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CultureTrack: All Things Must Pass (2020 Mix / Audio) | Artist: George Harrison | Album: All Things Must Pass
By Brian Ashcraft Published December 9, 2020 -
CultureOdds and EndsMaking Battle For Middle Earth Sounded Terrible
If you think the conditions developers are working under now are bad, imagine what they were like 16 years ago. Actually, don’t imagine it, you could just read this account of what it was like making the classic Battle For Middle Earth instead. EA’s RTS is one of the best licensed games of the last…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 8, 2020 -
Culture‘Free’ Gears 5 Expansion Highlights Growing Divide For Game Pass Subscribers
Gears 5 is getting a new campaign expansion next week. It’ll be available at no extra cost for members of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, a $15-monthly subscription. Everyone else will have to pay up. It’s just one more perk suggesting a growing gulf between the entry-level and premium tiers of Microsoft’s games-on-demand service. The new…
By Ari Notis Published December 8, 2020 -
CultureA Lot Happened In Destiny Today
New content, upgrades for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and new information about long-awaited features coming in future seasons: Destiny 2 had a big day today, so let’s break it all down. First, the big one: Destiny 2: Beyond Light has now been optimized for next-gen consoles. I’ve played dozens of hours of Destiny 2…
By Ethan Gach Published December 8, 2020 -
CultureHalo Infinite Isn’t Coming Out Until Fall 2021 At The Earliest
343 Studios just announced that Halo Infinite—a game that was supposed to launch alongside the Xbox Series X last month—now won’t be released until at least Fall 2021. The lengthy delay was made in a long post on the studio’s site, and while it goes into all kinds of detail on features being added to…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 8, 2020 -
ReviewsMultiplatformYakuza: Like A Dragon: The Kotaku Review
After an exhausting run of seven main games, some spinoffs and the sandwiched-but-excellent Judgment, the Yakuza series entered a new era in 2020 with the release of Like a Dragon, which is trying to be something completely new, only it’s also not. It sure seems new. The star of Yakuzas 0-6, Kazuma Kiryu, snuck off…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 8, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsKate Bishop Makes Avengers Exciting Again, At Least For A Few Hours
The Kate Bishop version of Hawkeye has arrived as a new playable character for Marvel’s Avengers, bringing with her three or four hours of fresh single-player content to Square Enix’s stale co-op superhero game. To be fair, any new playable character would have had the same effect, but Kate is pretty damn great. Following the…
By Mike Fahey Published December 8, 2020 -
CultureOdds and EndsIt’s Super Easy To Make Kanye West In Demon’s Souls
Unlike the original Demon’s Souls, the PlayStation 5 remake includes a fairly robust character creation system. While I was mostly content to make a generic, purple-skinned lady for my first playthrough, folks have been able to craft some interesting characters. Someone also figured out how to make a decent Kanye West, if you want to…
By Ian Walker Published December 8, 2020 -
CultureFacebook’s New Program Pays Black Streamers To Help Them Go Full-Time
Facebook Gaming is far from the biggest video game streaming platform out there, but it has at least shown a tendency to put its money where its mouth is—a practice Twitch and other industry leaders could learn from. Today, Facebook announced a program to aid Black creators in their pursuit of full-time streaming careers. The…
By Nathan Grayson Published December 8, 2020 -
Tips & GuidesHow To Avoid Burnout And Finish Any Open-World Game
Do you ever feel like there are too many open-world games, and too many of them take up too much time? Just consider some offerings from this year alone. There’s Ghost of Tsushima, the gorgeous samurai action game, which can take you more than 60 hours to check off every objective. Ubisoft released not one…
By Ari Notis Published December 8, 2020 -
CulturePrince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time Remake Pushed Back To March 18
The upcoming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake won’t be able to make its original January 2021 release window, developer Ubisoft announced today. It will now arrive on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on March 18, 2021. “2020 has been a year like no other,” Ubisoft’s official statement reads. “We believe this…
By Ian Walker Published December 8, 2020 -
CultureReport: Cyberpunk 2077 Causes Seizure, Doesn’t Contain Prominent Warning [Update]
Game Informer associate editor Liana Ruppert reported yesterday that she suffered a grand mal seizure while playing a review copy of Cyberpunk 2077, due to the game’s use of various flashing visual effects. She wrote an articlefor the site advising players on how to avoid similar experiences, which in some rare instances can be life…
By Ethan Gach Published December 8, 2020 -
CultureMorning MusicCrisis!! Super Street Fighter II Turbo Weird-Version Music Deathmatch!
Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today, a knock-down, drag-out brawl to the death between two little-heard arranged versions of Capcom’s most enduring fighting game. Fight! 1994’s Super Street Fighter II Turbo (playlist / longplay / VGMdb) was the final form, at…
By Alexandra Hall Published December 8, 2020 -
Kotaku EastSouth KoreaHow One Retailer Is Fighting PS5 Scalpers
In South Korea, game retailer Gamewoori has a banner that reads, “Pre-Order Now” next to images of the PS5. The PS5 launched there on November 12, but like everywhere supplies are tight and hopeful customers still have to reserve consoles from future shipments. Some individuals, however, are trying to flip their PS5 pre-orders by selling…
By Brian Ashcraft Published December 8, 2020 -
UncategorizedEl Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron is in development for Steam. The game was originally released on PS3 and Xbox 360. According to Sawaki Takeyasu, the game’s director, the Steam version will have both English and Japanese subtitles and audio options. The release date is still TBA.
By Brian Ashcraft Published December 8, 2020 -
Kotaku EastChinaMonster Hunter Movie Producers Apologize After Backlash In China
As Kotaku recently reported, a racist line of dialogue in the Monster Hunter movie led to thousands of negative online reviews in China, review bombing of the game on Steam, and calls to ban the film. The movie’s producers have now apologized. In the film, a soldier yells to another soldier: “What are my knees?…
By Brian Ashcraft Published December 8, 2020 -
CultureTrack: Blade Runner Blue | Artist: Vangelis | Album: Blade Runner OST
By Brian Ashcraft Published December 8, 2020 -
CultureRIP Chuck Yeager
Chuck Yeager, one of the United States Air Force’s greatest ever pilots and the first man to break the sound barrier, has died at the age of 97. Yeager was a decorated Second World War fighter pilot—famous for shooting down five Germans in a single day in 1944—and his exploits later became the subject of…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 7, 2020 -
CultureHohokum Was Almost The Perfect PS4 Game
I’ve done a lot of big-picture stories for our Last Generation roundup, but tonight I want to zoom in a bit and talk about one game in particular: Hohokum, aka the most relaxing video game of the PS4 era. Released in 2014 for the PS4 (but also the PS3 and Vita), at first glance there’s…
By Luke Plunkett Published December 7, 2020
