Then And Now: Talking To Retired Pro Gamers About The Rise Of Esports

Dave “Walshy” Walsh first started competing at Halo in 2002. Back then, the term “esports” hadn’t yet entered the lexicon, pro gamers rarely earned the big bucks, and competitions were all about the love of the game and discovering who played the best. These days, Walshy still works in the pro gaming field as a…

NCsoft Launches A Slightly Different Sort Of MOBA

Launched today in Europe and North America, Master X Master (MXM) is an free-to-play PC action MOBA featuring WASD movement and a tag system that lets players bring their choice of two NCsoft all-star champions (Masters) into the arena at once, swapping them out on the fly. It’s hard to get excited for a new…

The Upside Of Making A Big E3 Demo

The developers of Days Gone spent nearly three months developing their big E3 demo, but it wasn’t just for sizzle. The game’s creative director says building the demo helped them figure out whether parts of their zombie game were actually fun to play. Speaking on an episode of Kotaku Splitscreen during E3 last week, Days…

How To Unlock Swimming In Final Fantasy XIV Stormblood

One of the coolest new features introduced in Final Fantasy XIV’s Stormblood expansion is the ability to swim and dive, exploring exotic underwater locales. Anyone can tread water, but to go deep you’ve got to talk to some turtles. Final Fantasy XIV Stormblood Spoilers Follow Just like learning to fly in the Heavensward expansion, gaining…

30 Minutes With Call of Duty WWII: Thrilling, But Familiar

Last week at E3, I got to play multiple rounds of Call of Duty: WWII’s multiplayer. While the core experience feels similar to previous games, a focus on presentation and a new story-based mode made things much more interesting than recent entries in the series. My main takeaway from my time playing Call of Duty:…

My Search For The Best Kart In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

I wanted to find the best kart to use in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Easier said than done. No one can build the best kart immediately. This game starts out by providing you with all of the racing tracks and all but one of its characters (Gold Mario, who has the same stats as Metal…

Pokémon Go Starts Giving Cheaters Marks Of Shame [UPDATE]

Pokémon Go’s war against cheaters continues to intensify, with Niantic now giving out digital scarlet letters of sorts. On Reddit, a verified Niantic support account alerted players to a new feature coming to Pokémon Go: With the announcement of Raid Battles and the new battle features, we are staying true on our commitment to ensuring…

I played 20 minutes of Paradox’s new city builder, Surviving Mars, at E3. The demo showed off different phases of planet colonization, from early moments establishing a livable area to later on, when I had multiple inhabited domes to work with. The game draws on real-world science and seems complex. If, however, you want more…

Pillars of Eternity Comes To PS4 And Xbox One

Pillars of Eternity is coming to consoles, following in the footsteps of other big isometric role-playing games like Torment and Divinity. It’ll be out for PS4 and Xbox One on August 29. I got to play a brief demo of the PS4 version at E3 last week, and the new user interface seems like a…

“PPAP” Singer Now Doing Layton’s Mystery Journey Puzzles

The Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen guy is doing puzzles to mark the upcoming release of Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaire’s Conspiracy. This particular one seems kind of tricky! Can you figure it out? The iOS and Android versions of Layton’s Mystery Journey will be released worldwide on July 20. It will hit the 3DS this fall.…

Fallout 4 Modder Makes Joke ‘Creation Club’ That Spits Out Random Items

Bethesda’s Creation Club is a new program that’ll allow select development teams and modders to develop, polish, and release Fallout 4 and Skyrim content alongside Todd Howard’s magical toy factory. Modder CDante’s “Creation Club” is a different kind of club entirely. A golf club. CDante’s new Fallout 4 mod The Creation Club adds a golf…

A Very Detailed Look Inside Finn & Jake’s House From Adventure Time

Max Degtyarev is an artist from Russia who specialises in cutaways, my most sacred of artistic fetishes. One of his latest works is Adventure Time’s Tree Fort, and it brings a ridiculously detailed and realistic vision to the cartoon universe. Below you’ll see not just the full illustration, but some detail shots as well showing…

Elite‘s Aliens Will Be A Nightmare To Fight

Since 2015, Elite Dangerous players have felt some kind of alien presence hovering on the periphery of their space trucking adventures. Recently, things came to a head, with players making direct contact with Thargoid ships on multiple occasions. Where is this all going? I spoke with senior designer Sandy Sammarco during E3 to find out.…