Activision

All The Ways Activision Is Avoiding Saying What Destiny Actually Sold

Destiny, a video game in which players travel through the galaxy and battle against random loot tables, is by most accounts a commercial success. But over a year after release, publisher Activision still won’t say how many copies they’ve actually sold. [This post originally ran in November of 2014. We’ve been regularly updating it with…

No Wonder Call of Duty Isn’t Ditching Last-Gen Consoles

Black Ops 3 won’t have a campaign mode on Xbox 360 and PS3, and the game’s frame rate will fluctuate between 30 and 60 frames-per-second. But here’s why they’re making a version for aging hardware: Activision’s revealed there are still 12 million monthly active users for the three-year-old Black Ops II. Damn Call of Duty…

Activision Buys Candy Crush Maker King For $5.9 Billion

Just two days after Halloween, Activision’s spending a whole lot of money on candy—the publisher announced tonight that they’ve bought Candy Crush developer King for $5.9 billion. Yes, that’s BILLION. The mega-acquisition has to go through approval in Ireland, where King is based, but Activision says they anticipate that everything will be official by spring…

Activision Hires Former ESPN Boss To Run New eSports Division

The company behind Call of Duty and World of Warcraft is starting a new eSports division. Activision Blizzard announced the move today, vowing in a press release to come up with “all-new ways to deliver the best-in-class fan experience across games, platforms and geographies.” The division will be headed by two industry veterans: Major League…

The Messy, True Story Behind The Making Of Destiny

In the summer of 2013, months before they were supposed to ship their next video game, the game developers at Bungie went into panic mode. The storied studio, best known for creating the multi-million-selling Halo series, had spent the previous three years working on something they hoped would be revolutionary. Destiny, as they called it,…

Guitar Hero Live: The Kotaku Review

Guitar Hero Live is two separate games united by a single plastic guitar. One is the first game in the series to truly live up to its name. The other is decidedly different. The core idea behind the Guitar Hero series is right there in the name—make the player feel like a rock (or pop…

Transformers: Devastation: The Kotaku Review

To quote a tiny yellow robot during one of Transformers: Devastation’s many brilliant moments, “I did not see that coming.” Despite the killer cel-shaded look and a cast packed with voice actors from the ‘80s cartoon reprising their roles as the original robots in disguise, all signs pointed towards Transformers: Devastation being a massive disappointment.…

The First Five Minutes Of Transformers: Devastation: So Far, So Good

I was a little worried about not being able to get my hands on Transformers: Devastation until launch day. After playing for five minutes, everything is just prime. For starters, the game has Transformers in it. Thanks for watching! What, that’s not enough? Weird. Okay, it’s got good the good Transformers in it, voiced by…

Lenny Kravitz’ Pants Remain Intact Through An Entire Guitar Hero Live Spot

Not sure about James Franco’s. In honor of tomorrow’s launch of Rock Band 4, Activision has released a Guitar Hero Live promo spot featuring Lenny Kravitz and James Franco. It’s kind of adorable, and totally safe for work as well! Franco does manage to slip in a reference to Kravitz’ infamous dick slip (is that…

Behold, The Terrible Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5

When the first video we see of a game on launch day is a two minute montage of glitches captured within the first hour of gameplay, something’s not right. Perhaps “somethings” is the better term to use there. The problems with the first new entry in the once-premiere skateboarding franchise in years began back in…

A Skylanders Superchargers Buyers Guide For Confused Parents

The fifth installment of the series that started the toys-and-games craze goes on sale tomorrow, which means stores packed with baffled parents trying to make sense of it all. We’re here to help. Now that your children have finished collecting all the toys from Skylanders: Spryo’s Adventure, Skylanders Giants, Skylanders Swap Force and Skylanders Trap…

Catch Up With Over A Century Of Call Of Duty: Black Ops History

Cancel your plans to replay the first two Call of Duty: Black Ops games to catch up on the storyline—Treyarch’s handy timeline video has you covered. Dramatic music plays as the series’ timeline is drawn, from the 1930 birth of Victor Reznov to the 2025 death of Raul Menendez. How many people were shot in…

Let’s Try To Decipher Activision’s Destiny Puffery

Here is a coded message from Activision, sent via press release this morning: SANTA MONICA, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)— Bungie and Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI), announced today that Destiny: The Taken King broke the record for the most downloaded day-one game in PlayStation history and set a new…

Destiny: The Taken King Kicks Ass So Far

When Destiny first launched, it was a half-baked, punishing game with the barest hint of a story, delivered through crummy dialogue and repetitive missions that tasked you with shooting endless waves of enemies. One year later, everything’s changed. I’ve spent much of the past 24 hours powering through Destiny’s big Year Two expansion, The Taken…

Destiny‘s New Missions Are Way Better Than The Old Ones

I spent this morning powering through the first main story quest of Destiny: The Taken King, a video game about how cool Nathan Fillion is. I am happy to declare that everything about it is excellent. We’ll have day-one impressions later tonight—and a full review much later, once we’ve played through the raid—but for now,…

No Jimmy Kimmel Live, I Will Not Preorder The Taken King At GameStop

Despite your deliberately ham-fisted GameStop commercial starring the ever-charming Guillermo, I will not preorder The Taken King, because preordering is bad. And also I already preordered it on PSN. It’s not my fault! I mean, it is my fault, but there was a good reason. I’d lost my Destiny disk, and the only way to…

Deadpool is coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this fall. Developed by a bunch of people who once worked at High Moon Studios, Deadpool and all its DLC will make the jump to current-gen on November 17 for $49.99.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 Beta Is Good–Mostly

As I noted this morning, Call of Duty is one of those rare things I like. I like the campaigns because the stories are usually decently told and efficiently delivered—I can play through each new one in a couple sessions, and playing them again never feels like a daunting proposition. And I like the multiplayer…

Activision announces Skylanders Battlecast, a card battler for iOS and Android—basically mobile Skylanders with collectible cards instead of figurines, and Pokémon-style battles, either offline or online. There’s a trailer above, and the game itself should be out next year.

Skylanders Is Getting Online Multiplayer

Activision revealed today that they’re adding online multiplayer to Skylanders: Superchargers. The game’s getting online land, sea and air races for up to four players, along with an online co-op story mode. Skylanders never had any sort of online multiplayer and fans have been really clamoring for it for a while now. So it’s good…