Nintendo’s Arms Gets Its Last New Character

Nintendo’s carnivalesque boxing game Arms, released in June, just received what looks like its final content update. Arms 5.0 just dropped along with the new fighter Dr. Coyle, the “empress of the ARMS lab,” and was appended by an announcement that, from now on, Arms will only be receiving balance patches. “As a big update,…

Catherine Remake Is Already Causing Controversy

The debut trailer for Catherine: Full Body, the PS4 and PS Vita Catherine remake, is causing controversy for its portrayal of the game’s third romance option. You can watch the trailer below: The scenes causing controversy are towards the end. Here’s Kotaku UK’s Laura Kate Dale: Vincent, the protagonist, looks shocked and dismayed when looking…

Junkrat Thinks Overwatch Is A Stealth Game

Watch your back, Solid Snake. Seriously. Junkrat is about as far from a stealth character as you can get in Overwatch, or video games in general, for that matter. He makes things go boom. Also, himself. But there is a certain subtle art to deploying his ult, the explosive riptire. I’ve just never seen anybody…

Civilization VI Is Out On iPad, And It’s $60

Hahahah, a $60 iPad game, in 2017, would you get a look at that. Only in this case, it’s not as insane as it sounds. With the series having endured a half-assed history on mobile devices, Aspyr (long-time porters of Firaxis’ series to Apple computers) has surprisingly dropped Civilization VI on the App Store for…

Maybe Adding VR To LA Noire Was A Mistake

Not now, Phelps! L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files was supposed to make Rockstar’s detective caper classic more realistic than ever by nestling you deep inside the uncanny valley that is Cole Phelps’ face. Perhaps, though, the world was not ready for Phelps to have fully-functioning hands. Perhaps it will never be ready, as evidenced…

Gwent Players Aren’t Happy With The Game’s Big New Update

This week the Midwinter Update for Gwent, CD Projeckt Red’s card game based off The Witcher 3, finally went live. Gwent, which is still in beta, gets patched pretty regularly, but not like this. Popular cards have seen their abilities simplified and weakened, and text descriptions that added flavor to the game have now been…

Tiny Metal Is The Modern Successor To Advance Wars

Nintendo used to have a big strategy series called Advance Wars. It’s dead now, crushed beneath Fire Emblem’s growing popularity, but those hoping for a return to the days of cute lil’ tanks should definitely check out Tiny Metal It doesn’t take long with Tiny Metal to realise this isn’t inspired by Advance Wars so…

Majority of Battlegrounds Cheats Are From China, PlayerUnknown Says [UPDATE]

Many PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds players blame the game’s cheating problem on China. They’re not wrong, says the popular battle royale game’s creator Brendan Greene. But there’s more to it than that. “Battleye have already tweeted out that I think around 99 percent of cheats in the game right now are coming out of China,” Greene told…

The World’s Top Tetris Player’s Secret To Success Is Learning To Embrace Chaos

Of the eight Classic Tetris World Championships that have ever been held, Jonas Neubauer has won seven. The 36-year-old Neubauer, a microbrewery manager from Redondo Beach outside LA, bought the Nintendo Entertainment System version of Tetris after seeing it on the front cover of Nintendo Power magazine in November 1990 when he was eight, and…

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp’s Gardening Is Cute, If You Have The Time

Gardening has come to Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp today, and with it more things to spend Leaf Tickets on. I never really got into planting flowers in the console versions of Animal Crossing. I’d always forget where I planted them, not water them, and then they’d wilt and die. Pocket Camp makes gardening easier. Instead…

Illness Cost This Woman A Job. Now She Streams Diablo II From A Farm

“My mom always likes to say that I was hatched,” Diablo 2 streamerAlara Shadelaughed. We were sitting in her streaming headquarters, a totem-filled temple to the 2001 dark fantasy role-playing game. The walls were decked with flaming skulls, glistening black swords and figurines of sub-human beasts. Outside her window, a dozen horses milled about, alongside…

The Year In Ships, 2017

In fandom, the rules of fiction don’t matter, or at least matter a lot less. This is what allows shipping to exist, where fans write fanfiction, draw fanart, and get enthusiastic by a couple that may never happen in the game’s canon. Fandoms for video games this year were enthusiastic and loud, and sometimes cropped…

The Switch Gets An Excellent 2D Zelda Clone Today

Nintendo has not yet released a two-dimensional Zelda game for the Switch, but Blossom Tales is as close as you’re gonna get. If you’re looking for a new action-adventure to scratch that Link to the Past itch, this one’s for you. Blossom Tales, which came out for Steam earlier this year but is now on…

The Biggest Video Game Disappointments Of 2017

This year, some things were unexpectedly good. But a lot of things sucked, too. Let’s put all those sucky things into a big list. As we do every year at Kotaku, it’s time to take a look back on the highs and lows of the last 12 months. Today, we’ll focus on the lows. (See:…

Virtual reality just lost another big exclusive. Ubisoft’s cross-platform starship simulator Star Trek Bridge Crew, one of my favorite games of the year, has been patched to be playable without VR. That’s great news for Star Trek fans without virtual reality headsets, not-so-great news for VR in general.

Eric’s Top 10 Games Of 2017

In 2017, I played a lot of games, but only 10 could make the cut for this blog. Culling the herd to just 10 was heartbreaking and required intense soul-searching. In no particular order, the best games I played in 2017: Battle Chef Brigade It’s exciting enough that a competitive cooking show game got made,…

Five Things That Are Still Broken In Battlegrounds Even After ‘Launch’

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is finally, officially released. After such a rich life in early access—a life haunted by glitches and server outages—I bet you’re wondering how Battlegrounds is holding up after its 1.0 debut. Well, Battlegrounds in 1.0 is still the glitchy, adrenaline-filled, totally random game that has seduced millions. I love this game as much…