Culture

All The Big Games Coming Out In Summer 2020

Summertime and the living is … the best we can manage given current circumstances. 2020 continues to surprise, amaze, and horrify, but at least we’ve got a bunch of video games coming out. At least we hope these are all coming out. With covid-19 still a going concern, any of the games on this list…

How’s It Going?: Lettuce Edition

Hey, we’ve got all the way to Wednesday! Welcome back to our daily open thread. My CSA this week is mostly lettuce, including a big head of iceberg lettuce. I’m not a big lettuce fan—is anyone?—and I’m struggling to figure out what to do with them all. I’m a bit intrigued by Helen Rosner’s (stay…

Pokémon Unite Is A DOTA-Style Arena Battler With Pokémon

This morning The Pokémon Company announced Pokémon Unite, a team-based mobile battle arena game created in cooperation with China’s Tencent. It’s free-to-play PokéDOTA for Switch and mobile devices. You read right. It’s a five-on-five team-based MOBA in which players battle as pocket monsters, evolving and gaining new powers as they level up during matches. During…

Track: Symphony (SalaAM ReMi Mix) | Artist: Marvin Gaye | Album: You’re The Man

The Need For Speed

Jakob Eirich is freelance artist and illustrator from Germany who has worked in games, advertising and film. You can see more of Jakob’s stuff at his ArtStation page

Esports Org Drops Former Evo Champion Over Prior Racist Comments

Fighting game player Christopher “NYChrisG” Gonzalez has been dropped from storied esports organization Evil Geniuses over racist comments he made on Facebook in 2017. “We at EG value each member of our community, and have zero tolerance for harassment,” the official Evil Geniuses announcements reads. “After investigation, it was evident that Chris’ statements, though made…

Wizards Of The Coast Cut Ties With Sexual Predator

Noah Bradley, an artist known for his contributions on over 100 Magic: The Gathering Cards, has been cut off from all work with Wizards of the Coast after a number of serious sexual assault allegations were made against him over the past week. Bradley, who has also worked with companies like Disney and Valve, issued…

Cards Against Humanity Co-Founder Quits After Complaints Over Sexist, Racist Office Culture

Max Temkin, one of the original eight co-creators of Cards Against Humanity (and perhaps the most public of them) has resigned his position after numerous former employees came forward with allegations that he was the “harbinger” of a toxic work environment at the company’s Chicago offices. As reported by Polygon Temkin, who had already had…

Street Fighter V Players Drop Out Of Official Tourney Over Crappy Netcode

Street Fighter V’s online multiplayer has struggled ever since the game’s 2016 debut, but the longstanding issues have finally come to a head now that the official Capcom Pro Tour has moved to the digital realm. During a recent Capcom Cup qualifying event, two finalists decided to drop out rather than continue to struggle against…

Fans Just Gave Super Smash Bros. Melee Cutting-Edge Online Multiplayer

Super Smash Bros. Melee refuses to die. Over 18 years after it first arrived on GameCube, it continues to draw massive crowds at tournaments across the globe and enthrall both newcomers and veterans with its lightning-fast, execution-heavy gameplay. Thanks to a new fan project, this popular fighting game finally has what it was always missing:…

First No More Heroes 3 Gameplay Obscured By Suda51’s Head

Grasshopper Manufacture CEO Goichi Suda, more commonly known as Suda51, is famous for his off-kilter sense of humor. His latest prank on fans came in the introduction to this morning’s New Game+ Expo stream, during which we got our first look at Grasshopper’s next game, No More Heroes 3. The catch? Suda’s head was in…

Multiple Women Accuse Games Writer Chris Avellone Of Sexual Misconduct (Update: Two Have Retracted Their Allegations)

The Fallout: New Vegas writer later denied the allegations and sued for libel

Today, during the New Game Plus Expo, Nihon Falcom announced a release date for The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV The role-playing game will land on PS4 on October 27, 2020, with Switch and PC versions to follow in 2021.

With Gals’ Fighters out and Samurai Shodown! 2 coming soon, the next NeoGeo Pocket Color game coming to Nintendo Switch this summer will be King of Fighters R-2, AKA one of the best games on the system. Bookmark the NeoGeo Pocket Color Selection website for news on more portable SNK games coming to the Switch.

Bloodstained: Curse Of The Moon Is Getting A Sequel

Coming soon from Inti Creates, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 is the sequel to the retro-style spin-off of Koji Igarashi’s Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. As lovely as the more modern take on the Castlevania formula Ritual of the Night turned out to be, fans fell in love with the 8-bit stylings of Curse…

How’s It Going?: Errands Edition

What do you know, it’s Tuesday. Welcome back to our daily open thread. Yesterday I went to the pharmacy and had a socially-distanced adventure with a stranger as we searched for bar soap. It was the most social interaction either of us had had in months, and it was fun, if not a little depressing.…

World Brothers Is A Brighter, Blockier Earth Defense Force Game

Alongside the boring, brownish Earth Defense Force 6, D3 Publisher today announced Earth Defense Force: World Brothers, a cute and colorful voxel-based shooter coming to PlayStation 4 and Switch later this year. Developed by Yuke’s, World Brothers task players with building their own squad of Earth Defense Force heroes to defend the blocky world from…

Track: Maybe I’m Amazed | Artist: Paul McCartney | Album: McCartney

In Taiwan, Pizza Hut Created Ramen Pizza

Ramen burgers exist, so why shouldn’t ramen pizza? Thanks to Pizza Hut Taiwan, it does.  (Previously, Kotaku introduced ramen crust pizza, but this time, it’s ramen pizza!)  According to Elle, this is a collaboration between Japanese ramen restaurant Menya Musashi and Pizza Hut. The result is ramen, slices of pork, spring onions, and half an…

Stellar Struggles

Gavin Rothery is a veteran concept artist who has worked on everything from Moon to Star Citizen to his own short film, The Last Man You can see more of Gavin’s stuff at his ArtStation page