Stephen Totilo

Ubisoft Is Walking A Tightrope With The Division 2‘s Paid Extras

A couple of recent Division 2 community flare-ups have illustrated the challenges of modern video game publishing (and purchasing), as Ubisoft slices and dices its upcoming game into numerous special editions and expansions while still trying to make players feel like they’re getting a great deal. Last Tuesday, Ubisoft announced that their March 2019 cover…

Last Night, I Opted For A Game With Swords Instead

I played Chasm last night. I was thinking about finally starting Destiny 2 after waiting nearly a year, but I just couldn’t. I wasn’t in the mood. I needed something with swords, without a gun to be seen, so I played Chasm and dug down into a mine and fought monsters for 45 minutes. I…

Fortnite Now Gives You A Reward If You Turn On Two-Factor Authentication

I have avoided the depths of distraction that ensnare millions of people who download Fortnite. I don’t play much. But I do get the emails telling me people are trying to hack my account and have finally done something about it. A quick survey of Kotaku staff indicates that getting security warnings from Epic is…

Nintendo’s Next Labo Kit Is More Of An Open-World Game

Nintendo Labo is still for kids, and still something that requires you to be excited about cleverly-constructed cardboard contraptions. The new Vehicle Kit coming out in mid-September, however, is also more of a full-fledged video game. The original Labo releases last spring were as neat as they were slight. Called the Variety Kit and the…

The video-game-loving New Day sure look like they were paying tribute to Sonic, Tails and Knuckles at WWE Summerslam last night. Watch a clip of the match to see more of the Sonic-style gear. Credit to GreenPillZone on Reddit for pointing this out.

A Screenshot Tour Back Through The Stunning Assassin’s Creed Origins

Assassin’s Creed Origins was a slow burn. The ancient Egyptian adventure didn’t grab me in its earliest scenes, didn’t immediately hook me with its stoic hero Bayek. It felt fine at first. Solid. But it also felt plain. I kept playing and grew to marvel at it. Across some 100 hours of playtime I discovered…

It’s Nice To See Nintendo Didn’t Forget About Mario 64

Last year’s great new Mario and Zelda games reinvigorated two series that seem to have finally found nostalgia for parts of their past they neglected. Super Mario Odyssey, especially, offered a tribute to Super Mario 64 that’s been overdue. Nearly two decades of Zelda games that followed the release of 1998’s landmark Ocarina of Time…

As promised, Ubisoft is packaging Assassin’s Creed Odyssey with a reversible cover. Players choose between controlling the Spartans Alexios or Kassandra. His version is the default, but players can flip the cover to showcase Kassandra—whose version was revealed today—instead, Ubisoft PR confirms.

Doom Eternal Will Let You Invade Other Players’ Campaigns [Update]

Offering the traditional hype of making a sequel that is bigger and more badass than the game it follows, the makers of the forthcoming Doom Eternal today showed the game in action to the public for the first time. And they offered a surprise: Demon’s Souls-style player invasions. The lengthy gameplay demo was part of…

Despite the closure of Runic Games last year, the studio’s best-known franchise, Torchlight, is slated to return on PC, Xbox One and PS4 in 2019 in the form of Torchlight Frontiers The new development team, which include former Runic co-founder Max Schaefer, describes it as a “shared-world action-RPG.”

Ubisoft’s snow sports game Steep is no longer coming to Switch, according to an official Steep Tweet. Steep was released in 2016 for Xbox One, PS4 and PC but also slated for Nintendo’s weaker hardware. The Tweet states the cancellation is so the team can “focus on bringing new live content and challenges” to existing…

Fortnite Comes To Android Today, But There Are Catches

The last major gaming platform without Fortnite: Battle Royale will get an invite-only beta version of the ultra-popular multiplayer shooter starting today. It’s just not coming to every Android user yet. First catch: At first, beta invites are only going out to people who own Samsung Galaxy phones, surely the sign of an exclusivity deal…

Super Mario Odyssey’s Two-Moon Levels Are A Wonderful Design Touch

In many areas of Nintendo’s crowd-pleasing Super Mario Odyssey, there’s a main goal and a side goal that provides the same amount of reward but presents a greater challenge. It’s my favorite design aspect of the game. It’s a simple but wonderful thing, and I’ve come to think of it as Nintendo’s designers operating under…

I Just Played A 2DS On My 3DS

While the 3DS is hanging on as a gaming platform longer than some gaming pundits would like, Nintendo is making the most of it by doing some really experimental stuff. For example, there are four odd modes in the newly released WarioWare Gold. Two of these wouldn’t work easily on, say, a Nintendo Switch. You…

Delayed Battlefront II Fix Leads To Monthlong Fan Fiasco

The makers of Star Wars Battlefront II will restore Emperor Palpatine to the game a little over a month after they removed him. That will cap several weeks of online discussion about how long an announced “hotfix” should take and just what a game studio and a fandom should do when the community manager is…

We’re streaming Switch puzzle game Picross S2 live on Twitch. Can the world’s top gaming streaming service handle graphics this intense? Find out! And find out what in the world Picross S2‘s story mode is all about, too.

I Am Buying A Silly Number Of Switch Games

In what is supposed to be a slow part of the year, I am filling my Nintendo Switch to bursting with new releases and ports. Last week, I bought the Switch ports of sidescrolling action-adventure games Iconoclasts and Salt & Sanctuary along with the puzzle game Picross S2. I had enough self control to download…

Here’s a shot of ship customization in October’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, as briefly shown in the game’s new behind-the-scenes Facebook video series. Note the slots for crew recruitment, a feature Ubisoft has said is tied to the ability to recruit most non-player characters in the game.

This Is Not The Game I Signed Up For

In the game’s 46th hour, I finally got frustrated about a design choice in Hollow Knight. I won’t spoil it in anything but the vaguest terms, but I’m sure anyone who has played enough games can relate. You’re playing a game and you think it’s one thing, maybe a first-person shooter. Then suddenly, right at…

Conflicted Feelings About The Mobile Game I’m Playing

If I’m commuting on the subway and don’t have two hands free to play Switch or 3DS games, I play a mobile game. Usually, it’s Threes, but sometimes another game takes its place. That’s the case now. The new game is Holedown I feel good about playing Holedown, because, really, I’ve played way too much…