Despite video games’ best efforts to make me spend my time staring down at the floor and picking up random junk, I keep looking up to the skies above and the stars beyond. 2019 was full of lovely depictions of both.

Today McFarlane Toys announced a three-year agreement to produce action figures based on CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077. The first wave includes two different sizes of Keanu Reeves’ character Johnny Silverhand, because who cares about any other Cyberpunk 2077 character at this point? Oh, and there’s a generic male…

Fortnite has gotten into the winter spirit. Snow covers sections of the map, there are Christmas trees to dance in front of, and the Winterfest event features a cabin with presents to open. As of today, blizzards are occasionally whiting out portions of the map.

The end of the year is gift-giving season for many people, so chances are good that you, dear reader, just received at least one brand new video game. You’ve installed that thing, and you’re ready to dive right in. You just have a couple of questions about, uh, how to play it. We’re here to help.

I’ve always been fascinated by Christmas music. It’s incredibly odd that we have a whole genre of popular music dedicated to the last month of the year, some of it awful, some of it charming, most of it involving sleigh bells. I like the oddball tunes most of all: “Last Christmas” by Wham!, “Don’t Shoot Me Santa…

There comes a time when every person must sit back, think about their life’s accomplishments, and wonder, “What JRPGs should I play?”

Did Santa leave a shiny new Ouya under your tree this morning? Or maybe a Nanica Smitch?

Longtime Kotaku heads will know that I’m a big fan of the Trails series, an ambitious set of Japanese role-playing games that tell a sprawling, epic story of love and warfare. This year, I fell behind on the series, but one thing’s helped me catch up: the fast forward button.

The new Star Wars movie is full of fetch quests and clearly went through some sort of development hell. Sounds a lot like a video game! On this SPOILER-FILLED bonus episode of Kotaku Splitscreen, we discuss.

My 2019 in games was weird. The year’s biggest offerings—games like Jedi: Fallen Order, Death Stranding, and Pokemon Sword and Shield—weren’t my style. My recent sobriety often pulled me away from my gaming PC, as my interests expanded to include running, rock climbing, and being in pain from getting into sports in my…

2019 was U.S. toy fans’ first full year without Toys’R’Us, or at least Toys’R’Us as we once knew it. Desperate Americans were forced to buy from non-dedicated toy sellers, with their lower prices and convenient one-stop shopping. It was a nightmare, but somehow we made it through with some pretty cool stuff. Let’s…

Large groups of EVE Online players often band together for safety, security, and shared prosperity, which eventually leads to solidified power blocs that are so deeply entrenched in their positions that the game begins to stagnate. These massive player kingdoms can amass everything they need, so there’s not a lot of…

It’s been a challenging year for many reasons here at Kotaku—well, really just one reason—and I don’t know what the future will bring, but I do know that 2019 had a lot of really cool video games. Let’s talk about them, shall we?

2019 was a truly bountiful year for video games. We received countless games of peerless quality, some not falling far from the hoary old tree of Genre, with others inventing new genres all by themselves. It is not difficult to draw lines between some of these standouts: Dota Underlords and Teamfight Tactics, Sekiro an…

If you woke up this morning, checked Twitter (sorry), and saw that Splatoon 3 was a top trending topic, you might have wondered if Nintendo was delivering an inky Christmas miracle. Sadly for squid lovers, it was all just a big misunderstanding.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker is upon us, ending the sequel trilogy and sparking plenty of debate. The final chapter of Rey and Kylo Ren’s story brings new locations and evil goons, some of which have been added to Star Wars Battlefront II. This batch of content rounds out what was initially a troubled game, and it…