Culture

Track: Sonatine I – Act of Violence | Artist: Joe Hisaishi | Album: Sonatine OST (Movies of My Dreams) 

Demon’s Souls Demons, Ranked

Demon’s Souls gets pretty creative with its bosses compared to the games that came after it, both in terms of gameplay and aesthetics, so here’s how I think they rank from best to worst based on various criteria: Old Monk Storm King Adjudicator Flamelurker Dragon God Maiden Astraea Old Hero Fool’s Idol Old King Allant…

Crusader Kings III’s Cucumber King Is Not A Kinslayer, And You Can No Longer Mistake Your Infant Child For A Serial Killer

That’s right, it’s Crusader Kings III patch notes time. The game—very likely my Game of The Year nomination—has already set a very high bar for patch notes, but this latest round has seen the mark improved. I could list them all straight from Steam’s changelog, but really, it’s better—and more thematically appropriate—to hear them in…

Monkey Island Fans Should Definitely Check Out This Enormous 30th Birthday Peek Into The Game’s Source Code

Monkey Island turned 30 this year, and as part of the celebrations the Video Game History Foundation have put together this exhaustive look at the game’s source code, featuring 100x more pieces of early art and unused animation than I ever thought we’d see for a game this old. From preliminary designs for Guybrush—some elements…

Slimy Agents Have Tried Bribing Football Manager’s Developers

There’s a lot wrong with modern football, but few influences have been as toxic as big-time agents, whose conduct has gotten so out of control in recent years that FIFA—itself hardly a paragon of virtue—is trying to crack down on them While I could go on all day about their exorbitant fees and conflicts of…

Nintendo Completely Bailed On Console Generations, And Nobody Gave A Shit

The last time we said goodbye to a whole generation of video game consoles, it was 2013, and we said our farewells to three machines. This time around, we’re only saying goodbye to two, because Nintendo walked away from this game a long time ago. Remember the Wii U? Nintendo would rather not, but it’s…

Fallout 76‘s Steel Dawn Update Drops Early After Patch Locks Xbox Players Out Of The Game

Surprise! Fallout 76‘s big new Steel Dawn update, bringing the Brotherhood of Steel back to Appalachia, is dropping a week early. That’s thanks in part to a patch that accidentally went out ahead of schedule for Xbox and Windows 10 players, which ended up locking them out of the game. Earlier today, some players on…

Speedrunner Beats PS5 Demon’s Souls In Less Than 20 Minutes

It took me 20 hours to beat the Demon’s Souls remake on PlayStation 5, but speedrunners have already discovered a massive bug that lets them beat it in less than 20 minutes. The set-up, known as “wrong-warping” or “force quit,” takes some explanation. Demon’s Souls is made up of checkpoints known as archstones, which are…

Head Of Xbox Calls Out Toxic, Console War ‘Tribalism’

Xbox boss Phil Spencer said in a new interview that if there was anything that could make him quit the video game industry altogether, it would be the ongoing toxic fandom around consoles. Spencer discussed a number of subjects with Verge Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel on the latest episode of the Decoder podcast, from why Microsoft…

Bastion Might Be The Bad Place In World of Warcraft: Shadowlands

It’s World of Warcraft: Shadowlands week and while some players have already reached max level, most of us are still puttering around Bastion taking in all the sights and sounds of Blue Man Group: The Zone. Though myself–intrepid Shadowlands correspondent Ash Parrish—and seasoned WoW veteran Mike Fahey are still firmly in camp “Puttering Around,” we’ve…

Is Spider-Man: Miles Morales Better Than 2018’s Spider-Man?

Spider-Man: Miles Morales, the new PlayStation superhero game from Insomniac, is pretty damn good.

Red Dead Online Will Be A Standalone Game

Rockstar will start selling Red Dead Redemption 2‘s online mode as a standalone game for $5 starting December 1. “For the first time, new players who do not already own Red Dead Redemption 2 can experience everything Red Dead Online has to offer, including access to all future content updates,” Rockstar announced on the game’s…

Here’s December 2020’s Xbox Live Games With Gold

The Xbox Series S and X might be new, but Games with Gold marches on. As always, these games are only “free” if you have an active Xbox Live Gold subscription. December’s Games with Gold are: Xbox X/S and Xbox One The Raven Remastered (December 1-31) Bleed 2 (December 16-January 15) Xbox 360 (compatible with newer…

Fortnite‘s Getting A Monthly Subscription Service

Starting next week with Chapter 2, Season 5, Fortnite will get a monthly subscription service for cosmetics and currency. Subscribers will get the latest battle pass, and each month they’ll get 1,000 V-Bucks and some cosmetics. The $11.99 subscription, called Fortnite Crew, was announced this morning. In addition to the battle pass, each month players…

Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There With The Persona 5 Soundtrack

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today we’re gonna steal your heart with some tunes from the Persona 5 soundtrack. I’d never played a Persona game before Persona 5 (playlist / longplay / VGMdb). The game came highly recommended by friends, so…

Track: Caroline | Artist: Arlo Parks | Album: Collapsed In Sunbeams

Super Mario Bros. 3 Cartridge Sells For $156,000

A rare copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 for NES is the new king of video game auctions, selling last Friday for an incredible $156,000. While a lot of that price is wrapped up in the sealed game’s near-perfect quality grading, this copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 also comes from an early production run…

Grand Theft Auto V Has Outlasted An Entire Console Generation

It’s 2020, and one of the biggest video games on the planet is Grand Theft Auto V. In 2021, Rockstar will be releasing an “expanded and enhanced” version of the game for next-gen consoles. Grand Theft Auto V, in case you forget, was first released on the Xbox 360 and PS3 in September 2013. It…

Soccer Superstars Unaware How FIFA Licensing Works

Earlier today, Sweden’s undying demigod Zlatan Ibrahimović, perhaps for the first time ever, realised that his likeness was being used in video games without his explicit permission. And didn’t like it. His sudden realisation came of course on Twitter, where Zlatan wondered aloud who had actually given EA Sports permission to use his likeness in…

I’m Suddenly Very Interested In Immortals Fenyx Rising’s Expansions

I am not very surprised when Ubisoft announces that one of its big games will get piles of post-release expansions. It’s news when they don’t. But I am surprised at how interesting and unusual the recently announced expansions for next month’s Immortals Fenyx Rising seem to be. The first one, “A New God,” sounds like…