Stephen Totilo

Nioh Just Added A Feature That Should Be In All Loot Games

The excellent PS4 samurai action game Nioh is overloaded with loot, but its developers may have solved one of their game’s few problems with a clever tweak in the game’s new 1.14 patch. Like many things in Nioh, the tweak is initially inscrutable. The patch notes describe it this way: -Added the option “display take”…

The New 3DS Pikmin Game Is A Bummer

Hey! Pikmin, you are a disappointing game. Kotaku features editor Chris Kohler and I recently discussed our disappointment in this week’s 3DS/2DS adventure that neither of us has been compelled to complete. He’s halfway, I’m earlier in and even with the help of Captain Olimar, we just can’t find the old Pikmin magic. Stephen Totilo:…

14 Game Developers From Around The World Made This Image

From time to time, I’ll make a stunt out of my interviews with video game professionals. I’ll do this when they’re bunched together for a weeklong event like Game Developers Conference or the huge E3 show in Los Angeles. I’ll convince every executive and game designer I speak to at one of these things to…

In a sign of just how hot the Switch is or just how in need of more releases publisher Take Two is this year, WWE 2K18 is coming to Nintendo’s newest console. A 10am ET press release said October 17, same as Xbox One and PS4; a corrected release changed that to “fall.” First in…

Ubisoft Removes Fourth Of July Fireworks From Watch Dogs 2 After ‘Noise Complaints’

A temporary Independence Day celebration in Watch Dogs 2 was suspended early on July 4 because it was enraging too many people who still play Ubisoft’s late 2016 open-world game. The fireworks had been added to the game as part of the 1.16 title update that also added a four-player party mode. They were set…

Assassin’s Creed Origins’ New Mission System Sounds Like A Much-Needed Change

At E3 in Los Angeles last month, there were several obvious points of distinction between Assassin’s Creed Origins and the 10 or so major Assassin’s Creed games before it. It’ll be the first AC in ancient Egypt. The first with stargazing puzzles and swimming hippos. One thing I heard about but didn’t see, however, seems…

We liked what we saw at E3 of zombie survival sim State of Decay II. The sequel still involves leveling up a group of survivors, still has permadeath. Adds online co-op (with permadeath!) and hundreds more character traits. Can a guilt-motivated groundskeeper co-exist with a fight choreographer who snores? Spring 2018 for PC, Xbox One.

We saw it. Now you can see it. Today, Ubisoft put out a video of Michel Ancel playing the Beyond Good & Evil 2 tech demo shown behind closed doors at E3. Look for radical zooming from planet surface to space, and planet-spanning flight. For more about what the game is supposed to be, read…

We played Shadow of War for 10 minutes at E3. The demo’s main event was a fortress siege (watch an archived E3 stream of one raid). Arkham-style combat returns, but you storm the gates with hand-picked Orc allies who unleash special attacks. Could be a gimmick. Could be deeply strategic. We’ll know on October 10.

A Moment That Captures Why Super Mario Odyssey Seems So Special

We’ve written a lot about E3 this week and covered a lot of games, including Super Mario Odyssey. Still, here’s one more post about that game, because it’s too cool not to share with you. The above video is from Nintendo’s Treehouse Live demo of Mario Odyssey’s forest level. In the first six minutes, the…

Nintendo Responds To Smash Bros. Pro’s Callout, Wants To Keep Scene Grassroots

One of the world’s top Super Smash Bros. players recently knocked Nintendo for not sufficiently supporting the scene and said he hoped that Nintendo heard him. This week in Los Angeles, they did—after we played a clip of his speech to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. Juan “Hungrybox” Debiedma, a top-three-ranked Super Smash Bros.…

We got a hands-off demonstration of this August’s standalone $40 PS4 adventure Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Quick impressions: Beautiful location? Check (India). Fun character banter? Yep (Nadine’s a bad-ass. Chloe’s wry). Dynamic firefights? Of course (looked like the best of Uncharted 4‘s).

Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime On Switch Voice Chat, Lack Of Back-Ups Saves And ‘Virtual Console’

Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, is at E3 in Los Angeles this week to promote Nintendo’s latest resurgence and hype people up on the coming year of Switch and 3DS games. But he’s also ready to field questions, and we had a bunch. After grilling the man, here are some of our key…

No wonder E3 seemed extra-crowded this year. It was extra-crowded! The ESA, which runs the event, just announced that 2017 E3 attendance was 68,400, including, for the first time, 15,000 members of the public. Up from the ESA’s count of 50,300 total attendance at E3 2016.

What Beyond Good & Evil 2 Is Now, And What Its Creators Dream It Can Be

“This is day zero of Beyond Good & Evil 2,” Michel Ancel told me on Monday. As he spoke, he was playing an early version of a game people have been expecting for nearly a decade, but that he says has only actually been in development for a few years. On Monday afternoon out here…

After a somewhat sleepy show floor in 2016, E3 is very crowded this year, maybe due to the thousands of tickets sold to the public, maybe due to bad booth design. The event opened 15 minutes early on Tuesday to reduce the crush. That’s the Nintendo booth in the photo. A rep told us to…

Splatoon 2‘s Salmon Run Is A Fun Horde Mode

I splatted and swam through a quick session of Splatoon 2‘s new co-op mode today. I played in a quartet, and this might be how I play Splatoon multiplayer when the sequel launches in July. Salmon Run puts 2-4 players on a platform out in the middle of dangerous waters. Players work as a team…

Nine Cool Things I Noticed While Playing Assassin’s Creed Origins

I played Assassin’s Creed Origins for an hour yesterday, with one of the game’s level designers at my side pointing out cool stuff. Combat is now based on hitboxes, meaning you don’t automatically close the gap when attacking… you need to close in and strike accurately. Climbing either is faster or at least feels faster.…

The long-dreamt dream of virtual reality was leading to this: Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV. It’s a first-person fishing game starring the bros from FFXV. Because the game title “Ridiculous Fishing” was already taken.

New Monster Hunter Coming To PS4, Xbox One, PC (Update 2: Big Changes)

Big swords. Large monsters. Carving blades. Even bigger swords than those other swords. It can only be one thing: Japan’s mega-popular franchise. It’s Monster Hunter World. Coming in early 2018. The trailer focused on a single character, though this series is known for its four-player co-op. From Capcom, of course. Guess they’re all done with…