Stephen Totilo

Persona 5‘s Joker, A Stage Builder And More Are Coming To Smash Bros. Ultimate Tomorrow

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s 3.0 update will be out on Wednesday and will add a lot to the game, even if you aren’t buying the game’s paid DLC. Those who do pay for the $5.99 add-on will be able to play as the Persona 5 character Joker and summon his persona, Arsene. A 15-minute video…

Microsoft plans to sell a combo deal of Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Gamepass for $14.99 a month, the company announced today in their Inside Xbox game stream. While both services already exist, Microsoft isn’t offering the bundled sub until “later this year.” No word if they’ll offer a better deal for an annual subscription…

This year’s Gamescom may be more of an event to watch Friend of the site Geoff Keighley is creating “Gamescom: Opening Night Live” which he describes to Kotaku as “sort of like an all-in-one press conference” full of game announcements and news. It will stream from Cologne, Germany at 2pm ET on Monday, August 19,…

The Division 2: The Kotaku Review

A few days after The Division 2 first went on sale and after an initial wave of positive reactions, the game’s players discovered a big problem. Some of the gadgets in this giant Ubisoft game about shooting bad guys in a ravaged Washington DC weren’t working correctly. In battle, I could crouch my pseudo-soldier hero…

How Kirby Games Are Made

Shinya Kumazaki seems to have a fun job. He is the chief creator at HAL Laboratory and gets to dream up major Kirby games. I interviewed him over e-mail recently, trying to satisfy my growing fascination with a series that, at the clip of about two releases a year, somehow manages to be rich in…

The Unexpected Success Of No Man’s Sky

Sean Murray, lead developer of the planetary exploration game No Man’s Sky, doesn’t want to dwell on negativity, tempting as it is when chatting for an interview about any game with a huge, vocal playerbase. “The story often is the narrative of the bad community, the toxicity, and it really annoys me that [it] commands…

Ubisoft Just Made A Lot Of Notable Changes To The Division 2

Players of The Division 2 received a new endgame mission called Tidal Basin that extends the game’s story today, but that’s just part of a raft of changes included in the game’s first big patch. The developers have revamped two of the game’s more controversial systems—Skill mods and Weapon mods—and, hey, as per the patch…

The Division 2’s Secrets Were Developed In Secret, Even In The Studio

The development team behind The Division 2 might have been literally and figuratively Massive, but the riddles sprinkled into the game for players to solve were concocted by just four people, according to creative director Julian Gerighty. Those riddles have been the most prominent example of a batch of mysteries woven into a game that…

Kirby Star Allies‘ Developers Explain How They Improved The Game A Lot After Launch

The early 2018 Switch game Kirby Star Allies improved a lot over the past year thanks to a stream of free downloadable updates. Some significant parts of those updates weren’t originally planned, according to the game’s developers at Kirby studio HAL. HAL’s chief creator, Shinya Kumazaki explained the process of expanding the game to me…

I Played No Man’s Sky VR And Almost Punched Sean Murray In The Face

I did not punch Sean Murray in the face when I played No Man’s Sky in PlayStation 4 virtual reality last week at a demo event in New York. I almost did, as I reached out to open the canopy of the spaceship I was virtually sitting in, but from the sound he made, I…

The PS4 Exclusive Iron Man VR Makes A Surprisingly Good First Impression

“We’re not making a rail-shooter. We’re not making an amusement park game. We’re not making a short demo or an experimental Iron Man ‘experience,’” game developer Ryan Payton told me last week in New York City after I had finished a demo of his studio’s forthcoming game, Iron Man VR “We’re making a full game…

The Truth About Kirby’s Feet Is ‘Top Secret,’ Developer Says

I recently contacted Nintendo to see if I could get an interview with the Kirby development team. To my surprise, they replied by offering three interviews. During one of them, I asked what Kirby’s feet look like and the reply was another swerve. “It’s definitely a unique question,” Shinya Kumazaki, chief creator at Kirby studio…

The Controversial Assassin’s Creed III Is More Impressive In 2019

It’s so refreshing to play Assassin’s Creed III now, nearly seven years after its controversial release. The game’s debut was marred by misleading marketing, a surprising game structure, and a lot of bugs, but I always liked the rough-edged yet fascinating adventure the game’s creators actually built. Playing the new remastered game on my PS4…

The Division 2‘s Wild Puzzles Stump Players, But One Of Them Turns Out To Be Bugged

For over a week, Zachary Jaglowski has been trying to figure out what the deal is with a mysterious basement in The Division 2. The 24-year-old graphic designer from New Jersey has explored the small downstairs space with a friend, and they’re convinced something is up with it. They’ve had their characters shoot out all…

The Division 2 Gets Its First Notable Free Update On April 5

A major update hitting The Division 2 will add the Tidal Basin stronghold and an extension of the endgame to “world tier five.” The update was announced during the weekly State of the Game livestream. The new stronghold extends the endgame story and will help players learn more about what’s going on with the invading…

The Division 2’s Tree Crates Are A Good Idea

Your average video game puts loot in boxes that sit on the floor or on the bodies of enemies who drop it when you kill them. The Division 2 does all that, but they are raising the game, folks, by also putting loot in trees. I support this. I was maybe 20 hours into The…

Nintendo’s Switch VR Games Have (A Little Bit Of) Nintendo Magic

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Nintendo is about to offer a lower-tech version of something other gaming companies are doing, but with a clever, inspired twist. It’s doing it this time with its entry into the world of virtual reality gaming—assuming Virtual Boy doesn’t count, I mean. Nintendo Labo VR Kit, to…

Should A Dead Deer In The Division 2 Drop Meat?

Game creators make the rules of the worlds they design, setting the physics and establishing what’s acceptable or lucrative to do in the world. Currently, killing enemy people in The Division 2 gives players loot, but a recent jocular chat among two of the game’s developers got me thinking about whether shooting the game’s animals…

A port of roguelike bullet hell Nuclear Throne and a surprise new sequel, Blaster Master Zero 2, are both coming to Switch… today. Nintendo just announced these during their indies showcase.

A Surprise Zelda Game Is Coming From An Acclaimed Indie Studio

Well, this is very different and pretty damn cool. Nintendo just announced that the people behind the excellent musical dungeon-crawling game Crypt of the NecroDancer are making a Zelda game called Cadence of Hyrule. It’s out this spring. The game appears to bring Cadence, the protagonist from Brace Yourself Games’ hit indie, to Link’s world.…