When World of Warcraft first came out, it meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Now that WoW Classic’s been announced, that’s become a problem—one that’s forced Blizzard to step in and pry people’s figurative hands off other people’s figurative throats. The central argument centers around how much current WoW…
There’s now a tribute to Dennis “Internethulk” Hawelka in Overwatch. Spotted by player panqakee, it’s in the attacker spawn on Eichenwalde and takes the form of a poster with
Aliens have shown up on Elite: Dangerous’ doorstep, and they have zero chill. This has provoked, among other things, an anti-alien arms race, as well as heated debates over whether or not wholesale slaughter is the right call. Amidst all that, one player is trying to communicate with the Thargoids, and he won’t let silly…
True fact: 99 percent of video game characters in the year 2017 are dads, and anyone else can be a dad if they really put their mind to it. In that spirit, I decided to ask a bunch of people at Double Fine’s fifth Day of the Devs event in San Francisco which video game…
Last week, streamer Trainwreck got handed a five-day suspension by Twitch after a video went viral featuring an incendiary rant against women streamers, in which he called them things like “god damn sluts” and accused them of stealing views from those who he viewed as more deserving streamers. This poured gasoline on a fire that’s…
Have you ever been a jerk or cheated in Counter-Strike? No? What about in other Steam games? Now, that might come back to bite you, thanks to CSGO’s “Trust Factor” matchmaking system. The Trust Factor system arrived late yesterday as part of a game update. Valve’s goal here is simple: to match you with people…
Last week, I wrote about popular streamers rage-quitting Getting Over It, a game about climbing a junk mountain that represents digital content and probably also Hell. Now for the flipside of that coin: people being extremely good at the game… being watched by people who are extremely bad at it. Getting Over It’s speedrunning scene…
“That’s a nice ult you’ve got there,” Blizzard essentially said when it changed the way Overwatch ult interruptions work last month. “It’d be a shame if something were to happen to it.” Ever since the big Halloween update on October 10, Overwatch’s ults have worked a little differently than they used to. Prior to the…
Getting Over It’s Steam description is brief. “A game I made for a certain kind of person,” it reads. “To hurt them.” Having watched multiple streamers howl in despair and rage-quit right at the end of it, I think it’s safe to declare the game an unmitigated success. Warning: very serious spoilers for a game…
Decksplash, the game whose future was riding on its ability to get 100,000 players during a free week, has been canceled. In the end, it managed to kickflip (and also paint, I guess?) its way past the halfway point, but still fell short. Despite disappointment, the Decksplash team is happy they tried. “Should we have…
I think we can all agree that general chat in MMOs is usually not super great. Now imagine if those spam-slinging all-caps jerkholes could also force everyone to download computer viruses via that chat window. Yesterday, a member of the subreddit for the long-running action-MMO Tera posted about a potentially ruinous vulnerability in the game’s…
There’s a lot to like about Overwatch’s newest hero, Moira. She looks like David Bowie. She fires energy beams out of her hands like Goku. Tragically, however, she also runs like Naruto. Naruto, a demon-possessed orange crayon best known for being Boruto’s dad, runs like he hasn’t a care (or spinal cord) in the world.…
For years, Blizzard has been trying to put the “war” back in Warcraft. During an interview at Blizzcon last weekend, game director Ion Hazzikostas told Kotaku he thinks he’s finally figured out how to make it happen. But first the designers have 13 years’ worth of problems to work out. Soon, the WoW team will…
Track: 1109 | Artist: Hail The Sun | Album: Secret Wars Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.
Over the years, Hearthstone updates and expansions have added heaps of new cards, modes, and strategic possibilities. One thing, though, has remained unchanged since the digital card game’s release back in 2014: character classes. There are only nine, and despite some clamor for more, that number’s not likely to change any time soon. In Hearthstone,…
“I think on the big spectrum of loot boxes, between ‘really good’ and ‘really evil,’ I’d like to think we’re more on that ‘really good’ side with what we’re trying to do,” says Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan. As part of an interview at BlizzCon last weekend, I asked Kaplan about his response to the…
The years have not been kind to fans of Warcraft’s real-time strategy roots. Before each BlizzCon, a dwindling contingent of hopeful fans prays for Warcraft IV to no avail. But WoW’s next expansion Battle for Azeroth might contain the next best thing. Among a number of other new features, Battle for Azeroth will introduce 20-person…
It’s said that a new Overwatch fan fiction springs into existence once every 26 seconds. Most of them, unsurprisingly, are about ships like Pharah-Mercy (good) and Genji-Mercy (a travesty). Naturally, Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan has opinions about it. During an interview at BlizzCon, I asked Kaplan about his favorite Overwatch ships. Thankfully, he fell on…
With its colorful cast and proclivity for wild plays that are equal parts tactical and mechanical, Overwatch is brimming with esports potential. Problem is, it can be a mess of exploding mechs, screen-engulfing ghost dragons, and middle-aged men in Scream Halloween costumes—too much of a mess, sometimes, to actually sit down and watch. Thank goodness…
Overwatch’s newest hero, Moira, is now playable on the game’s PC public test realm. Announced at BlizzCon on Friday, Moira is a mad scientist support hero who looks kinda like David Bowie and fires beams of pure energy from her hands (also like David Bowie). In other words, she’s mad fun to play
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