Culture

Ubisoft’s Game Subscription Service Is Now Available On Stadia

Ubisoft+, the $15-a-month service that gives subscribers access to premium versions of games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Immortals: Fenyx Rising, and Watch Dogs Legion, is now available as part of Google’s Stadia streaming platform. Finally an alternative to streaming Ubisoft games on Amazon Luna. One does not need to stream games to enjoy the benefits…

Marvel’s Weird New Multiplayer Mobile Game Goes Live

Available worldwide today for iOS and Android devices, Marvel Realm of Champions is an online team-based brawler that taps into 2015’s Secret Wars comic crossover to give players access to strange, alternate-dimension versions of their favorite heroes. Not to be confused with developer Kabam’s popular fighting game, Marvel Contest of Champions, Realm of Champions is…

Final Fantasy VII’s Snow Theme Tops My Go-To Blizzard Mix

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today, we take a trip up north to gaming’s colder climates and the music that makes them so enchanting. Specifically, I want to invite you up to the humble wintery retreat of Final Fantasy VII’s Icicle…

Track: Out Of Control (The Avalanches Surrender To Love Mix) | Artist: The Chemical Brothers | Album: Surrender (20th Anniversary Edition)

Cyberpunk 2077 Has Logos, Logos Everywhere

While the Blade Runner universe gets to use actual company logos all over its buildings, Cyberpunk 2077’s developers had to create all their brands, departments and services from scratch. For tonight’s Fine Art, we’ll be looking at a selection of those, done by Adrian and Ramona Marc, some of them clean, some of them busy,…

Modified Cartridge Gets Ray Tracing Working On A Super Nintendo

Ray tracing, currently the big thing in video game visuals, is a perk for those running bleeding edge hardware on PC or next-gen consoles. Or, conversely, anyone who owns a SNES. This demo for SuperRT shows real-time ray tracing running on a Super Nintendo—a console first released in 1991—thanks to the use of a modified…

Twitch’s Top Clips Are Full Of Cyberpunk 2077 Nudity

Once the year 2077 rolls around, people apparently won’t bat an eyelash at unclothed dicks, breasts, and butts. In 2020, however, this is still very much an issue, especially on Twitch, where on-screen nudity frequently results in temporary or indefinite suspensions. But the platform does make exceptions for big games, with Cyberpunk 2077 being the…

Cyberpunk 2077 Execs Say They ‘Ignored’ Signals That The Console Versions They Hyped Were In Rough Shape

It’s clear by now that Cyberpunk 2077 is a bit of a disaster, especially on consoles. During a recent conference call with CD Projekt Group’s management board, executives said they knew the game was busted before its December 10 launch. CD Projekt president and co-CEO Adam Kiciński opened a presentation to investors yesterday with comments…

CD Projekt Is Adjusting Cyberpunk 2077‘s ‘Distracting’ Amount Of Dildos

The first time I stepped out of my character’s apartment in Cyberpunk 2077, I expected to be greeted by a vast world of machine-powered possibility. Instead, I found a dildo. It was sitting next to a random NPC’s foot in my apartment building, near a discarded magazine and some other trash. “That’s weird,” I thought.…

Everything Nintendo Showed During Today’s Indie World Showcase

Nintendo aired a brief livestream today dedicated to indie games coming to Switch in the next few months, and there are a lot of them. The biggest news in the 15 minute presentation was that popular murder mystery party game Among Us is coming out on Switch later today. Developer Derek Yu of Mossmouth also…

Among Us Launches On Switch Later Today

Announced today during Nintendo’s Indie World presentation, the surprise-hit mystery-party-action game, Among Us, is coming to the Nintendo Switch today. The Nintendo Switch version will support crossplay, though you will need a Nintendo account and Nintendo Switch Online membership to play with others on the web. Originally released back in 2018, Among Us, developed by…

CD Projekt Red Clears Up ‘Misconceptions,’ Says No Special Refund Policy In Place For Cyberpunk 2077

CD Projekt Red managers clarified that refunds for Cyberpunk 2077 will be subject to existing retailer policies during a call with investors yesterday, and said the company is not encouraging anyone to return the game. Investors twice asked CDPR to clarify what was going on with refunds, concerned about how they might impact the game’s…

Destiny 2’s Latest Quest References A Moment Cut From The First Game

Destiny 2’s new exotic quest for an old Destiny 1 gun makes reference to an alternate version of one of that game’s main characters only seen in an E3 2013 trailer, breathing a little life back into a story that never made it into the finished game. Hawkmoon is a small, agile exotic hand cannon…

The Switch Gets An Anime Watching App Today

The number of video streaming applications on U.S. Nintendo Switches jumps from two to three today, as previously-released Hulu and YouTube apps are joined by Funimation, delivering fresh anime to all the good boys and girls. One would think Nintendo’s hybrid console/portable would be the perfect place to watch all the video content, but here…

Track: Spinning Away | Artist: Brian Eno/John Cale | Album: Wrong Way Up

Four Generations Of Xbox Consoles Can Play The Same Game Together

When we think of backwards compatibility we tend to only think of a game from an older system running on its replacement. But as this video shows, in the right circumstances, a console released in 2001 can play the same game at the same time as one released in 2020, as well as the two…

No Video Game Company Is Perfect, And The Last Generation Proved It

For some reason there are people out there who are fans of entire video games companies, and not just the creative output they produce. Those people often suffer from a particular strain of Gamer Brain can lead to thoughts like, “This is my favourite company,” or, “This studio is perfect and all their games are…

GameStop’s Last-Minute Console Rush Puts Workers At Risk

A new allocation of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X / S bundles brought crowds of hopeful customers to physical GameStop locations over the weekend, according to a report by Bloomberg and corroboration by a Kotaku source. Staffing shortages and the threat of the ongoing covid-19 pandemic in the United States made employees feel both…

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla 1.1 Update Addresses Game-Breaking Bugs

Ubisoft is releasing a big update tomorrow for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla across all platforms, aiming to balance combat, improve performance, and generally smooth out a game that’s not without its fair share of bugs. But the biggest blessing comes in the form of several planned fixes for broken objectives. Fixes for more than two dozen…

Fallout 76 Will Soon Let Players Hoard Even More Junk

Fallout 76 players are about to see their junk allowance dramatically increased next month when a new update increases stash sizes by 50%. Players of Bethesda’s online post-apocalyptic sim spend most of their time scavenging the remnants of bombed-out Appalachia for building supplies, crafting materials, and occasionally powerful legendary equipment. As a result, anyone who’s…