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CultureInspiring: This Valheim Player Built A Greyling Torture Factory
If you’ve played even just several seconds of Valheim, you despise Greylings. They’re awful little tree stump goblins who smack you once, then run away with an infuriating spring in their step, like they’ve stolen candy from your pockets. In the game’s early goings, they’re everywhere. One brave player has dedicated a significant amount of…
By Nathan Grayson Published March 3, 2021 -
CultureTwitchTwitch’s First Transparency Report Is A Start, But Streamers Want More
Today, Twitch released its first-ever transparency report, a lengthy, stat-based look at the platform’s safety initiatives over the past year. It contains some interesting, albeit granular, information about Twitch’s efforts to cut down on hateful conduct, sexual harassment, and even terrorist propaganda. But it also fails to clear the haze from the question that has…
By Nathan Grayson Published March 2, 2021 -
CultureValheim Player Turns Ocean Into Giant Trampoline
Can we ever truly know the nature of the sea? Primordial creatures lurk in its depths. It’s powered by outer space. We still don’t understand how eels reproduce. In Valheim, however, it’s a bit simpler: The ocean is a trampoline. On the Valheim subreddit, a player named HotGuuuuu recently unveiled the fruits of multiple days…
By Nathan Grayson Published March 1, 2021 -
CultureTwitchTwitch Star Quits GTA RP After In-Game Jobs Become Too Much Like Real Jobs
Does life imitate art, or does art imitate life? It’s the chicken or egg question for the modern age, but after a certain point, the answer ceases to matter. That point, it turns out, is when you’re really fucking sick of doing real jobs inside a video game, as Twitch mainstay Chance “Sodapoppin” Morris can…
By Nathan Grayson Published March 1, 2021 -
CultureSplitscreenHow One Of The Worst Video Game Movies Of All Time Got Made
Somehow, miraculously, video game movies and TV shows are suddenly good. The Witcher is fun, Sonic inhaled box office money like so many chili dogs last year, and star-studded renditions of Borderlands and The Last of Us are on the way. Also, the new Mortal Kombat movie looks dumb as hell in the best possible…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 26, 2021 -
CultureFinal Fantasy VII Remake Gets PS5 Version With New Story Starring Yuffie
This summer, Final Fantasy VII Remake is getting a PlayStation 5 upgrade with all sorts of graphical bells and whistles—and also a new “episode” starring a Final Fantasy VII character who didn’t appear in the game previously: Yuffie Kisaragi. Square made the announcement as part of today’s State of Play Sony event. The new PS5…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 25, 2021 -
CultureBaldur’s Gate 3‘s ‘Biggest Patch Yet’ Is Now Live
I rue every day that the complete Baldur’s Gate 3 experience isn’t out yet, but we’re getting there. Today, developer Larian dropped the fourth patch for the Divinity: Original Sin 2 sequel/Baldur’s Gate sorta-sequel, which it calls its “biggest patch yet.” Standout features include the druid class, loaded dice to keep you from critical failing…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 25, 2021 -
CultureTwitchTwitch Removes Amazon’s Anti-Union Ads After Furious Streamer Response
Earlier this week, it came to light that Twitch was running ads in blatant opposition to the Amazon warehouse worker unionization effort in Bessemer, Alabama. Streamers, who had no say in whether or not these ads appeared during their broadcasts, were outraged. Today, Twitch has removed the ads, saying that they never should have run…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 25, 2021 -
CultureModders Fix Valheim‘s Terrible Inventory, Odin Be Praised
Valheim rules. Exploring is fun, building is fun, kiting trolls around islands while crying quietly to yourself as you tap dance on the razor’s edge of death is fun. But nothing is perfect, especially not early access games. So I don’t think we need to kid ourselves here: Valheim’s inventory sucks ass. Praise be to…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 24, 2021 -
CultureKotaku Game DiaryA God Damn Boar Sank My Boat
Many survival games feature animals you can hunt for crafting supplies and sustenance. Only in Valheim do they get revenge. Nautical revenge. My friends and I have had some good times in the surprise-hit survival game. We’re making bronze armor. We’re in hot pursuit of the game’s second major boss, The Elder. Last night, I…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 23, 2021 -
CultureValheim, As Told By Steam Reviews
I’m getting the impression that maybe, just maybe, Valheim’s five-person development team might be onto something. Since the Viking survival game’s Steam release earlier this month, it’s sold 3 million copies. Over the weekend, more than 500,000 people played it at once. But what do players actually think? That you should avoid falling trees, mostly.…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 23, 2021 -
CultureWhy Diablo IV Is So Obsessed With Ears
Ears. If you watched the debut trailer for Diablo IV’s rogue class, that was your main takeaway—at least, if you’re anything like me. The rogue showed up to “confession” with a big ol’ bag of ears. The priest had a whole darn trophy case of ears. This might have struck you as strange—most regular people…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 22, 2021 -
CultureEverything Blizzard Announced During BlizzConline’s Opening Ceremony
It sure as heck isn’t BlizzCon, but until we can safely gather together again in the stew of scents and juices that is a convention hall (so maybe never?), BlizzConline will have to do. Blizzard kicked off the online version of its annual convention today with a handful of announcements that were…less exciting than typical…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 19, 2021 -
CultureVideo Game Studios Across Texas Have Temporarily Closed Due To Winter Storms And Power Outages
Texas, a state whose leadership has long espoused a hyper-individualistic Mad Max apocalypse sort of ethos, has spent the past week putting those ideals to the test. It has not fared well. A record-breaking winter storm led to power outages across the state, as well as food and water shortages. Millions of Texas residents are…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 19, 2021 -
CultureSplitscreenWhy Do We Call The Hardest Video Game Enemies ‘Bosses,’ Anyway?
In real life, if you encounter a large being hell-bent on beating the crap out of you, you call them “an asshole” or “a fully grown polar bear, but in my backyard, like in those nightmares I have.” In a video game, you call them “a boss.” That’s weird! Plenty of people want to fight…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 19, 2021 -
CultureLegend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword Is Coming To Switch
Brightly colored Legend of Zelda dark horse Skyward Sword is getting a second lease on life. Or a third, if you count the Wii U eShop re-release. But I don’t. As part of today’s Nintendo Direct, the company announced that Skyward Sword is getting an HD re-release. The new Switch version will be out on July…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 17, 2021 -
CultureI Ate The Giant Game Controller Gummy, And I Felt Like I Was Going To Die
Dear friends, if you are reading this post, it means I have died. Or I have consumed a giant video game controller-shaped gummy and lived—arguably a worse fate. Let me tell you how I feel right now: My hands are twitchy. My lips are tingling. My mouth seems to have grown a lawn-like layer of…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 17, 2021 -
CultureTwitchTwitch Viewers Elect Meme Lizard As New Permanent Pogchamp
Today, Twitch let viewers vote on a new permanent Pogchamp emote. A lizard won. Frankly, it was inevitable. KomodoHype first got to be Pogchamp for a day last month as part of the intermittently disastrous Pogchamp-a-day promotion that brought us to this point, which Twitch decided to run after the original face of the popular…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 12, 2021 -
CultureSplitscreenSordid Tales Of Real Romance In Online Games
It’s February, and love is in the air. But so are airborne particles that transmit a global pandemic, so real-world romance isn’t an option for a lot of people. Fortunately, uh, online games still exist, at least? And where there’s a will to flirt with complete strangers, there’s a way. On this week’s episode of…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 12, 2021 -
CultureKotaku Game DiaryI Killed A Very Big Deer In Valheim, And It Was Metal As Hell
My time with Valheim so far can be summed up thusly: I killed a fuckton of deer. They screamed in fear and died in agony. It made me sad. Then I killed the biggest, meanest deer ever conceived, and it was metal as hell. Valheim, Steam’s latest out-of-nowhere mega-hit, mashes up an epic Viking tale…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 12, 2021
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