Kirk Hamilton

Track: Don’t Change For Me | Album: Ladies & Gentlemen… Nigel Hall | Artist: Nigel Hall Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

Final Fantasy XV’s User Interface Is So Bad

I like plenty of things about Final Fantasy XV, but the map and menus are not among them. This game’s interface is a mess of nonsense so carelessly taped together that it defies logic or comprehension. Final Fantasy XV introduces itself as “A Final Fantasy for fans and first-timers.” Over the fifty-odd hours I’ve spent…

Here Is A Very Specific Video Game Thing That Sucks

Sometimes, video games are good. Other times, they suck. Here is a thing some good games do that really sucks. Lots of video games give you rewards for your victories. You beat a level and get a nifty new outfit for your character to wear, or a powerful new weapon to use. Maybe you get…

Nioh Devs Say They Changed Co-Op So It Wouldn’t Be ‘Too Easy’

The PS4’s new action game Nioh gets a whole lot right, but a change to co-op between the most recent demo and the full game has some fans rankled. In a statement to Kotaku, the game’s creative director says the change was made to keep the game from being too easy. Nioh, a Team Ninja-developed…

Tips For Playing Nioh

The PS4 samurai action game Nioh is out today. It is really good. It’s also really difficult. If you want to play it but don’t want to spend hours figuring out how everything works, I’ve got you covered. I’ve been playing Nioh obsessively for the last week. I’m more than 40 hours in and I…

Some Quick Thoughts On The Ghost Recon Wildlands Beta

Last weekend Ubisoft ran a closed beta for their upcoming open-world tangos ’n tactics game Ghost Recon Wildlands. I spent a few hours playing and am here to tell you what I thought. Wildlands is the first proper game in the Ghost Recon series since 2012’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, which I actually reviewed, not…

Yakuza 0 Demonstrates How To Answer The Phone

The following gif from Yakuza 0 explains why I am purchasing a corded phone and demonstrates how I will be answering it for the rest of my life. I have nothing more to add.

The PS4’s Nioh Is Basically Samurai Bloodborne, And It Is Very Good

Look, I didn’t expect to spend the last two nights obsessively playing Nioh either, but here we are. Nioh is a new PS4-exclusive action game from Team Ninja, the studio behind the Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive series. It’s out in about a week, on February 7. The game has been floating at the…

Here Is A Ridiculously Well Animated Video Game Jazz Band

When video games depict a musical performance, they usually half-ass the animations. The drummer waggles his sticks around, the guitarist scrubs at the strings, the sax player sways like a drinking bird. Not Yakuza 0, man. This game takes musicians seriously. In the video above, you can watch a brief, extremely well animated sequence where…

Resident Evil 7 Definitely Got The Doors Right

You know what’s scary? A closed door. Anything could be on the other side of that door, man. Are you sure you even want to open it? Resident Evil 7 has really good doors. It also has a lot of doors. You’ll encounter dozens of them as you make your way through the Baker family’s…

Batman: Arkham Knight: The Kotaku Re-Review

Batman: Arkham Knight spins one of the most ambitious video game stories ever told, and watching it thunder to its conclusion is like watching a 747 successfully land on a helicopter pad. It may not be known for its narrative, but that is its achievement—a spiraling and notably interactive tale that takes you inside the…

How To Enjoy Resident Evil 7 If You’re A Big Scaredy Cat

So you’ve been hearing good things about Resident Evil 7, and you want to play it. There’s only one problem: you’re a huge coward. Don’t worry! I’ve got you covered. It may seem counterintuitive that easily frightened people would want to play a scary new game, but I actually think there are a fair number…

Podcast: A Rain Of Games From Japan

This week on Kotaku Splitscreen, Jason’s out so I’m joined by our own Luke Plunkett to talk Nintendo Switch, Yakuza 0, and the hard rain of big new games coming out of Japan. It’s wild that in the space of a few months, we’ve gotten Final Fantasy XV, The Last Guardian, Gravity Rush 2, Resident Evil…

At long last, the beloved 2005 action/tactics game Swat 4 is available on GOG. The folks at GOG have also posted an interview with two of the core designers, Paul Hellquist and Bill Gardner.

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation: Essential reading that set the stage for modern science fiction.  What it is: The first of Asimov’s famous Foundation series, originally published as a collection of short stories between 1942 and 1950. Those stories eventually became the first full book in the Foundation trilogy. Later in Asimov’s life, he expanded on the…

I Appreciate That Final Fantasy XV Lets Us Troll Its Ending

Final Fantasy XV’s ending is a trainwreck, so it’s fitting that the game lets us choose to make it even goofier. Spoilers for the ending of Final Fantasy XV follow. Really, I shouldn’t say ending. Like many a JRPG before it, Final Fantasy XV ends in waves, some of which are good, some of which…

Ubisoft Massive has shared yet more information about updates coming to The Division. This time they’re talking about the 1.6 update, which will accompany the next expansion. It’ll increase the size of the Dark Zone, add a new difficulty level, and more.

Tips For Playing Gravity Rush 2

Gravity Rush 2 is out today on PS4. I had mixed feelingsabout the game in general, but I do like a lot of things about it and it’s definitely more fun once you get the hang of it. To that end: some tips! Let’s do this. Watch the anime first. Sony released a short two-part…

Gravity Rush 2: The Kotaku Review

Despite its infuriating control issues, awful stealth missions, interminable boss fights and half-baked sidequests, I cannot discount Gravity Rush 2’s mammoth ambition and abundance of otherworldly charm. If a game must be a mess, at least let it be this exuberant a mess. Gravity Rush 2 is an open-world superhero game that tells the tale…

Ubisoft Massive has shared a bunch of new details about The Division’s upcoming Last Stand expansion, which adds a structured new PvP game mode to the Dark Zone. They’ll be announcing a simultaneous release date for all platforms “soon,” and season pass holders will get to test it out early on a public test server.