The ‘Magic Formula’ Behind Horizon: Zero Dawn‘s Success

SURPRISE! It’s a bonus episode of Kotaku Splitscreen, featuring Guerrilla Games’ boss Hermen Hulst, who shares some insight as to how Horizon: Zero Dawn turned out so special. In this 20-minute interview, Hulst and I talked about how Guerrilla went from the dark gritty landscapes of Killzone to the vibrant world of Horizon, how they…

Sunday Comics: Defenseless Ghosts

Hello! It’s time for Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published March 5th. Read more of Awkward Zombie Corpse Run by Alex Di Stasi. From the archive, originally published August 2011. Read more of Corpse…

Overwatch Pro Stomps Former Team That Benched Him

It’s been a good day for Chan-hyung “Fissure” Baek. The tank player, who spent stage one on the bench as part of London Spitfire, came roaring out the gate with his new team, LA Gladiators, and stomped London, likely giving their management some things to think about in the process. From start-to-finish of today’s Overwatch…

Battlefield 1 Players Discover A Jaunty Easter Egg

Battlefield 1’s easter eggs are normally big things like giant sharks or flying houses, but this small musical reload animation is just as funny as any of those spectacular ones. Normally when you reload a machine gun, you just get a clunky rolling noise. It’s metal on metal. However, according to a Reddit thread dedicated…

The NHL Is Hosting An International Tournament For NHL 18

It looks like hockey will joining the growing trend of tsports getting into esports. The National Hockey League will host the 2018 NHL Gaming World Championship, where fans of the virtual ice can compete for a share of a $100,000 prize pool and a chance to be a part of the 2018 NHL awards. The…

A Massive Bloodborne Community Event Is Happening Right Now

Return To Yharnam is a Bloodborne community event that is happening right now. It’s all about bringing longterm fans back into the game, and people are really getting into it. As I reported last week, Return To Yharnam is occurring at a great crossroads in time. Playstation Plus members recently received a copy of Bloodborne…

Northgard Demands That You Take Winter Seriously

Northgard is a different kind of strategy game. It is about map control, sure, and there are resources to be gathered and enemies to defeat. In many ways, though, its unique combination of mechanics and concerns generates a fresh context for those actions. I’m a slow strategy game player. I’m not a fast learner when…

Fortnite is getting cross-play and cross-progression between Xbox One, PC, Mac, iOS and, eventually, Android. The development team announced a similar set of features for the Playstation 4 earlier this week

The Weekend In Esports: Straight From The DPC

The race for the 2018 Dota 2 International is heating up. Thanks to today’s win over Team Liquid at the Bucharest Major, Virtus.Pro is the first team to punch a ticket to The International. At 6297, the team’s Pro Circuit point total is high enough that it could essentially do nothing until the big dance…

Heather is grinding scales and bashing barroth in Monster Hunter World now on Twitch. If you have a Ps4, you can join with session ID 3kmci8KCFaBh.

A Clash Between Two Fighting Game Legends Ends In Tears And Resolve

At last night’s Kemonomichi 2, two of Street Fighter’s best-known players played an exhibition set. It was a clash of the giants that ended in emotion, laughter, and tears. It was one of the best fighting game sets I’ve seen in some time. Daigo Umehara and Hajime “Tokido” Taniguchi are eminent within the fighting game…

Battlegrounds‘ Latest Anti-Cheat Patch Is Causing A Lot of Problems [UPDATE]

On Friday night, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds received a patch dedicated to anti-cheat measures. Many players are reporting that this patch has resulted in their inability to launch the PUBG client. Others are saying that the game has taken a massive performance hit. As of this morning, it still seems that PUBG Corporation are trying to figure…

This Week In The Business: Violence, Shame

QUOTE | “Every shot is in colossally bad taste and everyone associated with those games should be ashamed of themselves. They hurt us.” – Deus Ex and System Shock developer Warren Spector was upset by the White House’s video game violence montage produced for a meeting with industry leaders and critics. QUOTE | “We appreciate…

Dark Souls Expert Beats Entire Series Without Getting Hit

Back in 2016, streamer The_Happy_Hob pulled off the world’s first no-hit run of Dark Souls, a feat that left series director Hidetaka Miyazaki in a state of disbelief. Now he’s topped himself—three times over. After 12 months of work and some crushingly painful setbacks, The_Happy_Hob has completed Dark Souls 1, 2, and 3 back to back…

Popular Twitch Mod Is Sorry For All The Revenge Porn [UPDATE]

This past Wednesday, a former moderator for Overwatch League’s Twitch channel who goes by the handle Uncleswagg posted about having been unceremoniously demoted from his duties with no explanation from Blizzard. On Thursday, former Blizzard employee and World of Warcraft streamer Cher Scarlett came forward to say that Uncleswagg had non-consensually posted naked photographs of…

All The Times Valve Has Said Vague Things About Making Games In The Past Decade

Valve is back in the news again for a presentation it recently gave about its new Dota-inspired card game Artifact and its plans for the future. In addition to explaining how the new game will work, CEO Gabe Newell said the company is definitely still making games, adding to a litany of past statements about…

Dragon Ball Super Action Figures Play Well With Others

Bandai America’s Dragon Ball Super Dragon Stars action figures have been flying off the shelves since the release of Dragon Ball FighterZ earlier this year, as fans and collectors scramble to pick up their favorite characters. I got hold of the first three waves, tore them open, and made them do stuff. Fun stuff. The…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for bribing yourself to do laundry by promising yourself cookies. Also, video games. Snowy battle royale game The Darwin Project is in early access now, which means I can play it whenever I want! I’m pretty excited to lose terribly but hilariously. To my great shame, I have yet to play Gwent’s…

I Played Super Seducer So You Don’t Have To

Dating is supposed to be fun—in theory. In practice, it can alternate between being frustrating and boring, punctuated with moments of pure distilled anxiety. This is never more true than when you don’t feel like you know what you’re doing. Suddenly, every option feels like it leads to the option where you change your name,…