Culture

Tencent Buys Stake In Life Is Strange’s Creators

Tencent continued its massive expansion in the gaming world today after acquiring a minority stake in French developer Dontnod, maker of Life is Strange, Vampyr, and Tell Me Why. The Chinese conglomerate has been busy since the start of 2021, recently buying a majority stake in Klei Entertainment, which makes the indie survival game Don’t…

Too Fast Too Fantasy XV: Episode Gladio? More Like Episode Bad-io

When I sit down for my daily session of Final Fantasy XV I’m expecting one of two things: A happy-funtime road-trip adventure with my boys, or a sad, emotionally wrought meditation on the bonds of friendship. I am not expecting a horror-suspense thriller filled with stealth mechanics and jump-scares, yet that’s exactly what I got…

Mass Effect 2 Almost Had Another Gay Romance, With Jacob

Turns out Jack’s pansexuality wasn’t the only instance of BioWare scrubbing same-sex romance from Mass Effect 2 before it shipped. Jonathan Cooper, a former BioWare cinematic animator, revealed on Twitter this morning that his team also worked on a similar scene involving party member Jacob Taylor “We prevized Jacob as the male/male [relationship], matching shot-for-shot from…

Report: Activision Blizzard Calls Policy To Make Hiring More Diverse ‘Unworkable’

Earlier this month, Activision Blizzard was asked to institute some version of the Rooney Rule, a policy requiring employers to interview diverse candidates when hiring, according to a new report by Motherboard. Lawyers for the massive publisher behind Call of Duty and World of Warcraft responded that such a policy would be “an unworkable encroachment…

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Players Figured Out How To (Legitimately) Score That Secret Bow

Over the weekend, players of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla uncovered a secret bow (the laughably powerful Noden’s Arc) by…smacking a rock in the middle of a lake over and over again. The trick bounced around the web. Ubisoft’s Darby McDevitt even chimed in, describing it as a “clever brute force hack” before mentioning that some players…

Twitch Is Cracking Down On Small (But Not Big) Streamers Who Made Channels Before They Turned 13

AverageHarry, a 15 year-old aspiring Twitch streamer from the UK, was in spitting distance of his dream. He’d had a breakout 2020, amassing an audience of nearly 90,000 followers, somewhat ironically off the back of a viral clip in which randos in a hotel lobby made fun of him for streaming. Late last year, he…

Hitman Player Tries To Kill Every NPC In One Map With A Single Rubber Ducky

Twitch streamer RTGame (meatspace name: Daniel) had a dream: to kill every NPC in a single Hitman level. But while you can find dozens of videos on YouTube of people doing the same thing, Daniel’s plan was a bit more explosive, chiefly because he intended to take out everyone at the same time. Unfortunately, things…

Even the White House is getting questions about GameStop. “Our economic team, including [Treasury] Secretary Yellen and others are monitoring the situation,” Psaki said when asked about the gaming store’s unprecedented stock price surge during today’s daily press briefing

Here’s February 2021’s PlayStation Plus Lineup

February’s PlayStation Plus games are great. You get Destruction AllStars for PS5, and the storied Control: Ultimate Edition as either the PS4 version or PS5 version As always, these games are only “free” if you have an active PlayStation Plus membership. February’s PS Plus games are: PS5 Destruction AllStars PS4 Control: Ultimate Edition (also available…

For like the eight millionth time, Lara Croft is coming to the silver screen. Today, Netflix announced a new anime series based on Tomb Raider. According to Deadline, the show will follow and pick up after the recent reboot trilogy, which culminated with 2018’s terrific Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Also in the works: A series based…

GameStop Stock Drama Continues As Price Soars And Hedge Fund Blinks

GameStop’s stock price continued to soar in after-hours trading last night to over $300. While many are waiting for it to come crashing back down, it might be too late for some major hedge funds. With the stock still sitting at well over $250 a share (unthinkable just last year when it was trading at…

The 1950 Radio Series Dimension X Has The Science Fiction You’ve Been Looking For

Nine years before Rod Serling brought America The Twilight Zone, NBC had a science fiction anthology series that offered very similar dark tales of potential dystopia and future-set malarkey. It was called Dimension X, featuring stories by some of the most famous sci-fi writers of the 20th century, and the reason you’ve likely never heard…

Modding Breakthrough Allows Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword To Be Recreated In Breath Of The Wild

Breath of the Wild modder Waikuteru is on a roll. Last week, they salvaged the glorified storage unit that is Link’s house. Now they’ve taken full control of the giant house that houses Link’s house, by which I mean Hyrule. In a new video, Waikuteru demonstrates how a modding breakthrough allows them to edit Breath…

OutRun’s Composer Rewrote Sega’s Sound Drivers So Sword Of Vermilion Could Rock

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s ongoing hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today we’re diving into the sounds of Sword of Vermilion, a middling RPG for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive with music that is anything but. Upon the 16-bit Mega Drive’s 1988 debut, Sega of Japan redirected as…

The Art Of Degenesis, A “Primal Punk” RPG

We’ve featured the design work of studio SIXMOREVODKA a ton of times here on Fine Art, but tonight let’s look at something they’ve made for themselves, instead of for somebody else. (They’ve worked with companies like Riot, Guerrilla Games, EA, Nike and Activision Blizzard.) Degenesis is a free-to-play RPG (a tabletop one, not a video…

Japanese-Inspired Nintendo Switch Is A Work Of Art

When Canadian artist Carmina Castillo isn’t making cool stuff like this, she’s turning a Nintendo Switch into something so exquisite I would never play it, but simply put it on a shelf and look at it for the rest of my days. It’s made by applying some wood-style Joy-Con covers and a piece of very fancy…

Borderlands Movie Outdoes Itself, Casts Kevin Hart As Roland

Jumanji star and comedian Kevin Hart has been signed to play Roland in the upcoming Borderlands movie according to The Hollywood Reporter. Yeah, I don’t get it either. Borderlands is being directed by horror maestro Eli Roth based on a screenplay by Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin. Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford and Take-Two Interactive’s CEO Strauss…

Too Fast Too Fantasy XV: Planes, Trains, And Wrecked Automobiles

In my epic quest to finish Final Fantasy XV by Friday, I am literally and figuratively on a train that is barrelling toward the final stop. I am in FF15’s endgame—a section of short, brutal chapters that no longer allow you to freely roam the open roads of Eos. Even if I somehow could return…

Hitman Studio’s Project 007 Will Feature A New James Bond

When Hitman developer IO Interactive’s James Bond game (working title Project 007) hits the scene, it will do so with an entirely new James Bond, studio head Hakan Abrak told the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (h/t TheGamer). Project 007 will follow James Bond in his early days as a British Secret Service agent, portraying the events…

Gollum Game Delayed To 2022

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, currently in development by German studio Daedalic Entertainment, has had its release date pushed back a year to 2022. The delay was shared alongside the announcement that The Lord of the Rings: Gollum will be published by Nacon. It’s planned for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox…