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CultureMorning MusicSecret Little Haven Is 10 Minutes Of Weapons-Grade Vaporwave Nostalgia
Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s ongoing hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today we’ll take a trip back to 1999 by way of 2018 with a breezy 10 minutes of refreshingly chill cyber-vibes. Victoria Dominowski’s Secret Little Haven (Bandcamp / longplay / VGMdb / Itch.io) is a unique…
By Alexandra Hall Published March 24, 2021 -
Kotaku EastJapanJapanese Company Creates “Monster Hunter Holiday” For New Game’s Release
Whenever a massive game is released, no doubt, diehard fans wish nothing more than to take the day off. Some may suddenly find themselves coming down with a cold and the only recipe for recovery is a day of gaming. But employees at Tokyo-based VR-studio Mark-On don’t need to feign illness. Exec Jack Masaki formally…
By Brian Ashcraft Published March 24, 2021 -
Kotaku EastJapanKonami Closes 16 Of Its Sports Clubs In Japan Due To Covid-19
In Japan, Konami doesn’t only make video games. It also has a major chain of sports clubs. Gyms have been hit hard by the novel coronavirus pandemic, and Konami has had to shutter a number of its locations. Konami’s presence in sports is why the company has developed exercise games and been a major sponsor…
By Brian Ashcraft Published March 24, 2021 -
Culture1000s Of Steam Games Now Let You Play With People Who Don’t Even Have Steam Accounts
An update to Steam released earlier this week has, tucked away in its changelog, a very cool piece of news: if you’re playing a game that supports Remote Play Together, you can now invite anyone to play with you, even if they don’t have a Steam account. This won’t work for all Steam games, only…
By Luke Plunkett Published March 23, 2021 -
CultureCosplayShowcaseIncredible Yakuza: Like A Dragon Cosplay Is Punching Me In The Face
The last time we saw Enyendabbling in Yakuza cosplay, it was as a solitary star of the gangster saga. This time, he’s back, and just like Ichiban in Like a Dragon, he’s brought some friends. This is most of the main crew (sorry Eri!) of Sega’s latest crime/wholesome adventure, with Enyen as Kasuga, Mr. G…
By Luke Plunkett Published March 23, 2021 -
CultureEpic Games Store Is Draining Some Laptop Batteries
My annoyances with Epic’s store are generally limited to Fortnite pop-ups and forgetting I even had games installed there, but then I play games on a big desktop PC. If you’re using a laptop, you might want to keep an eye on the store, and in particular what it’s doing to your battery. Some testing…
By Luke Plunkett Published March 23, 2021 -
CultureBlizzard Isn’t Making Any More Skins For Overwatch League MVPs
After this year, the Overwatch League will no longer create special skins to honor the League’s MVP. Earlier today, the Overwatch League announced the release of two special Overwatch skins celebrating the San Francisco Shock’s second championship win and Byung-sun “Fleta” Kim earning 2020’s MVP award. But tucked into the announcement on the Overwatch League…
By Ash Parrish Published March 23, 2021 -
CultureTwitchLivestream Of Boulder Mass Shooting Raises Questions About What YouTube And Twitch Should Allow
Yesterday, a shooter opened fire at the King Soopers store in Boulder, Colorado and killed 10 people. Not long after the attack, a streamer, Dean Schiller, arrived on the scene and broadcast to an audience that topped out at nearly 30,000 concurrent viewers. The resulting video has been viewed over 650,000 times. Despite the visible…
By Nathan Grayson Published March 23, 2021 -
CultureGameStop’s Most Popular Earnings Call Ever Is A Bust
After weeks of record-breaking days on Wall Street thanks to a meme stock frenzy engineered by Reddit, people were hoping for some answers from GameStop’s executives during today’s call with investors. They got none. Today’s earnings call—the first since GameStop stock skyrocketed to the obscene value of over $400 a share earlier this year because…
By Ethan Gach Published March 23, 2021 -
OpinionImpressionsMundaun Is Beautiful, Hand-Drawn Folk Horror
It was around the time the severed goat head in my backpack started bleating and then spoke that I truly began to understand the beauty of Mundaun, the new indie horror game from developer Michel Ziegler. Mundaun opens with a letter from your isolated hometown in the Swiss Alps. Your grandfather, a local parishioner writes,…
By Ian Walker Published March 23, 2021 -
CultureWatch Dogs: Legion Will Be Free To Play This Weekend
Watch Dogs: Legion, Ubisoft’s open-world hacker game, will be free-to-play on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC starting March 25, the developer announced today in a blog post. The trial will allow you full access to the game’s open world. While you can complete Legion’s critical path in less than 20 hours—plenty for one marathon of a…
By Ari Notis Published March 23, 2021 -
OpinionImpressionsPuzzle Quest 3 Does The Match-Three RPG A Little Differently
The game that kicked off the match-three/RPG genre in 2007 is back for a third go with Puzzle Quest 3. An early preview of the Android version of the threequel reveals a somewhat more dynamic take on the genre mash-up. Giving players two seconds to map out their moves makes a big difference. The basic…
By Mike Fahey Published March 23, 2021 -
EsportsI, A Hater, Can Only Endorse One Of Overwatch’s Two Latest Limited Edition Skins
The fourth season of the Overwatch League is almost upon us which means it’s time to release a new MVP skin. Starting today until April 6th, you can purchase Echo’s Good vs. Evil skin made in honor of 2020’s Overwatch MVP—and my second-favorite Shanghai Dragon—Byung-sun “Fleta” Kim. Every year, the Overwatch League releases a skin…
By Ash Parrish Published March 23, 2021 -
CultureOdds and EndsLiliana Vess, Noted Magic: The Gathering Girlboss, Now Teaches Kids At Strixhaven
As the Kaldheim cycle comes to a close, Wizards of the Coast has started to tease cards from Strixhaven, Magic: The Gathering’s forthcoming magical academy-themed set. I don’t pay too much attention to card teases, preferring—somewhat unwisely—to go into a new set completely unaware of what might turn up and picking cards in the moment.…
By Ash Parrish Published March 23, 2021 -
OpinionImpressionsThere’s A New Type Of Fall Guys Jackass
I would like to offer a sincere apology to my Fall Guys squad. I fell into the slime. I thought we were out. So I quit. I didn’t realize how much that screwed you (fall) guys! It won’t happen again, I promise. Yesterday, as part of the platformer royale’s season four update, Fall Guys received…
By Ari Notis Published March 23, 2021 -
CultureSerious Sam 2 Gets Massive Update 15 Years After Release
Croatian studio Croteam has partnered with independent developer Nathan “DwK” Brown to release a huge update to Serious Sam 2 today, more than a few years removed from the first-person shooter’s late 2005 launch. “It’s been five billion years since the last proper update for Serious Sam 2,” Croteam explained on Steam. “In the meantime, we…
By Ian Walker Published March 23, 2021 -
CultureMagic: Legends Open Beta Is Go
Cryptic Studios’ free-to-play Magic: The Gathering-meets-Diablo action card-playing game has launched into open beta via Arc Games and the Epic Games Store, giving players all over the world the chance to play the game Kotaku’s Ash Parrish said several nice things about. Magic: Legends is colorful spells versus hordes of creatures, with that signature Magic…
By Mike Fahey Published March 23, 2021 -
OpinionSo-Called Pirates Are Doing The Work When Publishers Fail To Preserve Their Games
Yesterday, TheGamer reported that Sony has plans to shut down the online PS3, PS Vita, and PSP stores that service those older consoles. While this has yet to be confirmed, and Sony has not responded to Kotaku’s request for comment, the internet discourse around this potentially troubling news immediately began to swirl. If these stores…
By Zack Zwiezen Published March 23, 2021 -
CultureAmazon Doubles Down On Trying To Make Games With New Studio Led By Ex-Rainbow Six Siege Developers
Amazon is opening a new game studio in Montreal led by former Rainbow Six Siege developers to work on a new multiplayer game, the company announced today. The new studio, which joins the company’s existing ones across Seattle, Orange County, and San Diego, will be led by Ubisoft veterans Luc Bouchard, Xavier Marquis, Alexandre Remy,…
By Ethan Gach Published March 23, 2021
