A Note About The Work That Goes Into Our Game Reviews

We’ve informally done this for a while, but we recently officially committed to a plan at Kotaku to give staff who play a game after-hours for a deadline—usually for a game review—time off in exchange. If you’re a reader of our reviews, I hope you’ll appreciate us solidifying this approach. Playing a game for a…

Heather is settling in for some deviously delicious demon demolishing in Nioh 2 right now on Twitch Come for character creation, katanas, and more.

Destiny 2’s Latest Season Is Off To A Rough Start

I’ve spent around seven hours with Season of the Worthy. That’s not nearly enough time to pass judgment on the changes and new content that will be reverberating throughout Destiny 2 over the next few months. But I can say that those seven hours have been some of the most underwhelming I’ve spent getting to…

Tips For Dying Less In Ori And The Will Of The Wisps

Ori and the Will of the Wisps is one of 2020’s prettiest platformers, but don’t let its looks fool you. This game will destroy you. Whether it’s hyper-precise platforming or unrelenting combat, Ori has lots of chances to die. Here are some tips that should make the game a bit less of a gauntlet. Do…

How A Shovel Knight NPC Gets Made

The nuts and bolts of how games are made is often lost on players. Yacht Club Games published an excellent blog yesterday that shows what it takes to flesh out the world of Shovel Knight. Forget playable characters; even obscure NPCs go through a rigorous process of conceptualization and design before being added to the…

E3 2020 Cancelled

The biggest trade show in video games is skipping a year. E3 2020, which was planned to take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center this June, is cancelled as a result of the Covid-19 coronavirus that is currently spreading across the globe, the organizers of the conference said today. “After careful consultation with our…

Track: Shoryuken Doesn’t Come Out | Artist: The Lethal Weapons | Album: Shoryuken Doesn’t Come Out

BitSummit, the annual indie game event held in Kyoto, will not be held this May 9 and 10 due to coronavirus COVID-19 concerns. “Our plans are to continue working on the next edition of BitSummit,” organizers write, “and we will share more information about our plans in the coming weeks.”

Destiny 2 Players Can No Longer Show Off Some Of Their Favorite Stats [Update]

Today, Bungie improved the emblems Destiny 2 players use to express themselves to offer more customization options, but in the process wiped out some of players’ most coveted stats. Destiny 2 recieved a massive update today alongside the start of Season of the Worthy. It changed a lot of things, ranging from how the quest…

Warzone Feels More Like Call of Duty Than Blackout Ever Did

Call of Duty’s new free-to-play battle royale, called Warzone, arrived today. It’s a streamlined, fast-paced, no-fuss spin on the genre. Compared to Blackout, it feels much more like you’re still playing Call of Duty Available with cross-play on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, Warzone features 150-player matches. If you already own last year’s game…

First-Person Mario Lets You Shoot Goombas In The Dang Face

As part of Nintendo’s forced MAR10 holiday (March 10, Mario, get it?), developer Sean Noonan has released a beautiful rendition of Super Mario Bros. as a first-person shooter. Sure, the gun only shoots plungers, but I have to imagine Mario would take some satisfaction from being able to blow away hordes of Goombas. Noonan, a…