IO Interactive Goes Independent And Keeps Hitman Franchise

This past May, Square Enix announced it was parting ways with IO Interactive. Today, that studio says it’s now officially independent and will keep the rights to the Hitman series. Below is a statementfrom IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak: In its 19 years of history, Io-Interactive has brought you original and exciting entertainment; from Mini…

Dragon Ball FighterZ Compared To The Manga

Doesn’t Dragon Ball FighterZ look incredible? And the best part might be that so much of that look is taken straight from the Akira Toriyama’s original art. These comparisons are via Twitter user Mizumaki_7:  This is wonderful. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea,…

Pokémon‘s First Japanese Theme Song Returns

When the original Pokémon TV anime debuted in Japan on September 8, 1998, the theme song was “Mezase Pokémon Masutaa” or “Aim to be a Pokémon Master.” Now in 2017, the theme is back! The current series Pokémon Sun Moon began using the theme this week to mark the 20th anniversary of Pocket Monsters. If…

Keiji Inafune Opens A New Studio With Level-5

Keiji Inafune of Dead Rising fame and Akihiro Hino of Professor Layton fame have established a new company called Level-5 Comcept. This subsidiary is completely owned by Level-5. Comcept is the name of Inafune’s earlier company, which launched the rocky Mighty No. 9 and oversaw a failed Red Ash Kickstarter campaign. The studio, however, did…

Anime Hit Your Name Makes Cosplay Easy

If you are looking for outfits for a Your Name cosplay (or ways to express Your Name fandom), look no further! Bandai is releasing the real-life version of sleep shirt Mitsuha worn in the film. Priced at 6,804 yen ($61), it will be released in Japan this August.  Or you could get the jacket Taki…

Rockstar Games responds to the shuttering of popular GTA V modding tool, says Take-Two “were not specifically targeting single player mods.” Read the full statement here. 

An Indie Shooter Where One Team’s Invincible, The Other’s Invisible

Competitive first-person shooters operate on all sorts of sets of unspoken rules. Teams should be, more or less, evenly powered. Opponents should die occasionally. Everyone should be visible—at least, most of the time. Aftercharge aims to break those rules. I got to play a few rounds of an early PC build of Aftercharge during “The…

The Real Story Behind Xenogears‘ ‘Unfinished’ Disc 2

Xenogears, widely considered one of the greatest role-playing games ever made, has long felt to fans like an unfinished product thanks to its controversial, seemingly unfinished second disc. Although western gamers have assumed that the team simply ran out of money, the real story—as revealed by director Tetsuya Takahashi to Kotaku today—is a little more…

Nintendo Fans Need A New Series To Complain About

Nintendo fans have spent years frustrated that the Metroid series, once a pillar of the company’s console lineup, had been left to rot. Now that not one but two new Metroid games are coming, it leaves them/us with an important decision to make: what to complain about next The obvious culprits are out. There’s a…

E3 Day Five Podcast: The Director Of South Park: The Fractured But Whole

We’ve almost survived E3 2017! Just a couple more weeks to go. Today on Kotaku Splitscreen, Jason sits down with two more game developers: the director of South Park: The Fractured But Whole and the executive producer/lead programmer of Pillars of Eternity 2 Listen here: Jason and I start out by catching up on how…

“Yes, they do make me feel like a walking billboard, but I think about how easy it will be to carry my laundry later,” an E3 attendee told of the body-length bags companies hand out at conventions. She also offered a convention bag pro strat: hide them in bushes outside instead of lugging them around.…

Magic Champion Sells His Trophy To Benefit Planned Parenthood

On May 14, Magic: The Gathering pro Gerry Thompson won Pro Tour Amonkhet, securing one of the most coveted trophies in competitive magic play. Five days later, he put that trophy on eBay, along with some other event swag, with all the proceeds going to benefit Planned Parenthood. “I strongly believe in what they do…

We got a hands-off demonstration of this August’s standalone $40 PS4 adventure Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Quick impressions: Beautiful location? Check (India). Fun character banter? Yep (Nadine’s a bad-ass. Chloe’s wry). Dynamic firefights? Of course (looked like the best of Uncharted 4‘s).

Today, Tim Rogers takes us on a tour of Bethesda’s booth (they gave him a milkshake!), Indiecade’s booth, and a closer look at Nidhogg 2. That’s it for the tours this year, but stay tuned for more Tim at E3 videos.

Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime On Switch Voice Chat, Lack Of Back-Ups Saves And ‘Virtual Console’

Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, is at E3 in Los Angeles this week to promote Nintendo’s latest resurgence and hype people up on the coming year of Switch and 3DS games. But he’s also ready to field questions, and we had a bunch. After grilling the man, here are some of our key…

No wonder E3 seemed extra-crowded this year. It was extra-crowded! The ESA, which runs the event, just announced that 2017 E3 attendance was 68,400, including, for the first time, 15,000 members of the public. Up from the ESA’s count of 50,300 total attendance at E3 2016.

At E3 2017, Black Characters’ Hair Looks Better Than Ever

Games tend to have trouble depicting black hair, but this year’s E3 displayed refreshing palette of kinky, coily, textured hair. Here’s a breakdown. In his essay for anthology State of Play, io9‘s Evan Narcisse says that, for video games, “when it comes to head hair—specifically locks that look like what grows from my scalp—I’m generally…