conference yesterday, most of the game trailers were preceded by a booming voice uttering the word “EXCLUSIVE.” In truth,…

Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom will be out on November 10, 2017. It’s coming to PS4 and PC, unlike the first game, which was a PS3 exclusive. Hopefully combat involves less cat-herding this time around.

Everything Bethesda Announced At E3 2017

Bethesda won the award for latest E3 press conference of 2017, bringing us a late-night event from BethesdaLand, their own self-styled amusement park. Among other things they debuted sequels to Wolfenstein and The Evil Within, along with a new Dishonored game. There weren’t any huge surprises, but at least they kept things moving along. And there’s…

E3 Day One Podcast: Microsoft, EA, Xbox One X

Jason and I kick off our Kotaku Splitscreen E3 coverage with reactions to EA and Microsoft’s press conferences. Is Xbox One X a good name? Was Janina Gavankar enough to carry EA’s disappointing show? Are we more stoked about BioWare’s Anthem than Destiny 2? (The answers: No, no, hard to say.) Listen here: As always,…

Xbox One X And Everything Else Microsoft Showed At E3 2017

Microsoft kicked off their E3 2017 press conference by officially revealing their beefy new console, the $499 Xbox One X. WITNESS. The new console may have been Microsoft’s big hardware announcement, but they actually didn’t spend too much time talking about the device itself. With the announcement out of the way, their focus quickly shifted…

Everything EA Announced At E3 2017

Electronic Arts just kicked off E3 2017 with an earlier than usual Saturday press conference. EA showed some Star Wars, some sports, some car chases, and a brand-new game from BioWare called Anthem. There was also a live drumline, in case you thought E3 needed more drumlines. EA didn’t announce much—the only two new games…

We Talk About Mass Effect: Andromeda‘s Turbulent Development

On this week’s episode of Kotaku Splitscreen, Jason Schreier and I spent some time discussing his lengthy reported story covering the troubled five-year development of Mass Effect: Andromeda You can listen to that segment in the video above, and subscribe to Splitscreen on Apple Podcasts or Google Play. We’ve got a pretty cool plan for…