Culture

Track: Connection | Artist: Elastica | Album: Elastica 

First Details About Evo’s Online Fighting Game Tournament

As Kotaku previously reported, this year’s in-person Evo in Las Vegas, Nevada has been canceled. In its place, an online version will be held over the course of five weekends. The original, official line-up doesn’t appear to make the jump to the online tournament: both Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 do…

Walking Alone. Drivenik, Croatia. By Eduard Tucaković | Instagram

Hey, Batou

Sergey Samarskiy is an artist and illustrator at Gameloft. You can see more of Sergey’s stuff at his ArtStation page

PUBG Adds Bots On PC, Folks Are Not Happy

The latest update to PUBG on PCintroduces a “ranked mode”, where “players can finally test their skills against the best players in the world”. As part of that same update, though, every mode that’s not ranked is about to get bots taking up spots on the battlefield. That’s a deeply unpopular move. You can tell…

No One Wanted To Grind The Latest Destiny 2 Questline So Bungie Made It Easier

Bungie announced today that it’s changing Destiny 2’s new community quest for the Felwinter’s Lie shotgun to make it less of a chore. “We have made adjustments to ‘The Lie’ Quest and Seraph Tower Difficulty,” the studio wrote on Twitter. “Champions have reduced power level and event progression has been slightly tuned.” In addition, Bungie…

I Despise Joy Con Drift, But I’m Learning To Live With It

Back when this era of social distancing began two months and also an incalculable number of years ago, I was playing Dragon Quest XI on my Switch. I noticed that, every once in a while, my character would take a few steps forward or turn slightly of his own accord. I’d read the horror stories,…

Borderlands 3 Is Making Revives Less Annoying

I don’t know about you, but I die a lot in Borderlands 3, especially in higher difficulty levels. That’s why I’m happy to see that the looter shooter’s next update will include some neat quality-of-life adjustments for the revival mechanic. When an enemy takes you out in Borderlands, there are a couple methods to get…

Forget Murder Hornets, My Animal Crossing Island Is Drowning In Self-Inflicted Flowers

All I wanted was to try growing some of the neat hybrid flowers in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Little did I know that my handfuls of seeds would blossom into a garden of madness. Animal Crossing looks cute and simplistic on the surface, only to reveal more complex systems as you continue playing. The best…

Titans Won Destiny 2’s Guardian Games And All They Got Was This Tiny Statue

When I logged onto Destiny 2 yesterday and arrived at the Tower I expected to immediately see some sign of who had won the game’s multi-week Guardian Games. Maybe a giant statue in the middle, where the podium for the contest had previously been. Maybe some new banners hanging from the walls. Nope. Indeed it…

Fortnite Will Be On Xbox Series X and PS5 At Launch

Epic Games confirmed today that its massively popular battle royale Fortnite will be available to play on next-gen consoles as soon as they are out. It won’t be a new version of Fortnite. Instead it will be the one that currently exists, built in Unreal Engine 4, just running on new hardware. “While we can’t…

Epic Unveils A Graphics Demo ‘Running On PS5’

Epic Games gave us our first look at what games running on PS5 could look like during today’s Summer Game Fest livestream with an Unreal Engine demo running on Sony’s next-gen console. Called “Lumen in the Land of Nanite,” the demo isn’t part of any game that’s intended for release according to the Washington Post,…

The Mafia Series Is Getting Re-Released As Mafia: Trilogy [Update]

Family. Power. Respect. Today we learned why the official Mafia Twitter account tweeted out those three words over the past couple of days, as 2K released a teaser trailer for Mafia: Trilogy. Update: A listing on the Xbox Marketplace for Mafia: Definitive Edition has appeared, complete with screenshots and an August 28 release date. With…

How’s It Going?: Try Again Edition

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, etc. Welcome back to our daily open thread. Last night I made what seemed like a super simple dinner of polenta with roasted vegetables. For some reason everything went wrong—I kept dropping vegetables I was chopping, the polenta wouldn’t thicken, and the whole thing ended with me accidentally triggering my…

Track: Surreal | Artist: Ayumi Hamasaki | Album: Surreal 

Target Acquired

Lucia Hsiang is a freelance artist from Hong Kong. You can see more of Hsiang’s stuff at her ArtStation page.

The Xbox Series X Has 60 FPS As ‘Standard’, But It’s Not Guaranteed

After Ubisoft confirmed today that Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will run on the Xbox Series X at a minimum of only 30 frames-per-second, people are wondering what they can expect from Microsoft’s new gaming console. The answer is not constant 60 fps gaming. “Developers always have flexibility in how they use the power, so a standard…

The Internet Reacts To Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 Remaster

Today, everyone in the entire world has “Superman” by Goldfinger stuck in their head—a marked increase from the usual 70 percent on any given day. Why? Because Tony Hawk, famous for being unrecognizable while in airport security lines (and also skating), is back. Publisher Activision, developer Vicarious Visions, and the beloved board lord himself announced…

Arnold Schwarzenegger Will Return As Dutch In Predator: Hunting Grounds

Arnold Schwarzenegger is finally returning to the world of Predator, but not in a sequel to the iconic action film. The former bodybuilder and (ugh) California governor will provide voice lines to asymmetrical multiplayer game Predator: Hunting Grounds in an update on May 26, shedding light on what Alan “Dutch” Schaefer has been getting up…

Disco Elysium Update Drops Minimum Specs To ‘Mariana Trench Levels’

One of the biggest barriers to entry with PC games is being able to afford a computer capable of running them. ZA/UM, the developers of Disco Elysium, aim to democratize this process a bit with the new “Working Class” update, which should make the conversation-heavy roleplaying game playable on a variety of older, less powerful…