Culture

Crusader Kings III Is Getting Very Into Writing Poetry

Crusader Kings III has always had poetry—some romance paths would even adjust the quality depending on the skill of your pursuer—but the game is about to go all in on it, adding it as a character trait and even creating a generator that will write your ruler’s musings for you. The game’s upcoming 1.3 patch…

An Ode To My Favorite Flavor Texts

More than the set piece battle or the final showdown between hero and villain, it’s the quieter, smaller moments in video games that get me. In some games, those tiny moments can be a sudden expression on a character’s face or a short piece of dialogue from an inconsequential scene. But more often than not,…

Comic-Con 2021 Has Been Cancelled

There was no in-person Comic-Con in 2020, and there won’t be one in 2021 either after the show’s organisers announced a decision to “postpone” it until 2022. That’s…an odd use of the word, since the Comic-Con in 2022 would simply be the 2022 Comic-Con, but maybe there’s legal wrangling involved in the exact language employed…

Twitch’s First Transparency Report Is A Start, But Streamers Want More

Today, Twitch released its first-ever transparency report, a lengthy, stat-based look at the platform’s safety initiatives over the past year. It contains some interesting, albeit granular, information about Twitch’s efforts to cut down on hateful conduct, sexual harassment, and even terrorist propaganda. But it also fails to clear the haze from the question that has…

Final Fantasy Creator’s New JRPG Lets You Procrastinate With Its Random Encounters

Fantasian, the next game from Mistwalker, the studio founded by Final Fantasy creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, is coming to Apple Aracde later this year. Now we’ve a new trailer finally showing off gameplay of the diorama-based JRPG, including its unique take on random encounters, called the “Dimengeon system.” In classic JRPGs, like the ones Sakaguchi made…

Epic Games Buys Fall Guys Studio

Epic Games has bought Mediatonic, maker of last year’s hit battle royale Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, the company announced today According to Epic, “gameplay isn’t changing” and the company will continue to support Fall Guys “across platforms,” including PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch. “Your gameplay isn’t changing and neither is our mission to bring Fall…

PC Developer Issues Takedown Notice Against Its Own Game, Claims Publisher Pirated It

The Sinking City developer Frogwares has publicly accused former publisher Nacon of pirating the Lovecraftian adventure game for its recent re-release on Steam, the arrival of which put the Ukrainian studio in the weird position of asking potential customers not to purchase its own game last week. UPDATE 8:30pm – Valve has told Vice that…

Bravely Default 2’s Level Up Screen Is So Satisfying

Sixty hours later I still love watching these numbers go up. Like many other JRPGs, Bravely Default II is extremely long and extremely grindy, but the game is also full of small touches that occasionally punctuate the tedium with joy. One of those is the level up screen. After killing a mob of enemies you…

Aliens: Fireteam Pits Colonial Marines Against The Xenomorph Horde This Summer

Coming summer 2021 to Xboxes, PlayStations, and Steam from Cold Iron Studios, Aliens: Fireteam is a co-op survival shooter set 23 years after the original Alien trilogy. Turns out those pesky H.R. Giger critters are still a huge problem, and it’s up to the Colonial Marines to feed them. Or exterminate them, I guess. My…

PlayStation Store Will Stop Selling Movies Nobody Bought

Have you ever bought a movie or TV show through the PlayStation Store? Me neither. As a result, Sony announced today it will remove them, starting August 31, 2021. “We’ve seen tremendous growth from PlayStation fans using subscription-based and ad-based entertainment streaming services on our consoles,” Sony wrote in a post over on the PlayStation…

Track: Tarinai Sukunai (feat. Ikuta Lilas) | Artist: Fujifabric | Album: Tarinai Sukunai (feat. Ikuta Lilas) (single)

Navy’s ‘Women Of Warzone‘ Twitch Stream Spammed With Bomb Emotes

The Navy turned off text chat for today’s ‘Women of Warzone’ boot camp Twitch stream, so some viewers took to spamming the chat with bomb and fire emojis instead The boot camp sessions were in preparation for a $10,000 prize pool Call of Duty Warzone tournament, open to the public, that the Navy will be…

Valheim Player Turns Ocean Into Giant Trampoline

Can we ever truly know the nature of the sea? Primordial creatures lurk in its depths. It’s powered by outer space. We still don’t understand how eels reproduce. In Valheim, however, it’s a bit simpler: The ocean is a trampoline. On the Valheim subreddit, a player named HotGuuuuu recently unveiled the fruits of multiple days…

Twitch Star Quits GTA RP After In-Game Jobs Become Too Much Like Real Jobs

Does life imitate art, or does art imitate life? It’s the chicken or egg question for the modern age, but after a certain point, the answer ceases to matter. That point, it turns out, is when you’re really fucking sick of doing real jobs inside a video game, as Twitch mainstay Chance “Sodapoppin” Morris can…

A Realm Reborn‘s Ending Was Kind Of A Letdown

I rolled credits on A Realm Reborn a couple of days ago, ushering in the new Seventh Astral Era, and yet I feel kinda hollow. Compared to my gut-wrenching experience toward the middle of my journey, the end of A Realm Reborn’s storyline feels like a huge-ass letdown. I’ve said before how I love when…

Destiny 2 Glitch Lets You Launch 12-Player Raid Parties [Update]

Destiny 2 fireteams are usually capped at six, but players have recently discovered a glitch to bump up the size and are using the exploit to take on game’s raids in massive groups. Twelve-player parties might be chump change for a traditional MMO, but in Destiny it can transform even the deepest, darkest stone crypt…

Report: Elden Ring Has Pages

Fans of Elden Ring, the joint collaboration between Dark Souls maker FromSoftware and Game of Thrones writer George R. R. Martin, have been desperate for confirmation that the game is still real and will eventually come out. It now sounds like they have an answer: according to a new report by VGC, trailer footage of…

The Week In Games: Yakuza: Like A Dragon Comes To PS5

If you like the Yakuza series but also only own a PS5, then you seem like a strange person. Also, some good news: Yakuza: Like A Dragon releases on PS5 later this week. I had an extended weekend recently and I almost downloaded Yakuza 0 via Game Pass. I still want to try and play…

Zero Divide Is A Primordial PlayStation Synth-Fusion Treasure

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s ongoing hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today’s pick comes from the dawn of the 32-bit era, when makin’ “Virtua Fighter, but with robots” just seemed like a natural thing to do. Upon its September 1995 American launch the PlayStation had no shortage…

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl‘s Graphics Compared To The Original Games’

Late last week, Nintendo announced remakes of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. The original games were released in 2007 on the Nintendo DS, while the remakes will be out on the Switch this year. Plus, the new versions will not be developed by Game Freak, but rather, ILCA (the games’ original director, Junichi Masuda, will be…