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CultureChina’s Steam Only Has 53 Games
Steam is now available in China, and if you thought that would give Chinese gamers instant access to the weird, wonderful and sometimes deeply offensive depths of the service’s catalogue, well lol, no, of course it doesn’t. At time of posting this custom, localised version of Valve’s shopfront only has 53 games available, with the…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 9, 2021 -
CultureBloodborne Modder Releases Long-Awaited 60 FPS Hack
Bloodborne can now be played with smooth 60 frames-per-second visuals thanks to the long-anticipated release of an unofficial patch. You will need a modded PlayStation 4 to try it out, however, preferably a PS4 Pro. The patch’s creator, Lance McDonald, is something of a video game archaeologist, with cool stuff on his resume like discovering…
By Ian Walker Published February 9, 2021 -
OpinionImpressionsDestiny 2‘s Season Of The Chosen Is Good So Far
Season of the Chosen went live in Destiny 2 today, and with it a whole new set of things to grind for. So far, these things—new armor, guns, and exotic gear—seem pretty cool, with interesting new perks to make them worth chasing. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t already feeling daunted by…
By Ethan Gach Published February 9, 2021 -
EsportsConor McGregor Is Obsessed With Nate Diaz’s Gamer Chair
Today, Conor McGregor, famous for falling asleep in public, saw a gamer chair for seemingly the first time in his life. He thinks it’s incredibly funny that it looks kind of like a race car seat, and he really, really wants everybody to know. McGregor, one of the highest-paid people in all of sports, made…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 9, 2021 -
CultureKotaku Game Diary17 Years Later And I Still Can’t Beat Hannibal In Age Of Empires
Xbox Game Pass has once again proven its worth by allowing me to confront a bully of my past: the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca. Yes, I’m serious. Every night for the last two weeks, when normal people would wind down for bed with a nice hot mug of tea and their favorite background noise show,…
By Ash Parrish Published February 9, 2021 -
CultureRiot’s CEO Is Being Sued For Sexual Harassment
Riot Games CEO Nicolo Laurent is being sued by former employee Sharon O’Donnell, who is alleging Laurent committed repeated acts of sexual harassment over a number of years, including asking her to “cum” to his house while his wife was away. O’Donnell, who was Laurent’s executive assistant, alleges that the CEO, “began a pattern of…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 9, 2021 -
CulturePS5 Controllers Are Drifting, And The Repairs Are A Hassle
Few things about the PlayStation 5 are better than the DualSense controller. It feels terrific to hold, somehow just as solid as it is light. The haptics are truly dynamic, at least for games that offer such support. It’s beautiful. But even the mighty DualSense reportedly isn’t immune to the Achilles’ heel of modern video…
By Ari Notis Published February 9, 2021 -
Tips & GuidesOvercooked 2 Is Free On Switch This Weekend, If You Want To Be Alone On Valentine’s Day
Have any plans cooked up for Valentine’s Day? From tomorrow through February 16, relationship ruining co-op game Overcooked 2 will be playable at no extra cost for anyone with a Nintendo Switch Online membership—“just in time for Valentine’s Day!” Overcooked 2 is a game that involves preparing meals in the pressure-cooker environment of a busy…
By Ari Notis Published February 9, 2021 -
CultureKotaku Game DiaryI Hope This Final Fantasy XIV NPC Finally Got To Take A Dump
One meets a variety of NPCs while playing Final Fantasy XIV. Some can be pretty annoying—looking at you, Thancred—while others are instantly memorable. A poor Ishgardian sentry who desperately needs to find a bathroom while her country is being invaded by dragons falls into the latter category. At the beginning of Final Fantasy XIV’s patch…
By Ian Walker Published February 9, 2021 -
CulturePokémon World Championships Skip 2021 Over Covid-19 Concerns
After canceling in-person competition in 2020 due to the rise of the covid-19 pandemic, The Pokémon Company announced it will skip official tournaments through 2021 as well. “The safety and well-being of our competitors, organizers, employees, local communities, and partners [continue] to be our top priority and is the primary consideration with every decision we…
By Ian Walker Published February 9, 2021 -
CultureWhat We Loved About Hitman 3
If there’s one thing Kotaku can’t get enough of, it’s Hitman 3. Between the wide-open levels, rapid-fire costume changes, and throwable bananas, IO Interactive’s latest stealth sandbox has enraptured many of us. Three of us (staff writer Ari Notis, staff editor Lisa Marie Segarra, and weekend editor Zack Zweizen) snuck into one of Kotaku’s many…
Ari Notis & Lisa Marie Segarra & Zack Zwiezen Published February 9, 2021 -
CultureCrash Bandicoot 4 Comes To PS5, Xbox Series X/S And Switch March 12
The excellent if a bit sadistic Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time is about to get two upgrades and hopefully not too much of a downgrade on March 12, when the game launches for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch. Activision announced the next-gen and friend releases this morning, along with a PC…
By Mike Fahey Published February 9, 2021 -
CultureKotaku Game DiaryFor Nine Years, I Have Somehow Avoided Finding Out How Mass Effect 3 Ends
It didn’t start out as something I tried to do. It just happened. The year was 2012. I’d reached the point in Mass Effect 3 where it felt like I was one or two loose ends away from heading into the grand finale. Then, for various reasons, I stopped. It has been nearly a decade…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 9, 2021 -
ReviewsToys13 Sentinels Plushies Band Together To Save The World
Japanese toymaker Mamegyorai has transformed the teenage heroes of Atlus’ 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim into 14 adorable plushies, complete with puffy pompadours and magnetic hand-holding. I need them all. Available for pre-order on the Mamegyorai website for a March release, each of the 14 Aegis Rim characters has been reimagined in six-inch plushie form by…
By Mike Fahey Published February 9, 2021 -
OpinionImpressionsOver 10 Hours With Bravely Default II
Bravely Default II offers a return to a simpler time where heroes lined up on one side of the screen, fought monsters on the other side of the screen, and then rinsed and repeated until peace and tranquility were brought back to the land. I’ve spent over 10 hours with it, and while what I’ve…
By Ethan Gach Published February 9, 2021 -
CultureEA Buys Glu Mobile For $2.1 Billion
EA adds a massive amount of mobile gaming power to its portfolio with the $2.1 billion acquisition of San Francisco-based Glu Mobile, makers of Diner Dash, Cooking Dash, Restaurant Dash: Gordon Ramsay, and Kim Kardashian: Hollywood … Dash. Nothing accelerates the growth of a company’s mobile business like acquiring an already massively successful mobile business.…
By Mike Fahey Published February 9, 2021 -
AnimeThe Original Voice of Studio Ghibli’s Porco Rosso Has Died At 86 Years Old
Shuichiro Moriyama, known for his acting and voice work, has passed away after entering a hospital in Saitama, Japan for pneumonia. He was 86. Moriyama had a long, varied career. Not only did he appear in Japanese theater, live-action TV shows, and feature films like 1996’s Shall We Dance?, he also did a range of…
By Brian Ashcraft Published February 9, 2021 -
Kotaku EastJapanThe Pokémon Company Screwed Up A Plushie And Is Sorry
Official Pokémon retail shops released a Magnemite plushie featuring a pretty significant mistake. Many people might not even spot the error at first glance, but those who are drawn to the electric steel Pokémon certainly will. Compare the official art (above) with the plush toy mistake (below). Can you spot the snafu? Surely the big…
By Brian Ashcraft Published February 9, 2021 -
CultureCD Projekt Red Hit By Cyber Attack, Source Code For Cyberpunk 2077 And Witcher 3 Held For Ransom
CD Projekt Red is the latest game company to be hit by a cyber attack. The company released a statement on Twitter this morning saying an “unidentified actor” has hacked some of its systems, and included a screenshot of the ransom note. Accessed data includes source code for some of the studio’s games, alongside internal…
By Brian Ashcraft Published February 9, 2021 -
AnimeDecades Later, Sailor Saturn’s Transformation Scene Appears In Anime
For well over two decades, we haven’t seen the henshin shiin (変身シーン) or “transformation scene” from Sailor Moon’s Sailor Saturn in an anime. That is, it seems, until now. The upcoming feature film Sailor Moon Eternal will apparently feature the on-screen transformation of Hotaru Tomoe into Sailor Saturn. Parts of the sequence appear in the…
By Brian Ashcraft Published February 9, 2021