At Bethesda’s PAX Fan Event, The Fallout 76 Faithful Gather

“I’m a little worried,” I overhear someone say while we wait in line for Bethesda’s fan event at PAX East. “There’s a live Q&A.” The line-waiter was talking about an upcoming panel discussion with some of Fallout 76’s developers, including director Todd Howard. But the live panel came and came and went without incident. No…

‘Skyrim Grandma’ Will Be An NPC In The Elder Scrolls VI

Shirley Curry, the 82-year-old grandmother and YouTuber known for her Skyrim videos, will make an appearance in The Elder Scrolls VI. Bethesda will use photogrammetry technology to scan the legendary Skyrim enthusiast and add her to the game. Bethesda revealed new information about the technology behind The Elder Scrolls VI today at PAX East during…

Valve Breaks Silence Around Artifact, Says It Plans To Fix ‘Deep-Rooted’ Issues

In the past week, Artifact’s peak concurrent player count hasn’t even reached 500. Mere months after its November 28 launch, the Valve-developed card game is floundering. Now the Artifact team has decided it’s time to reshuffle the deck. In a blog post breaking the lengthy silence surrounding the DOTA 2 spin-off’s uncertain future, Valve admitted…

Pro Removed From $1 Million Magic Tournament Accused Of Harassing Women

On Wednesday, one of the most prominent players in the Magic: The Gathering scene was unceremoniously dropped from this weekend’s first-ever $1 million tournament for the strategy card game. Since then, as questions have been raised about the unspecified reasons behind Turtenwald’s removal, sources have told Kotaku that the player has engaged in inappropriate behavior…

Overwatch Pro Blocks Racist Message With His Own Face During Stream

During a recent stream, New York Excelsior Overwatch player and impossibly pleasant married person Jong-ryeol “Saebyeolbe” Park came up against a particularly unpleasant foe. Another player decided to use Overwatch’s in-game notification system to spam Saebyeolbe with a racist message he couldn’t immediately block. The racist assbag in question continuously sent Saebyeolbe friend requests using…

A Filmmaker Thinks He Can Turn Clicker Universal Paperclips Into A Movie

Clicker-ish game Universal Paperclips may be getting a feature-length film treatment, the New Yorker first reported yesterday. Intrigued and a little confused, Kotaku spoke with the filmmaker over e-mail this morning to get more details. When the average person thinks of a video game movie, they might recall Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Resident Evil,…

The Controversial Assassin’s Creed III Is More Impressive In 2019

It’s so refreshing to play Assassin’s Creed III now, nearly seven years after its controversial release. The game’s debut was marred by misleading marketing, a surprising game structure, and a lot of bugs, but I always liked the rough-edged yet fascinating adventure the game’s creators actually built. Playing the new remastered game on my PS4…

Far Cry 4 Director’s New Game Is About Exploration And Commercialism

Journey to the Savage Planet was a bit of a surprise when it was announced at the most recent Game Awards. The development studio, Typhoon Studios, comprises several Assassin’s Creed alumni, and the wacky science-fiction antics in the trailer were a far cry from those games. It was hard to grasp exactly what the game…

Watch Out For Smash Balls In This Weekend’s Nintendo-Sanctioned Tournament

The finals for the Smash Ultimate North America Open kick off at 1 p.m. ET, live at PAX East in Boston and streaming on Nintendo’s YouTube. This is a Nintendo-sanctioned Smash tournament, so the rules are less strict than your typical competitive Smash tournament. Items will be on (albeit set to “low”), and so will…

Marvel Science: The Challenge Of Domesticating War Rhinos

Some 12,000 years ago, humans chose to domesticate much of the world that surrounds us. This intervention steered our evolution and the evolution of many plants and animals, transitioning our hunter-gatherer society into settled agriculture. Can we domesticate any animal? How does domestication work? And most importantly, can we domesticate rhinos as war mounts, as…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for having volunteered to go to something annoyingly far from my house, but there are worse ways to spend a Saturday morning than reading on a long commute. The weekend is also for video games. I’m excited to check out Risk of Rain 2. I own Risk of Rain on both my…

Square Enix is trying to get players back into Final Fantasy XI by helping them reactivate their old accounts. At PAX East in Boston, the company has a tiny station next to its giant Final Fantasy XIV showcase where someone will use your original email or other info to try and perform some internet archeology.

The Underground, Activist Gaming Scene In Communist Czechoslovakia

In the ’80s in Czechoslovakia, a Soviet-dominated state under a communist regime, a small contingent of gamers were cannibalizing ping pong balls, drawer handles and calculator keys to use as track balls, joysticks and buttons. At that time, video games were “the least censored media in the country,” according to Jaroslav Švelch, author of Gaming…

My Sims Won’t Freaking Stay In One Place To Finish A Meal

Where do you eat dinner? At the table? On the couch? In your bed? If you’re a Sim, you eat all of your meals at all three of those places consecutively during the same meal. I’m freaking sick of it. In The Sims 4, Sims refuse to sit and stay seated while they eat. I…