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CultureJeanette Maus, Actor For Resident Evil Village, Dies At 39
Jeanette Maus, who lent her talents to Resident Evil Village, died this weekend. She was 39. “We here at Capcom R&D 1 are deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Jeanette Maus, the talented actress who helped bring several different characters, including our witches to the world in Resident Evil Village,” Capcom wrote on…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 28, 2021 -
CultureOdds and EndsRare Magic The Gathering Card Goes For Over $500,000
This week, an ultra-rare Magic The Gathering Alpha Black Lotus card with a signature by artist Christopher Rush sold for $511,100.00. Online auction seller PWCC called the gem mint card, graded at perfect PSA 10, “the single finest” Alpha Black Lotus it had ever brokered for sale. “The fragile black periphery is free of common…
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 28, 2021 -
CultureTrack: Suki, Suki, Suki (London) | Artist: Sadistic Mika Band | Album: Live in London
By Brian Ashcraft Published January 28, 2021 -
CultureCyberpunk 2077 Removes Mod That Let You Bang Keanu Reeves
There was a mod available for Cyberpunk 2077 that let you have sex—or a very unsettling approximation of it—with Keanu Reeves’ character. That mod is gone now. As Eurogamer reports, the mod—really just a collection of skins that could be swapped with certain others in the game—let you transform a “Joytoy” sex robot into Reeves’…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureFallout Mod Pulled After Artist Allegedly Posts “Animated Pedophillic Content”
We only wrote about the big new Fallout: New Vegas mod The Frontierlast weekwhen it was released! And now we’re writing about it again, because the mod has been “hidden” (basically temporarily removed) from Nexus Mods and pulled from its own website after allegations that one of its artists posted “animated pedophillic content on their personal…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureGive Me All The GameStop Jokes
I’m not even going to pretend to understand what’s going on with GameStop—I’ll leave that to the excellent reporting of fellow Kotaku writer Ethan Gach. No, as with most things in life, I’m just here for the jokes. And social media has produced no shortage of silliness in response to this absurd situation. As usual, Hard…
By Ian Walker Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureDiscord Bans r/WallStreetBets Server For ‘Hateful’ Content [Update: Subreddit Briefly Taken Offline]
WallStreetBets, the subreddit behind engineering GameStop’s record-shattering stock price surge over the past week, has been banned from Discord for hate speech, The Verge reports GameStop’s stock doubled today, rising from the previous day’s record of over $150 to a new peak of over $300 a share, all because day traders on the WallStreetBets subreddit…
By Ethan Gach Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureTencent 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…
By Lisa Marie Segarra Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureKotaku Game DiaryToo 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…
By Ash Parrish Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureMass 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…
By Ian Walker Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureReport: 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…
By Ethan Gach Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureAssassin’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…
By Ari Notis Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureTwitchTwitch 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…
By Nathan Grayson Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureHitman 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…
By Ian Walker Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureEven 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
By Ethan Gach Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureHere’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…
By Riley MacLeod Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureFor 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…
By Ari Notis Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureGameStop 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…
By Ethan Gach Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureOdds and EndsThe 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…
By John Walker Published January 27, 2021 -
CultureModding 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…
By Nathan Grayson Published January 27, 2021