Stephen Totilo

Batman, Resident Evil Appear To Be Timed PlayStation VR Exclusives

In another sign that the competition between expensive virtual reality headsets will be waged as a platform war, ads for the PlayStation VR releases tied to the Batman Arkham and Resident Evil series indicate they will be exclusive to Sony’s VR offering for quite some time. An ad for Arkham VR, which is a $20…

Twitch Starts Phasing Out Original Subscription Plan In Favor Of Amazon-Linked ‘Twitch Prime’

The game-streaming service Twitch will no longer offer $9/month Twitch Turbo subscriptions in the U.S. and other parts of the world where Amazon Prime is available, the company announced today. That’s because the Amazon-owned Twitch is now offering ad-free Twitch subscriptions as one of the many perks customers will get for $11/month Amazon Prime subscriptions.…

Fencing Game Nidhogg Is Getting A Sequel With A Very Different Look

Indie game favorite Nidhogg will look less abstract in its newly announced 2017 sequel. Developers Messhoff just revealed the game, titled… Nidhogg II, with a trailer and some PR-provided bullet points: – Completely overhauled detailed environments and animations – 10+ levels of fencing goodness – Local and online multiplayer and tournament mode – Play single-player…

Two Wild Nights In GTA Online Finally Made Me A Fan

I’m finally into Grand Theft Auto Online. It took me a while. The game launched in late 2013, though I’m not sure I could have been excited for it sooner. What’d it take? Two nights of chaos and a revelation about what Rockstar’s multiplayer game actually is. For some time I have been a GTA…

Ubisoft is one step closer to releasing October’s sweeping 1.4 patch for the promising but faltering The Division For now, PC players can try it on a public test server. Read the lengthy patch notes for the PC PTS version. Or just download it and play (here’s how). Better loot drops in the Underground? Huzzah!

20 Minutes Of Paper Mario: Color Splash, Which Sure Is Pretty

Prediction: below this article there will be comments lamenting that the new Wii U Paper Mario game isn’t really a role-playing game. Someone will complain that it is similar to Paper Mario Sticker Star. Someone else will lament that it is not very similar to Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. These are sure things…

Endless Space 2, the newest 4x game from the terrific “endless” strategy game studio Amplitude, will be available on Steam Early Access starting on Thursday, October 6. That version will include four of the game’s eight factions. A little more info here

At Least You Didn’t Watch The First Trump-Clinton Debate In VR

The virtual reality “watch party” for the first Trump-Clinton debate was a bust. It was presented by VR hangout app Altspace and NBC News, and just amounted to glorified Second Life, basically. Avatars of people from around the world watching a flat video stream. Not a great experience. I captured the video above while watching…

New WWE Star’s Ring Entrance Is Straight Out Of A Video Game

It looks like WWE cruiserweight champion TJ Perkins is going to give Xavier Woods a challenge for the title of top video-game-crazy pro wrestler. Woods may have a popular YouTube gaming show, but Perkins now has a killer gaming-themed ring entrance. Perkins’ new entrance was part of Sunday night’s Clash of Champions WWE special. Note…

You’re Invited To The Inaugural io9/Kotaku Cosplay Ball [UPDATE: Invite list closed]

Do you like to cosplay? Do you like free food, free drinks, dancing and the chance to win prizes? And will you be in New York City for Comic-Con in early October? If that’s a yes to all that, we’ve got an event for you. On October 6, we’ll be hosting the first ever io9…

Nintendo’s Big Fall Wii U Game Briefly Went On Sale Two Weeks Early

Some shocked Wii U owners spread the word this morning that Paper Mario Color Splash, the only remaining big Nintendo-published Wii U game of 2016, was playable today despite it not technically going on sale until October 7. It’s common these days for retail copies of games to find their way to gamers’ consoles prior…

There’s a new Witcher 3 patch/”hot-fix” today for consoles. Just hit. Looks like they want to get in on the shortening load-times thing, too. We can all agree that infinite loading screens are a tad too long, yeah?

A patch available now for the Xbox One version of ReCore shortens some of the game’s loading times. The two-minute load to the Shifting Sands area is now one minute. The original two-minute respawn times in Core Foundry have also been halved. (Load times in the PC version are shorter.) Read our full ReCore review…

Players Celebrate As Star Wars Battlefront Cuts An Amusingly Controversial Feature

It’s rare that the removal of a feature from a video game makes fans of that game happy, but fans of Star Wars Battlefront seem pretty happy that, thanks to a new update, anyone playing as a Stormtrooper in the game is forced to keep their helmet on. “No more wretched storm troopers without helmets,”…

A lengthy new blog post from the developers of The Division outlines major changes being made to character stats, skills and gear as part of the big October 1.4 patch that’s intended to make the endgame fun. The update, including big changes being made to popular skills like Smart Cover, will be playable on a…

The New Death Star DLC Makes Star Wars Battlefront More Interesting

The new paid Death Star expansion for Star Wars Battlefront won’t significantly alter the game’s reputation as a fairly casual shooter designed for quick, chaotic fun. But it does add an interesting three-stage mode that culminates with the possible destruction of the Death Star. That new mode at least makes a session with the game…

Pokémon CEO Adds More Fuel To NX Console-Handheld Hybrid Speculation

Articles from reputable sources, numerous rumors and many educated guesses have all pointed to Nintendo’s next gaming machine, NX, being some sort of combo console and handheld. And now we’ve got this quote from Tsunekazu Ishihara in today’s Wall Street Journal: “The NX is trying to change the concept of what it means to be…

The most recent Black Ops III DLC added more Gobblegum power-ups to the game’s Zombies mode. Here’s a snippet of a match we played with the Newtownian Negation Gobblegum activated: “Zombies killed fall straight up.” We’re still divided on whether Gobblegum is worth focusing on in Zombies. Thoughts?

It’s A Great New Lego Star Wars Level, But It’s PlayStation-‘Exclusive’

Famous droid C3PO had a red arm In last year’s Star Wars The Force Awakens. The reason why was explained in a Marvel comic in April and then acted out in a bonus game level added to The Lego Star Wars The Force Awakens in August. The level is called “The Phantom Limb” and so…

ReCore: The Kotaku Review

Irredeemably bad video games are a simple, tidy affair. Their badness is straightforward. The game stinks. It was a waste of time to play. Probably shouldn’t have even finished it. It is different and perhaps more frustrating to play a promising game that starts well, carries many great ideas and then stumbles. The new Xbox…