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CultureKotaku Game DiaryMy New Favorite Stormblood Character Is A Random Pirate
In a development shocking to absolutely no one, Stormblood is fucking awesome. I started Final Fantasy XIV’s second expansion mere days ago, and it’s already made the leap from, “this is not Heavensward. I want Heavensward back,” to, “Ok, give me more of this.” I was prepared for Stormblood to underwhelm me. In the FF14…
By Ash Parrish Published April 28, 2021 -
Kotaku EastJapanJapanese Pop Star Teams Up With Square Enix For Some Fancy CG
Koichi Domoto, one half of the Japanese boy band Kinki Kids, has roped in Square Enix for his upcoming solo album Playful. It’s Domoto’s first standalone project in six years, and the album also comes with a bonus short movie. So far, there have been a handful of teasers released, allowing fans to see how…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 27, 2021 -
Kotaku EastJapanManga Artist Hiro Mashima Is Teaming Up With Square Enix For A Totally New RPG
Award-winning manga artist Hiro Mashima, best known for the smash hit Fairy Tail, is joining forces with Square Enix for an entirely new fantasy role-playing game called Gate of Nightmares for iOS and Android. Check out the debut trailer below: Mashima designed the characters and the game’s overall look, while Jin Fujisawa, a Dragon Quest…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 22, 2021 -
CultureOdds and Ends8-Bit Theater Avoids Final Fantasy Copyrights With 20th Anniversary Script Book
From 2001 to 2009, writer Brian Clevinger of Atomic Robo fame produced a hilarious webcomic called 8-Bit Theater, which follows the misadventures of a dysfunctional adventuring party. Unfortunately, that adventuring party is comprised of Final Fantasy game sprites, so Clevinger can’t reprint them without getting sued to hell by Square Enix. That is unless he…
By Mike Fahey Published April 21, 2021 -
Kotaku EastJapanSquare Enix Launches A Photobook Service In Japan For Final Fantasy XIV
If photo books are good enough to revive your digital pics, then surely the same goes for your life in Final Fantasy XIV In Japan, Square Enix is rolling out a new service called Final Fantasy XIV Custom Order Photobook: Memories of Light. It works like Apple’s photobooks, but with in-game screenshots that customers lay…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 21, 2021 -
Tips & GuidesLet’s Hear It For ‘Death Chains,’ The Best Weapon Mod In Outriders
Like any loot-shooter, Outriders is based on chance. But you can sidestep luck by leaning on the game’s intricate network of gear mods, many of which can significantly change the way your guns and armor behave. Most are good, but none compare to Death Chains, a tier-two weapon mod that—and this is putting it lightly—fucks…
By Ari Notis Published April 19, 2021 -
CultureIO Interactive Opens Third Studio, Working On Third Game Alongside Hitman And 007
Danish developer IO Interactive announced today that it has opened a third studio in Barcelona, Spain to work alongside its existing locations in Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden. “All three of the IO Interactive studios are treated as Elite studios and will each make a significant impact to ongoing development and publishing efforts across all…
By Ian Walker Published April 16, 2021 -
Kotaku EastJapanSquare Enix Denies Report The Company Is Up For Sale
After an unconfirmed report that multiple buyers were looking at acquiring Square Enix, the Tokyo-based game maker released a statement denying it. “Bloomberg has reported today that there is interest from several buyers to acquire Square Enix,” the statement reads. “However, this report is not based on any announcement by Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd.”…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 16, 2021 -
OpinionOutriders Could Really Use A Self-Revive
Outriders is a game about balance, but it’s not always finely balanced. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the game’s revive mechanic, which is seriously biased toward players of the game’s cooperative mode. If you’ve played Outriders by yourself, you’ve no doubt encountered the absent revive. You’re doing your thing (turning baddies into bloody…
By Ari Notis Published April 15, 2021 -
OpinionImpressionsFinal Fantasy XIV Runs Like A Dream On The PS5
If I weren’t holding a DualSense controller while playing the PlayStation 5 beta of Final Fantasy XIV I would think it was running on my gaming PC. As much as I love my massively multiplayer online role-playing games, I hate playing them on game consoles. They always look muddy and the frame rates are always…
By Mike Fahey Published April 14, 2021 -
CultureOdds and EndsEven Outriders Has Flat-Earthers
Outriders is set on an exoplanet roughly a dozen light years away from Earth, so it’s no surprise the game features some anomalies, like electromagnetic hurricanes and tank-sized, fire-spitting arachnids. But perhaps the strangest entity in People Can Fly’s loot-shooter is also a familiar one: human beings who believe the planet is flat. Giovanni “Hailstorm”…
By Ari Notis Published April 13, 2021 -
CultureOutriders Can’t Catch A Break
It’s been a long week-and-a-half for the loot-shooter Outriders, a game rocked by eleven days of missing functionality, server issues, and player uproar. The latest wave of problems started Friday afternoon when developer People Can Fly pushed out a patch for PC and PlayStation consoles, with an Xbox version to follow at a later, unspecified…
By Ari Notis Published April 12, 2021 -
CultureOdds and EndsMore Donald Ducks In Kingdom Hearts, Please
With the arrival of the Kingdom Hearts series on PC last week, enterprising players can now tinker with the games in ways that were either too difficult or downright impossible to achieve on consoles. Naturally, this has resulted in a mod that lets folks spawn (among other things) hundreds of Donald Ducks “You thought having…
By Ian Walker Published April 9, 2021 -
CultureNeo: The World Ends With You Returns To Shibuya July 27
It took nearly 14 years, but the long-awaited sequel to 2007 action RPG The World Ends With You is right around the corner. Neo: The World Ends With You launches for PlayStation 4 and Switch on July 27, setting a new cast of characters, as well as some familiar faces, loose on the 3D streets…
By Mike Fahey Published April 9, 2021 -
CultureOutriders’ First Major Patch Will Nerf The Trickster
The first major patch for Outriders will be available next week, developer People Can Fly revealed in a blog post today. If you’ve been waiting for general fixes regarding connectivity and inventory wipes, you’ll still have to wait. But, hey, at least the coolest class is getting some serious nerfs. Yes, the Trickster, that crafty…
By Ari Notis Published April 8, 2021 -
AnimeYour Spring 2021 Anime Guide
Spring is in the air! That only means one thing. Actually, it means several things, but one of them is that it’s time for a new season of anime. What are you interested in? What are you watching? What are you not watching? Have a look and let us know in the comments down below.…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 8, 2021 -
CultureThat Final Fantasy XIV Hairstyle You Like Is Going To Come Back In Style
A popular Final Fantasy XIV hairstyle that hasn’t been available in-game for years is going to make a permanent comeback, Square Enix announced this morning Final Fantasy XIV players will be able to acquire the very anime Rainmaker hairstyle (pictured above) for the first time since 2017 when the extensive Patch 5.5 expansion drops on…
By Ian Walker Published April 7, 2021 -
CultureOutriders Apparently Has A Bug That Wipes All Your Gear
How’s this for a horror story? You spend hours farming gear in your favorite loot game. You find some truly awesome stuff, including some legendaries. Then, one moment, out of the blue, it’s all gone. Everything, to the point where your character is basically naked. For some Outriders players, that’s less a terrifying nightmare than…
By Ari Notis Published April 6, 2021 -
CultureOdds and EndsSquare Enix: That ‘Redneck Mob Storming D.C.’ Line In Outriders Is Pure Coincidence
There’s an offhand line in Outriders that sure sounds like a reference to the failed January 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C. According to the game’s publisher, any connections one could make there are “purely coincidental.” Developed by People Can Fly and published by Square Enix, the class-based looter-shooter Outriders officially released last week for everything…
By Ari Notis Published April 5, 2021 -
OpinionGames Like Outriders Really Need Offline Modes
Earlier today, I was playing Outriders. I was in the middle of a mission, about to beat a tough enemy, when I was disconnected from the servers. An error message popped up and that was that. But I was playing alone, in an area only filled with NPCs in a game with no PVP. So…
By Zack Zwiezen Published April 3, 2021