Culture

8BitDo’s New Arcade Stick Is Quite Charming

The fine folks at 8BitDo sure know how to put together attractive controllers. This is their new arcade stick for the PC and Nintendo Switch. It’s super-moddable, supports wired and Bluetooth connections, has easy button mapping, and even has a turbo function. All that tech, yet it still looks like a time traveller from the…

Obscure Puzzler Detonator Has The Most Gorgeous, Melancholy Soundtrack

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s new, daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today’s pick comes out of left field: an obscure PlayStation 2 puzzler that randomly happens to have an achingly gorgeous soundtrack. At the dawn of this year I was hip-deep in obscure corners of the…

Track: The Big Ship | Artist: Brian Eno | Album: Another Green World 

Nintendo Allows Cancelations For Digital Game Pre-Orders (In Japan, For Now)

Previously, if you pre-ordered a digital Nintendo game and then changed your mind, tough! As soon as the order was placed, your credit card was charged. That’s now changed—in the Japanese eShop, at least. Starting today, customers can cancel their pre-order games up to seven days before release, free of charge. After that window has…

A Fresh Take On The Legend Of Zelda

Anu Chouhan is an illustrator and character artist from Canada working in the video game business. While I’ll be posting a whole range of her work below, it’s this Zelda stuff up top that’s got me particularly smitten: it’s a depiction of Nintendo’s series as an ancient Indian Epic, inspired by the Vedic and Mauryan…

Counter-Strike Coaches Banned For Up To Two Years For Abusing Spectator Bug

Players get banned for cheating every day, but you know who usually doesn’t get smited from the competitive heavens? Coaches. Three professional CS:GO coaches have been handed punishments overnight, following a competitive ruling from tournament organisers ESL. The coaches for teams MIBR, Heroic and Hard Legion have been banned for 6, 12 and 24 months…

Moon Taught Me To Appreciate Its Weird World The Hard Way

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure is a niche “anti-RPG” from 1997 that last week made its way westward, for the first time ever, via Switch. While the digital manual provides some much-appreciated assistance, I recently found myself stuck in a game-ending situation that would have been entirely avoidable had I respected the game’s world. The main…

Wasteland 3, From The Perspective Of A Wasteland Newcomer

Early on in Wasteland 3, you’re forced to make a choice. The family of one of your party members, a young woman named Lucia Wesson, was recently killed. An early quest has you stumble upon a camp of downtrodden apocalypse survivors, where you meet Lucia’s ex-boyfriend. Even if he didn’t technically pull the trigger, he’s…

Ridley Scott On Fortnite’s Apple Trailer: “The Idea Was Terrific, The Message Was ‘Ehh'”

Hollywood legend Ridley Scott might be better known for films like Alien and Gladiator, but he also found time in the mid-80s to make Apple’s famous 1984 commercial. With Epic Games very recently and publicly recreating the ad, only now with an anti-Apple stance, Scott has some thoughts. To recap! Here’s Scott’s original commercial, which…

Horizon Zero Dawn PC Patch Fixes Bug That Kept Aloy Stuck As A Child

Growing up is a normal part of life. Except for certain Horizon Zero Dawn players on PC who remained stuck as young Aloy after their games crashed in the middle of a cutscene. Out today, the game’s 1.03 patch on PC fixes a number of bugs, of which the PC version has had many, including…

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of Returning To Dragon Age: Origins

I knew this would happen. The second I saw that Dragon Age 4 video at Gamescom, I knew I’d be back on my particular brand of Dragon Age bullshit. I want you to know I tried. I fought against the siren’s call as best as I could. But like many an ancient sailor, I too…

EVE Online Gets Game-Changing Storms

Between pirates, scammers, alien invaders, and other players, one is never truly safe in EVE Online. Recently, a brand new threat has emerged, one with the ability to force players to change how they play the game: the weather. Gigantic storms have begun to appear all across the game’s galaxy following a recent update. These…

Yes, I Have Bagged Red Dead Online’s Most Elusive Bovine

Gather round folks, and let me share with you the absurd tale of my week-long hunt to find a stupid bull in Red Dead Online.  A few weeks ago a new role involving animals, the naturalist, was added to Red Dead Online. The role’s main focus is collecting samples from most of the game’s animals,…

Dragon Ball FighterZ Gets Harsher Penalties For Rage Quitters

The latest Dragon Ball FighterZ update includes a new system that will impose harsh penalties on those who rage quit, in an effort to stem the tide of players disconnecting from online matches. According to an in-game news bulletin, players who “deliberately disconnect” from an online match will be restricted from entering online lobbies for…

PS5 Will Only Be Backward Compatible With PS4 Games, According To Ubisoft [Update]

A new support page about the transition to next-gen consoles over on Ubisoft’s website appears to confirm that PS3, PS2, and PS1 games will not be backward compatible on PS5. “Backwards compatibility will be available for supported PlayStation 4 titles, but will not be possible for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, or PlayStation games,” the support…

Mysteries Are The Heart Of Control

Control originally presented itself to me as a mystery. It was a new game from Remedy, the favorite development house for those of us unnaturally attached to Alan Wake and Max Payne, and it took place in some kind of shadowy government facility. I remained gracefully unspoiled and uninformed until I launched the game, and…

Platforming roguelite Scourgebringer is leaving Early Access on Steam and coming to Xbox One and Switch on October 21. It’s a bit like Celeste with twitch hack’n slash combat. You can read our impressions here.

My Son And I Are Trying To Learn Pokémon Go In 2020

Four years ago, the entire population of planet Earth played Pokémon Go. Niantic’s mobile AR game fell perfectly into the timeline, with large-screened phones sporting decent cameras being far more affordable, and VR/AR being the buzziest of attention-grabbing bees. Also, it was actual magic: You could walk around your own local streets and fields, capturing…

How’s It Going? Bill And Ted Edition

Be excellent to each other and welcome back to our daily open thread, dudes. Two movies came out this past weekend. One, New Mutants, only came out in theaters, forcing folks to brave movie theater crowds during a global pandemic in order to be horribly disappointed. The other, Bill and Ted Face the Music, launched…

The Week In Games: Avengers Assemble!

It’s time to grind for gear and beat up bad guys. Marvel’s Avengers comes out this week on PS4, Xbox One and PC. Our own Mike Fahey didn’t love the beta for this upcoming superhero game. I wasn’t as down on it, but I also found myself hoping the full game has more to it.…