Maddy Myers

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare‘s Developers Are Still Deciding How Disturbing To Get

In a hotel suite at E3 2019, Infinity Ward studio art director Joel Emslie and single-player design director Jacob Minkoff showed off two levels from the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare campaign. They showed these same two levels to the press this past May, but the messaging around those levels has changed. At this presentation,…

Gears 5‘s New Mode Is A Three-Player Escape Mission From The Heart Of Locust Territory

Shortly after the Xbox briefing at E3 2019, I sat down to play Gears 5’s new “Escape” mode, a three-player co-operative challenge mode. The three playable characters in the mode, who are named Mac, Lahni and Keegan, are Hivebusters. This means they get captured by the enemy Swarm on purpose, then fight their way out…

Everything Should Be Ported To Switch (And Other Wild Hopes For E3 2019)

Will this E3 be the year we hear about Final Fantasy XVI? Or get that long-awaited Metroid Prime trilogy Switch port? On this week’s episode of Kotaku Splitscreen, we shared our best guesses and most optimistic dreams about what will and won’t be revealed at E3 2019. First, we talk about what we’re playing. Jason’s back…

Our Gameplay Data Should Be Harder To Sell

Video game developers can collect our data, and for now, they can sell it to advertisers. But that may not be as easy in the future due to California’s new data privacy law. On this week’s Kotaku Splitscreen, we do a follow-up episode after last week’s analysis of the state of gameplay data and privacy.…

Should We Care About Video Game Companies Collecting Our Data?

Video games often ask us to share our data with the developers. Sometimes, games and other apps bury this question in a long privacy policy that you have to agree to in order to even load it up. And sometimes, that data gets sold or repurposed for mysterious ends. Kirk and I admitted how anxious…

Games Are Better When You Come To Them Late

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney first came out in 2005. I’m finally playing it in 2019, courtesy of the recent Nintendo Switch port. I’ve never played a Phoenix Wright game before, even though I love mysteries and my friends spent the past decade or so telling me to play one. You know what? I’m glad I…

Both Democrats And Republicans Agree: Loot Boxes Bad

Earlier this week, Republican senator Josh Hawley announced a bill that would regulate the use of loot boxes and microtransactions in “games played by minors.” But aren’t Republicans typically against any type of regulation on the free market? On this week’s Kotaku Splitscreen, we talk about the idea of politicians seeking out the gamer vote,…

I Got Caught In A Silent Pokémon Go Battle With A Stranger A Few Feet Away

Like many people, I played Pokémon Go for a few months when it first came out in 2016, then I abandoned it for three years. Since I work from home and the game’s leveling mechanics revolve around a pedometer, I could never seem to level up my Pokémon fast enough. For the past six months,…

That Video Game Scene In Avengers: Endgame

Ever since Tony Stark exclaimed “That man is playing Galaga!” during the first Avengers movie, gamers have been waiting for another video game reference to show up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Okay, not really, but Avengers: Endgame sure did give us a big video game scene, right? Let’s talk about it. The first chunk…

Kingdom Hearts III will get a free update later today that includes “Critical Mode”, which is what the franchise calls its super-hard mode. Check out our Kingdom Hearts III tips post to be sure you’re up to the challenge.

A Newcomer’s Take On Disney World

Until this past month, I had never been to Disney World, nor any major theme park. I went to Six Flags as a young child, but I barely remember it. Going to Disney World for the first time as an adult, I can’t experience it from the perspective of a child who has the capacity…

The Magic Of Muscle Memory For Games

I’ve been practicing my Street Fighter V combos lately, and I’ve found that the less I think about them, the easier it is to do them. On this week’s episode of Kotaku Splitscreen, my co-host Kirk Hamilton and I talked about muscle memory in games, and also music. Our third host Jason Schreier is on…

Watch Out For Smash Balls In This Weekend’s Nintendo-Sanctioned Tournament

The finals for the Smash Ultimate North America Open kick off at 1 p.m. ET, live at PAX East in Boston and streaming on Nintendo’s YouTube. This is a Nintendo-sanctioned Smash tournament, so the rules are less strict than your typical competitive Smash tournament. Items will be on (albeit set to “low”), and so will…

We’re Very Skeptical Of Google Stadia

It’s been a week since the Google Stadia announcement at GDC, and its big promises still don’t add up. Who is Stadia for? Could it ever work from a technical standpoint? Why should game developers or streamers be excited about it when it’s not clear how the heck they could ever expect to make any…

What It’s Like To Start A Game Studio With No Bosses

After co-writing and designing Night In The Woods, Scott Benson and Bethany Hockenberry co-founded a new game studio with artist and musician Wren Farren, except this time, no one is the boss. The Glory Society is a worker co-operative, which means that its co-founders have a different workflow and creative process from other indie studios. During…

The Creators Of Into The Breach Came Very Close To Giving Up On It

The strategy game Into The Breach is elegant in its simplicity, but that’s because its designers had to scrap several huge sections of the game that just didn’t work. Matthew Davis and Justin Ma, the minds behind FTL and Into The Breach, came on Kotaku Splitscreen during GDC 2019 to tell Jason and me how…

Tim Schafer Talks Unionization, Streaming, And The Future Of Double Fine

After cracking jokes on stage during the Game Developers Choice and IGF awards at GDC last night, Double Fine boss Tim Schafer had almost completely lost his voice, but he still croaked his way through his annual appearance on Kotaku Splitscreen. Jason and I talked to him about the unionization joke he told at the…

The Human Story Behind Call Of Duty’s Zombie Mode

Jesse Snyder, the creator of Call of Duty’s Zombies mode, sacrificed sleep and faced internal pushback when making the now-iconic undead mode for the game. In the process, he also realized he’d rather make less realistic games, not the gritty simulation fare of Call of Duty. Now, he’s the creative director at NantG, and this…

Google Stadia Boss Answers (And Dodges) Our Questions

This afternoon at GDC 2019, Google Stadia boss Phil Harrison announced the tech company’s plans to launch a game streaming service that will stream high-end games in a Chrome browser. But how good, exactly, does your internet have to be in order for Stadia to work? And do you need one of Google’s new Stadia…

Playing Devil May Cry 5 Is Like Playing A Musical Instrument

Learning combos in Devil May Cry 5 is not so different from learning a musical instrument; you start out by practicing the simple building blocks and, eventually, you can chain together a stylish set of button-presses that will blow everybody away. On Kotaku Splitscreen this week, we discuss the ’90s leather-clad aesthetic of Devil May…