Xbox

Assassin’s Creed Initiates, the semi-reliable web-based service used to track players’ progress in Assassin’s Creed games, will be down for extended maintenance over the holidays according to Ubisoft, which is making—good news—all those Initiates-tied gold treasure chests accessible to all players with online connections. (The chests usually require players to be at certain Initiates ranks…

Hitman Is The Official Worst Host Of A Christmas Party

You probably don’t want to attend a Hitman-hosted Christmas party. Unless you like tons of murder and awkward physics, of course. Then I guess you do. Playful YouTuber Robbaz celebrates Christmas once again by playing through video games for us, this year wandering through a Christmas party in Hitman: Blood Money. The mission—You Better Watch…

Halo 5‘s Aiming Has Changed, And Not Everyone Likes It

If you’re a longtime Halo fan, you know that a good amount of the weapons in your arsenal would only fire from the hip. That is, compared to most popular first-person shooters, they had no scope system. But in Halo 5, developers 343 are implementing something they call smart-link—which is essentially an aiming-down-the-sights scoping feature—and…

How To ‘Ground Pound’ And Other New Moves In Halo 5‘s Multiplayer Beta

Now that the Halo 5 multiplayer is officially in session, you might want to pull off one of those new movement abilities you may have heard of. You can see them all in action in HaloFollower’s video above—with details explaining things like how your shield won’t recharge if you’re sprinting. But what about their basic…

Listen to some Halo 5 music, if you’d like. We captured it from the upcoming game’s multiplayer beta, which just started for some Xbox One gamers and will launch wider later this month.

Assassin’s Creed Unity‘s New Patch: Wait, There’s A Difference?

There’s no doubt that Assassin’s Creed Unity had technical problems, otherwise Ubisoft wouldn’t have apologized for the game’s performance and issued a series of ever-larger patches. So what’s it mean if the graphics, then and now, seem to in many ways be the same? This might seem like a strange point of view. You’ve heard,…

New Minecraft Game Coming from Makers of The Walking Dead Game

Minecraft is getting a story, and it’ll be told through the lens of a narrative-driven game by Telltale. Minecraft: Story Mode won’t lay down the groundwork for any official lore, Mojang has said, but it will include characters and themes from the Minecraft universe. Here’s the announcement from Telltale: Minecraft: Story Mode will be an…

Evolve’s open beta will be running between January 15-19 on the Xbox One, accessible to Xbox Live Gold subscribers. Two monsters, the Goliath and the Kraken, and eight hunters will be available to play across 12 maps. There will also be smaller, invite-only closed tests on the PC and PS4 around that time.

A Much Better Way To Shop For Video Games On A Console

I’m not sure when Microsoft added the best thing ever to their Xbox Live game store, but I’d like to show you some video of it so you can marvel with me. Seriously, who needs breathless catalog copy or sketchy user reviews when you can get live gamer-driven broadcasts of the $60 Xbox epic you…

A Duel Between Two Destiny Snipers

This battle between snipers goes through many stages, all of them hilarious. At first, I’m expecting MoneyLoo to land a crazy shot off a camping sniper through the tiniest crack between stacks of crates. Then it’s a silly back and forth while the two snipers strafe between hiding behind cover and trying to kill each…

Anyone Want To Vouch For This $10 Dragon Age: Inquisition Upgrade?

Owners of the “deluxe edition” of Dragon Age: Inquisition, have you sat on the Skyhold Throne or ridden the Bog Unicorn? Standard edition schlubs like me can now buy the deluxe edition’s extra content (listed above) for $9.99 today. I’m thinking this is a pass. But if you have this stuff and think it’s worth…

6.7GB Assassin’s Creed Unity Patch Issued To Fix Framerate, Other Stuff [UPDATE: Unexpectedly 40GB on Xbox One]

Delayed just one day for most players, Patch 4 for Ubisoft’s premiere fall 2014 release, Assassin’s Creed Unity, is out today for Xbox One and PS4 (PC later this week). It’s massive. Ubisoft explained the need for a super-sized patch on the official Assassin’s Creed website: Part of the team’s effort to enhance frame rate…

In China, The Xbox One Is Now $80 Cheaper

Microsoft’s Xbox One has had a pretty rough time in China. Despite good early sales, the system is having problems, and now with the looming PlayStation 4, Microsoft and its retail vendors have resorted to dropping the price of the console. According to Sina.com‘s gaming channel, Microsoft has dropped the price of the Xbox One…

The Xbox Dashboard Has Come A Long Way Since 2001

Oh for the days before Microsoft’s torrid love affair with stacked rectangles, back when curves were the order of the day, and orange seemed like a great idea. Inspired by a Reddit post from couchpotato9099 with images borrowed from Redditor eiketsujinketsu’s super-smooth “non-potato” version of theanimated GIF, this image is a monument to falling in…

Even After Several Patches, Far Cry 4 Still Has Some Issues

Many gamers have been having a great time destroying animals and evil despots ever since Far Cry 4 came out last month. For others, it’s a different story. Despite receiving several patches designed to address its performance issues, these players are still struggling to get the game up and running properly. The specific technical issues…

Stephen And Kirk Are Getting Back Into Sunset Overdrive

There was a time when Kirk and I really weren’t into the often-grating, tonally-annoying Sunset Overdrive. But substance wins over style and, what do you know? We’re both fans now. We had this chat a day ago. Then I played the game more last night and now like it even more. And to think this…

The Halo Collection Is Getting Better, But Still Not Fixed After A Month

There are tons of updates in development studio 343’s latest patch for the buggy multiplayer modes in the Xbox One’s month-old Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Just how effective those are, however, is a bit hit or miss, according to my and some other players’ experiences. Here’s the full list of fixes, according to 343:…

‘Christopher Walken’ Calls Xbox Support

Picture the scene: Christopher Walken gets home after a long day filming. He kicks back, wants to relax with some Destiny on Xbox One, but can’t. Because he’s been “hacked”. So Walken – or in this case, an excellent impersonator– makes the dreaded call to Xbox Support. It’s better that the lady on the other…

Microsoft Is Late On Paying Xbox Indie Developers (Again) [UPDATE]

For a very long time, the Xbox 360’s indie marketplace has been something of a wild west for small game developers, a place where it’s nearly impossible for a good game to stand out. Apparently it’s nearly impossible to get paid on time, too. This afternoon, a Destructoid community member put up a blog alleging…

WWE 2K15: The Kotaku Review

Well, here we are. Another year, another WWE game. Another awkward cooling off period as the runaway hype train of YouTube videos, updates, Q&A sessions, tweets, blogs, interviews, panels with Steve Austin wearing spectacles and random mid carders telling us “THIS IS THE BEST GAME EVER, THERE ARE SO MANY MODES AND UH… FEATURES” finally…