What Are You Playing This Weekend? 

The weekend is for finally cleaning your room because you’re pretty sure that luggage from your February trip back to New England doesn’t need to be there anymore. Also, video games. I’ve powered my way through Yakuza 6: The Song of Life and God Of War over the last few weeks and learned a lot…

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle Character Provides Bootleg Training Mode In Limited Beta

The fighting game community is currently exploring BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle via a beta test to uncover its secrets before the official May 31 release date. But as is often the case, this demo is limited to a handful of modes and doesn’t include a built-in place to practice solo, forcing players to use one…

Destiny 2 Players Think They’ve Found An Elaborate Puzzle [UPDATE: Solved]

There may be a complicated puzzle hidden inside Destiny 2‘s newest expansion, Warmind. Or maybe excited fans just want there to be. Either way, it’s been fun to watch. UPDATE (5/12, 9:33am): It’s solved. Read more here The madness started when Destiny 2 players found an elaborate symbol on a wall in the bunker of…

Microsoft One-Ups Sony And Nintendo By Allowing Game-Gifting On Xbox One

While it’s been possible to gift video games to people on digital PC storefronts like Steam for years, Xbox One is now the first modern console to offer it. Microsoft has offered the option to Xbox One Insiders since last fall, and later expanded it to more people for select games. Today, Microsoft is enabling…

Monster Hunter: World’s New Street Fighter Quest Is Tough

Monster Hunter: World’s Ryu armor was a silly trophy costume that was underpowered. The good news is that hunters looking to buff their gear can finally get an upgraded version. The bad news? You’ll have to fight one of the game’s most tenacious—and annoying—monsters. The new Monster Hunter has been crossing over with Street Fighter…

Ask The Staff Of Kotaku Anything

Hello! The staff of Kotaku will be here to answer any and all of your finest questions for the next couple of hours. Join the fun below.

Happy Friday! Here’s a puzzle to do while you’re pretending to work. Use the comments if you want to collaborate, but avoid them if you’d rather work it out yourself! If you’re still stumped, we’ll reveal the answer on Monday.

Jane Austen Video Game Mocks A Society Obsessed With Marriage

In the opening to the 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen wrote, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” In the new 2018 video game Austen Translation, you play as a woman who’ll do anything to win over…

UFC Champ Crushed By PUBG‘s Circle, Somehow Wins Anyway

This afternoon’s entertainment is brought to you by UFC champion (who somehow finds time to have an entire professional video game streaming career on the side) Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson. Prepare to witness a full spectrum of emotions in a mere 30 seconds. Usually, when the PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds circle closes, it heralds either a tense…

Lu Over The Wall Is A Delightful Film About Mermaids, Music, And Growing Up

In one scene in anime movie Lu over the Wall, a band of incognito high schoolers stuff a mermaid in a cooler for their gig at a fishing town’s lantern festival commemorating loved ones lost at sea. The mermaid is Lu, a music fiend who can magically inspire raucous tunes. She’s the band’s ticket to…

Netflix Witcher Writer Tries To Smooth Unfounded Racial Fears About The Show

When Lauren S. Hissrich, the showrunner of the upcoming Witcher Netflix show, posted a picture of her writer’s room to Twitter, a vocal minority took umbrage at how diverse the writers were. By engaging with these people, Hissrich gave us all an interesting look into how The Witcher is being produced. The Witcher is a…

PS4 Parappa Is Running On A PSP Emulator, Hackers Discover

This week, hackers discovered that the PlayStation 4’s “remastered” version of of Parappa The Rapper is actually the 2006 PSP version of the game running on a PSP emulator. As a result, other hackers with jailbroken PS4s have been seeing how they can use Parappa The Rapper to emulate other PSP games on the home…

Apparently You Can Just Murder Pitchers In This Baseball Video Game

Look. Pitchers getting hit in the head by batted balls happens all the time, and is no joke. But I dare you to watch this Super Mega Baseball 2 clip from Giant Bomb producer and Mario Maker nightmare creator Dan Ryckert and not laugh: The pitcher’s apparent death is incredibly satisfying, from the ball hitting…

So Many Sequels, I Can’t Keep Up

If I ever get back to my 3DS, I might get back to a 2016 Mario & Luigi game that I still haven’t finished, in part because, when it came out, I still was in the middle of playing the 2013 Mario & Luigi that came out before it. I used to be on top…

Shadow of the Tomb Raider Cost $75-$100 Million To Make, Eidos Says

Video game budgets are higher than they’ve ever been, and the new Tomb Raider is yet another example of that inflation, helping illustrate why big publishers are so desperate to get players to spend more than $60 on their games. “Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and other different AAA single-player games, cost $75 million to…

Is It Time To Finally Upgrade Your Console?

It’s hard to deny the appeal of a PlayStation 4 Pro, especially for those of us still playing on 1080p TV’s or those of us enjoying games with performance modes. The moment I changed that one setting and experienced combat in a smooth 60 frames per second in God of War, there was no way…