Chill exploration game A Short Hike has finally arrives on Switch sometime today and the timing couldn’t be better. Find treasure, rid a motorboat, catch up with other critters and shutout the rest of world while taking strolls off the beaten path.

How’s It Going? Flight Stick Edition

Dammit, Microsoft Flight Simulator. Welcome back to our daily open thread. Good morning. I’ve spent the opening hours of my day on the website of one Thrustmaster because Microsoft Flight Simulator demands it. I own more than three dozen mechanical keyboards, but none of them are adequate to control a Cessna. They work okay, and…

Fall Guys Creators Incite Twitter Brand Bidding War For Charity, And It’s Beautiful To Watch

Since the launch of wildly successful battle royale Fall Guys, Twitter brands have been falling over themselves to get their products and/or services represented as in-game costumes. Yesterday developer Mediatonic launched a two-week “Battle of the Brands” event, with the brand that donates the most to gamer charity Special Effect securing the coveted tie-in. As…

Report: Batman Developer Rocksteady Accused Of Failing To Address Sexual Harassment [Update]

Female staffmembers at Rocksteady Studios, best known for the Batman: Arkham series, sent a letter to management back in 2018 complaining about sexual harassment, according to a new report by the Guardian The letter, reportedly signed by 10 of the 16 women on staff at the time, cited a number of persistant issues including transphobic…

This Cassette Tape Made Double Dragon Sound Awesome

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s new, daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Double Dragon’s super-famous 1987 soundtrack interests me for two reasons: It kind of sucked on its original arcade hardware, and a much better version came out on a cassette tape! Okay, “sucked” is a bit…

The Reigns Team Are Making An Animal Farm Game

Nerial, the team behind the excellent Reigns, are now working on a game based on George Orwell’s Animal Farm It’ll be a “narrative” game, where you can, “Throw out exploitative farmers. Found a new Republic. Guide its leaders. All animals are equal. You decide which animals are most equal of all.” The game is being…

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Tera Publisher En Masse Is Shutting Down

Publisher En Masse Entertainment, which has overseen MMORPG Tera in the West for nearly a decade, announced today on Facebook that it will soon be shutting down. “Today, it is with a heavy heart that we begin the process of discontinuing the business of En Masse Entertainment,” En Masse wrote. “Our focus in the coming…

A Racist Overwatch Team Got Banned, But I Still Feel Like Shit

Despite having not played in a while, I love Overwatch. I love its bright and vibrant characters from every part of the world (with one glaring omission). I love its message of hope for better, and how we all have the capacity to affect positive change. As the heroine Tracer says, “the world could always…

Halo 5 Forge Experts Are Remaking Halo Infinite Demo

Halo Infinite may have been delayed until next year, but Halo fans are busy trying to recreate the world shown in its first gameplay trailer inside of the last Halo game. Halo 5: Guardians is five years old at this point and hasn’t gotten a major update in quite some time. But its map making…

How Microsoft Flight Simulator Makes The Ground Look So Good

While in-air screenshots and footage from the latest installment of Microsoft Flight Simulator are gorgeous, it’s not too shabby at ground level either, depending on which of the three different cityscape rendering types the game uses. YouTuber ObsidianAnt shows us the difference between handcrafted, auto-generated, and photogrammetry-built cities. In their video, ObsidianAnt uses the game’s…

Ask Kotaku: What Was The First Game That Disappointed You?

It’s Monday, and that means it’s time for Ask Kotaku, the weekly feature in which Kotaku’s rank and file weigh in on the burning questions of our times. Sometimes serious, sometimes less so. Mostly it’s just another excuse to talk vidya games. You down? This week on Ask Kotaku: What was the first game that…