Stephen Totilo

Mr. Shifty: The Kotaku Review

Just going by the title “Mr Shifty,” you might expect something cute. Little Mr. Shifty. He sounds adorable, right? He isn’t. He’s a thief, he can teleport through walls, and he beats the hell out of a lot of dudes. Mr. Shifty is a violent action game for computers and Switch set across the many…

Recent Switch Game Has A Surprising Feature: Emojis [Update 💩]

Graceful Explosion Machine is a fun shmup on the Nintendo Switch that makes good use of 🙏 and 💪 and 👍. Who knew this would be a good idea? The game is a throwback. It’s an arcade-style shooter that give players four beam weapons, a dash move, and a quick-turnaround option all in scrolling levels…

Alan Wake and Quantum Break studio Remedy Entertainment is planning to put its next game “on a wider range of platforms,” including PS4, according to a company post. This is a shift. Since 2010, Remedy’s big games have only hit PC and Xbox consoles. The most recent Remedy game on a PlayStation was 2003’s Max…

Three Recent Games On Switch That Are Worth A Try

There aren’t a lot of exclusive games on Nintendo Switch right now. But games are trickling out. I played three recent ones that are worth your attention—and worth checking out on other platforms, too. We livestreamed all three on Facebook earlier this week. You can watch an archive of that above. Or, for fans of…

The newly announced Tribeca Games Festival will feature talks by Hideo Kojima and Ken Levine, as well as some more unconventional surprises like a panel about the movie The Lawnmower Man and VR. It’ll all happen in NYC, April 28-29. Details here

Ubisoft Makes More Of Watch Dogs 2’s Remaining DLC Free

In another sign that something wasn’t quite right with the roll-out of last November’s Watch Dogs 2, the game’s publisher said today that it is moving some of the planned paid content from the game’s season pass to a free update. For paying customers, Ubisoft is replacing it with other stuff. Showdown, a team-based PvP…

One Devious Microtransaction

The makers of the new mobile game Bit City have already tweaked one of their game’s microtransactions, just days after launch. I guess I wasn’t the only one who thought it was messed up, even by microtransaction standards. The game in question is called Bit City. It’s a cross between Sim City and clicker games…

Even Nintendo Seems To Be Abandoning Game Instruction Manuals

One of the last reliable supporters for the concept that video games should have instruction manuals appears to be backing off. Nintendo has released its first games on its new console without instruction manuals: nothing on paper and not even a digital manual. Nintendo’s 1 2 Switch party game has no paper manual inside it,…

We’re at PAX East—well, some of us and a lot of you! Kotaku reporters are in Boston to play some video games. Bonus points if you can find Waldo in this shot.

Lessons Learned About Gaming After Becoming A Parent Of Twins

I heard that having kids changes the way you can play games. Nine weeks in with one boy and one girl born a minute apart, I can confirm that it’s true. This is what I’ve learned about playing games while raising twins: You will play fewer games. Simple. No brainer. Doubly so if there are…

Yesterday, Our Headlines Rhymed

For much of yesterday, our headlines had a gimmick. They formed rhyming pairs, because it’d be too hard to make them a limerick. For those of you who noticed, we appreciate that you wrote us. And I’d like to thank the team for going along with my latest scheme. I doubt we’ll do another pass.…

You will see fewer posts on Kotaku today, because the women on our staff are on strike as part of the “Day Without A Woman” to commemorate International Women’s Day. The strike is one aspect of aday intended to raise awareness about the value women contribute to society and the issues of inequality that they…

NES/SNES – childhood, N64 – college, GCN – 2nd full-time job, Wii – working at MTV, Wii U – Kotaku EiC, Switch – just became a dad. You? Add your history below. PlayStation, Xbox and Sega timelines also welcome!

Switch Launch Game Snipperclips Is A Pleasant Surprise

Snipperclips is the low-key charmer of the Nintendo Switch launch, a download-onlyindie game turned Nintendo-published co-op puzzler. It’s $20, with a free demo and, as you can see in the archived livestream above, we had a good time with it. In Snipperclips, players control little characters who can cut divots in each other and then…

Nintendo Advises Switch Owners With Joy-Con Connectivity Issues To Avoid Bundles Of Wires, Aquariums

In its first detailed acknowledgment of connectivity issues that some gamers are having with its new console’s controllers, Nintendo has offered suggestions—some of them incredible—about how to alleviate the problem. Nintendo advises that people don’t put the Switch behind a TV, near an aquarium or “within three to four feet of another wireless device, such…

Despite Avatar News, Ubisoft Says Division Franchise Will Be Supported ‘Long Term’ 

On Tuesday Ubisoft said its Swedish game studio Massive will lead the development of a game set in the world of James Cameron’s Avatar. That left some people, including us, wondering what that meant for the future of The Division, the 2016 Massive-led co-op third-person shooter that got its last, announced expansion also on Tuesday.…

The Switch’s Day One Update Adds A Spartan eShop And Dreaded Friend Codes [Update: Good News!]

The day one update is now available for the Nintendo Switch. It’s a quick download that adds some basic functionality to the system. It sets the eshop live, complete with nine listed games. And, oh no… friend codes. The biggest effect of the update is that it lets the Switch go online. That enables it…

In a sign that they’re probably not moving as much product as they want to, Oculus is cutting the price of its Rift headset and Touch controller bundle (which we like a lot), from $800 total to $600. The Touch controllers, now $100, launched in December for $200.

A new Nintendo video shows the eshop that people who have the console early still can’t access. It shows some features, but is still light on details about how/whether purchases will be linked. We’ll know more when the system’s day one update hits. For now, our Switch is off-line only.

Nintendo Switch Is Getting A Ton Of Cool Indie Games

Nintendo says more than 60 indie games will be out for their new console by year’s end. Today, they blasted out a list of 17 of them and showed a lot more logos. Some were already announced. Regardless, some cool stuff here. Like what you see? Runner3 from Choice Provisions: Runner3 continues the joyous adventures…