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EsportsNever Count Out A Wario Full Of Farts
Wario is, by most accounts, a pretty good character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. But facing him gets even scarier when he’s had time to fill his guts with explosive flatulence. Case in point, this match from last night’s Smash @ Xanadu, a weekly Smash tournament that’s shifted from in-person to online competition during the…
By Ian Walker Published April 21, 2021 -
CultureTales Of Arise Out September 10, Coming To Next-Gen Consoles Too
Tales of Arise, the next game in Bandai Namco’s long-running spikey-haired angst series, will come out on September 10, according to the game’s official Twitter account. Previously announced for PC and last-gen consoles, the action-RPG will also come to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. Initially planned to release in 2020, Bandai Namco delayed the…
By Ari Notis Published April 21, 2021 -
CultureHOLD IT! The Great Ace Attorney Games Are Finally Getting Released Outside Japan
Time to brush up on your jurisprudence, y’all, because today Capcom announced The Great Ace Attorney games are finally being released outside of Japan. Dubbed The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. The collection features both Ace Attorney spin-offs, The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures and The Great Ace Attorney: Resolve, which will come to the PS4, Nintendo…
By Ash Parrish Published April 21, 2021 -
CultureOdds and Ends8-Bit Theater Avoids Final Fantasy Copyrights With 20th Anniversary Script Book
From 2001 to 2009, writer Brian Clevinger of Atomic Robo fame produced a hilarious webcomic called 8-Bit Theater, which follows the misadventures of a dysfunctional adventuring party. Unfortunately, that adventuring party is comprised of Final Fantasy game sprites, so Clevinger can’t reprint them without getting sued to hell by Square Enix. That is unless he…
By Mike Fahey Published April 21, 2021 -
CultureXbox Free-To-Play Games Are Finally Free To Play
Starting today, all Xbox players can play more than 50 free-to-play games without an Xbox Live Gold membership, Microsoft announced in a blog post. The update comes on the heels of a ballyhooed reversal of longstanding Xbox policy. In January, Microsoft announced a steep price increase to Xbox Live, essentially doubling the cost of the…
By Ari Notis Published April 21, 2021 -
ReviewsBacklogService Games Like Genshin Impact and Destiny Are A Backlog Nightmare
It’s not uncommon for people to say they “need” something when they just want it, or vice versa. When it comes to games, however, you only really ever want to play them. Need, if we’re talking about it in the “Maslow’s hierarchy of” sense, does not generally enter the equation. Or at least, it shouldn’t.…
By Nathan Grayson Published April 21, 2021 -
CultureSonic 2 Movie Set Photos Feature A Second Sonic Sidekick
We know Sonic the Hedgehog 2 features Sonic, and the teaser at the end of the first movie revealed Tails. Photos shot during the sequel’s filming in Vancouver show off a third anthropomorphic animal character that could be joining the cast. Potential movie spoilers but come on, we all know who it is. It’s not…
By Mike Fahey Published April 21, 2021 -
Kotaku EastJapanSquare Enix Launches A Photobook Service In Japan For Final Fantasy XIV
If photo books are good enough to revive your digital pics, then surely the same goes for your life in Final Fantasy XIV In Japan, Square Enix is rolling out a new service called Final Fantasy XIV Custom Order Photobook: Memories of Light. It works like Apple’s photobooks, but with in-game screenshots that customers lay…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 21, 2021 -
Kotaku EastJapanJapan’s Fraudulent Composer Returns Years Later With New Music
In 2014, it was revealed that Mamoru Samuragochi, who was called “Japan’s Beethoven,” was not actually deaf. What’s more, he also used a ghostwriter for his music. Before the news broke, the accepted story was that Samuragochi had a degenerative hearing condition that left him deaf by age 35. As I noted at the time,…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 21, 2021 -
CultureLord Of The Rings Online Hobbit Hits Level Cap By Baking Pies
Lord of the Rings Online has a level cap of 130, and most players get there by killing things and doing magic shit. Except that is for Cookingwithsim, who playing as a humble Hobbit managed to get there almost exclusively by…baking pies. As MMORPG.com report, it took eight months to do it, and a big…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 20, 2021 -
CultureRockstar Very Quietly Adds A Bunch Of Free DLC To Max Payne 3 & LA Noire
Rockstar haven’t just spent the week fucking around with their Steam listings for no reason; not long after accidentally bringing Midnight Club II back for a few minutes, folks discovered that Max Payne 3 and LA Noire’s Steam versions now include all their DLC for free. As Eurogamer reports, the bundling means everything except LA…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 20, 2021 -
OpinionAsk KotakuHow Big Is Your Backlog?
It’s once again time for Ask Kotaku, the weekly feature in which Kotaku-ites deliberate on a single burning question. Then, we ask your take. This week we Ask Kotaku: How big is your backlog? Brian Not too big, I guess. I’ve been playing Civilization VI, because I find it comforting, which this year and last…
By Alexandra Hall Published April 20, 2021 -
CultureKotaku Game DiaryI’m Going To Miss You, Heavensward
Last time on my journey Heavensward, I said it was too hard to level my fifty ‘leven jobs evenly, so I decided to focus on solo-leveling my healer. Turns out, I may have been a bit premature in that decision. See, what had happened was I belatedly realized I fit the level requirements to pick…
By Ash Parrish Published April 20, 2021 -
CultureOdds and EndsHandy Sticker Lets You Meme Devil May Cry’s Dante Into Any Game
Ahead of Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Remaster’s release on PlayStation 4 and Switch next month, publisher Sega has provided the internet with a beautifully high-resolution version of the “Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series” sticker from the PlayStation 2 original’s box art in North America. The graphic has inexplicably been used…
By Ian Walker Published April 20, 2021 -
CultureReport: Microsoft No Longer In Talks To Buy Discord
Last month, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft was in exclusive talks to acquire Discord. Today, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, those talks are off. Microsoft initially considered buying the popular chat and community platform for a figure north of $10 billion, but it wasn’t the only interested buyer. Per the Journal’s sources,…
By Ari Notis Published April 20, 2021 -
CultureOverwatch Director Jeff Kaplan Leaves Blizzard
As of today, the man, the myth, the meme Jeff Kaplan is no longer a member of the Overwatch team—or Blizzard, for that matter. Blizzard made the announcement in a blog post today. Kaplan’s director’s chair will be filled by Aaron Keller, an 18-year Blizzard veteran who has worked on Overwatch and World of Warcraft.…
By Nathan Grayson Published April 20, 2021 -
CultureOdds and EndsApparently, Some Steam Users Have More Than 25,000 Games
And you thought your backlog was bad. According to the patch notes of a recent Steam Beta Client update, some Steam users—or, more specifically, Steam libraries—may own north of 25,000 games. Woah. The update, pushed live yesterday, is fairly slim and includes this patch note: “Fix a possible crash for users with around 25,000 or…
By Ari Notis Published April 20, 2021 -
OpinionMods Make Gaming A Better Place For Everyone
Twitter is abuzz with today’s awkwardly wrong gaming take, this time focused on modding, after disparaging thoughts about a recent Witcher 3 mod led to debate over whether modders are harming the games industry. Which leads me to present the other case: modders are not harming the games industry. I should elaborate: For historical context,…
By John Walker Published April 20, 2021 -
CultureHere’s Everything Coming To And Leaving Game Pass Soon
The baseball game is the big one, but that’s not the only game en route to Xbox Game Pass Here’s everything coming to Microsoft’s games-on-demand service in the next few weeks: April 20 MLB The Show 21 (Cloud, Console) April 22 Phogs! (PC) April 28 Second Extinction, Game Preview (Cloud, Console, PC) April 29 Destroy All…
By Ari Notis Published April 20, 2021