Never Change, Yakuza

Yes, that is Beat Takeshithrowing a baby. Yakuza 6 cannot come soon enough. It’s from a trailer that Sega screened/streamed for the game at TGS yesterday, which has all the gravelly voice acting and head-punching you could ever need.

The Good News: You Can Now Change Your Blizzard BattleTag

The bad news: it’s gonna cost you $10 in cash money. Yes, despite many other online services allowing for free and easy name changes, Blizzard have announced today that they’re only going to bother with the latter. Anyone stuck with a BattleTag they came up with when they were 12/drunk and wants a change can…

Steam’s Latest Hit: An Intense Spaceship Roguelike Called Everspace

I warped into a new sector. I was immediately wowed by the pink and orange starscape ahead of me. It was like a cotton-candy sunset that spanned further than my puny ape brain could comprehend. Then ten ships converged on me, and I exploded. That was my first death in new Steam top-seller Everspace, and…

Mad Catz Sells Saitek To Logitech

In 2007 Mad Catz purchased relatively venerable PC peripheral maker Saitek for $30 million. After nearly nine years of flight sticks and farming controllers, Mad Catz is passing Saitek over to Logitech for a mere $13 million. Being a relatively old man, I’ve been playing with Saitek stuff since not long after the company was…

No Man’s Sky Time-Lapse Rudely Interrupted

Today on Highlight Reel we have sweet Fallout heelys, unique FIFA celebrations, Overwatch plays, confused horses, and much more! Watch the video then talk about your favorite highlight in the comments below. Be sure to check out, like, and share the original videos via the links below. Subscribe to Kotaku on YouTube for more! No…

A Musical Character Customization Trick For Everyone To Copy

Most role-playing games let you customize some aspect of your character. Their hair, or outfit, or voice, that kind of thing. Divinity: Original Sin 2, which hits Steam early access today, lets you go one further and customize your hero’s theme music. The developers at Larian Studios already talked about this concept in a dev…

Far From Noise is a game about experiencing nature… while teetering over the edge of a cliff in a car that could fall at any second. It’s narrative-driven, and “dramatic events”—as well as your decisions—change the story each playthrough. Also I guess you end up talking to a deer??? It’ll be out soon.

Did You Know That FFXIV Has A Jail For Very Bad Players?

Have you been bad? Very bad? Maybe you need a time-out. In Final Fantasy XIV, if you have been very bad, your time-out will come complete with a chastising parent figure and a very literal jail. On the MMORPG, players who spam, boast dirty usernames or otherwise violate the game’s user agreement are sent to…

The Mystery of Fallout 4’s Children of the Atom

In this week’s episode of The Save Files, we take a look at one of Fallout’s most outlandish factions: the Church of Atom. At first, everything about the Atom’s religion sounds completely nuts…that is, until you play the Far Harbor DLC. For those of you who missed it, THE SAVE FILES is a new YouTube…

The Unbearable Lightness of Lost Video Game Saves

A few days ago, I accidentally deleted a batch of saved games. Collectively they represented a couple hundred hours’ worth of time spent playing a dozen or more games. Years of hard-won progress, gone in the blink of an eye. It started when my sister found my lost Nintendo 3DS. I’d unknowingly left it at…

Meet The Anonymous Watchdog Who Broke The CS:GO Betting Scandal

One of 2016’s most explosive pieces of gaming journalism was broken by a news-obsessed Indian IT guy with a relatively unknown YouTube channel. HonorTheCall, an anonymous internet presence, is a full-time software developer whose YouTube image, up until June, was built on small-fry Call of Duty news. Over Call of Duty footage, HonorTheCall pronounced updates…

I Can’t Stop Hunting Treasure In The Witcher 3

There’s kings to slay, monsters to hunt, and friends to save in The Witcher 3 but all I really care about is finding gear. I will climb the highest mountain for a new sword. I can’t stop. Not when there’s so much treasure to be found. I can’t say I ever thought about The Witcher…

Podcast: The NFL Theme Sounds Like A JRPG Boss Fight

We’re reaching into the mailbag to answer YOUR questions on today’s episode of Kotaku Splitscreen, including: Do sports themes sound like JRPG soundtracks? Yes. Yes they do. Seriously, listen to the NBA or NFL themes and tell me they wouldn’t fit in a great JRPG. Other topics on today’s Splitscreen include Final Fantasy, the NX,…

The Forgotten Parts of GTA Online

GTA Online has changed a lot since 2013, thanks to an ever-growing list of new cars, guns and heists. Along the way, some parts of GTA have become forgotten or even removed. Let’s take a look back, shall we? Arm Wrestling In a game that lets you buy car insurance, playing a “match” of arm…

Isaac Hayes’ Son Says Someone Else Made His Dad Quit South Park

Back in 2006, singer and actor Isaac Hayes abruptly quit South Park, where he had voiced the character Chef for a decade. Hayes, an active Scientologist, was apparently upset about the episode “Trapped In The Closet,” which makes fun of the cultish religion he followed. But it sounds like his departure wasn’t entirely up to…

Digimon World: Next Order Is Coming To North America, But Not On Vita [Updates]

The Digimon game featuring a breeding system so complex Richard Eisenbeis had to make a spreadsheet is coming to the Americas, but not in its original portable form. Digimon World: Next Order arrives on PlayStation 4 in early 2017. Digimon’s popularity is on the rise, which leads to games outside of the kiddy fare we’re…