Culture

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…

Microsoft, Sony, And Nintendo Team Up To Promote Safer Gaming

In a post shared across all three companies’ websites this morning, Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have released a joint set of principles to foster a safe gaming environment across all of their platforms. Posted under the title “Our Shared Commitment to Safer Gaming,” the triumvirate present a three-pronged approach to ensuring their platforms are a…

Surgeon General Compares Developing Covid Vaccine To Playing Xbox

The first Covid-19 vaccines began being distributed in the US today, and amidst the rollout Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams took to Fox News to talk about the race to develop a cure for the pandemic. And to do that he started talking about Xbox. “I want to put it in Christmas-think for people out…

The New Werewolf: The Apocalypse Action Game Isn’t Looking Too Shabby

French developer Cyanide has never really done a fast-paced action role-playing game, but you wouldn’t know it looking at the first gameplay footage of February’s Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood. It’s as brutal as it is furry. In a post this morning on the PlayStation Blog, game director Julien “Patch” Desourteaux walks potential players of…

EA Is Buying Racing Dev Codemasters For $1.2 Billion

Despite a nearly $1 billion bid from Take-Two Interactive last month, Electronic Arts has announced an agreement to purchase English racing game developer Codemasters for $1.2 billion. The purchase will put popular racing series Dirt, Dirt Rally, Grid, F1, Project Cars, Burnout, and Need for Speed under one world-encompassing roof. Since its founding in 1986…

The Week In Games: Bust Some Hives In Gears 5

This week, Gears 5 gets its first story DLC in the form of Hivebusters, a new 3-hours campaign starring some of the characters from the game’s online Hivebuster co-op mode. You know it’s a quiet and mostly empty week for new game releases when the biggest thing is a DLC expansion for a game released…

This Zelda: A Link To The Past Song Is So Obscure Almost No One Knew It Existed

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s regular hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today, is this GBA melody the least-heard official Zelda track to ever exist? Last week a thread popped up on ResetEra suggesting that a certain song from the Game Boy Advance port of The Legend of…

Track: I’ll See You In My Dreams | Artist: Django Reinhardt | Album: Minor Swing and Greatest Hits

Cyberpunk 2077 Developers Are Sorry The Game Runs Badly On PS4 And Xbox, Offer Refunds

Did you buy Cyberpunk 2077 on last-gen consoles? I did! It’s buggy and looks rough. CD Projekt Red is now sorry about that. In an official joint statement the studio writes, “First of all, we would like to start by apologizing to you for not showing the game on base last-gen consoles before it premiered…

WoW Pacifist Picks “Millions” Of Flowers To Hit New Level Cap

Doubleagent, the world’s most famous pacifist (in World of Warcraft), has just hit the game’s new maximum level cap by, uh, doing some intensive gardening on the Wandering Isle. Famous for having never picked a side in Warcraft’s eternal struggle, and as a result remaining forever in the game’s starting area, Doubleagent spends his days…

Cyberpunk Players Say They’re Getting Refunds For A “Broken” Game

For some lucky people (like me, sorry!), Cyberpunk is running great and looks amazing. For many, though, especially on older hardware, it runs like shit and looks like ass. Not an ideal situation! As a result, there are more and more people reporting that they’ve asked for—and been given—refunds on the game, on both console…

Let’s See What’s Inside A PlayStation 5

We know the outside of the PS5 is just two big-ass white fins, but the inside is still a mystery. So the good people at iFixit have got hold of one and torn it to pieces, ostensibly to judge its repair value, but really just so we could all gawk at the carnage of it…

Even The Head Of PlayStation Studios Has His PS5 Upside Down

The PS5 is a strange-looking console. Lots of curves and swoops. It’s easy to accidentally set it up the wrong way, which is exactly what Hermen Hulst, the head of PlayStation Studios, seems to have done in a now-deleted tweet. Whoops! Earlier this morning, Hermen Hulst uploaded a cute little video of his cat attacking…

Running Around During Loading Screens Is An Important Part Of Assassin’s Creed

Loading screens often suck. But they can occasionally become more than just periods of time where you are forced to sit around and wait. In Assassin’s Creed, a tradition has formed of letting players run around in an endless void and it has (mostly) stuck around. (This post was originally published on July 26. It’s…