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Video Game Publisher Apologizes After Hosting AMA On 8Chan

Edgy marketing decisions have a way of blowing up in companies’ faces, but rarely do they so immediately and spectacularly detonate like this: THQ Nordic, publisher of games like Darksiders III, decided to host an AMA on 8chan, an image board notorious for everything from Gamergate ties to stalking and harassment to child porn. Bafflingly,…

Not Everything About The Open-World Lego Movie 2 Game Is Awesome

Anyone who’s played a movie-based Lego video game is familiar with the formula. A film’s tale is retold in a series of story missions, packed with bricks to break and characters to collect. At first, I was disappointed that The Lego Movie 2 Video Game did not follow that formula. But eventually, I came around…

Overwatch’s newest hero, combat medic Baptiste, is now on the PC public test server. He’s officially classified as a support, with a biotic launcher that fires powerful three-round bursts, a grenade alt fire that heals allies, a regenerative healing field, and an immortality field that stops allies from dying altogether. That, powerful as it sounds,…

Sim 4 Players Make Luxurious Trailer Homes to Celebrate New Alien-Themed Content

Alien shenanigans are imminent with today’s release of new Sims 4 game pack Strangerville. To celebrate, players are making decked-out trailer homes for their Sims like the one featured in the pack’s trippy video teaser. Strangerville has some serious early-2000s teen drama Roswell vibes. The town, as seen in the video, is out in the…

Anthem’s Loot Is Not In A Good Place

Anthem has a lot of problems, and while some run deep, others feel like avoidable missteps. How the game handles its loot falls into that second category. As we get farther into the game’s post-launch life, a lot of its end-game feels like reliving the dark days immediately following Destiny 1’s release. For a brief…

What It’s Like To Write About Race And Video Games

I’m no stranger to controversial takes. I ask people at parties whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich (it’s not). I think Jupiter Ascending is a fun movie, and if I never see another superhero flick again I think I would be okay. But every time I mention race on this site, even…

The makers of The Division 2 are implementing a ton of changes for the game’s March 1 open beta. The list of updates covers many issues raised during the generally good private beta, including making enemies in the included endgame mission weaker. They’re also limiting the private beta’s ubiquitous request for backup audio pings to…

Game Center CX (aka Retro Game Master) has already inspired video games, but now it’s getting its own card game version called Shinya Arino’s Love Letter, making this a Game Center CX version of Love Letter!

Brazil’s President Somehow Uses Sonic The Hedgehog Music In Twitter Video

Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s new right-wing President/pre-eminent Donald Trump cosplayer, has a message he’d like the world to know. A message his people have somehow set to a Sonic The Hedgehog boss battle’s theme. Here is the tweet, nominally about investment in Brazil: That music, though. It is, of all the recorded music on this planet,…

Overwatch‘s New Hero Is Baptiste, A Haitian Combat Medic

After much teasing over the past week, Blizzard has revealed Overwatch’s newest hero. His name is Baptiste, and he’s a combat medic fighting for a better world. “For some, that means a bandage,” he says in his origin story video. “For others, a bullet.” Jean-Baptiste Augustin grew up as one of 30 million orphaned children…

NASA has Smash tournaments, and their poster is everything you could ever hope it to be. 

Noclip Website Lets You Revisit Your Favorite Nintendo Levels

noclipis a very fun website which has extracted levels from a bunch of excellent Nintendo games and exists solely to let you fly around them like a joyful, nostalgic God. Made by JasperRLZ, there are levels from games like Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine, Ocarina of Time, Luigi’s Mansion and even a broken, experimental flyover…

Ubisoft Renames Controversial Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Trophy

As promised, Ubisoft has begun making changes to a recent expansion to Assassin’s Creed Odyssey that upset many players and led to an apology from the developers. The first of those changes appears to be in the process of rolling out, as PS4 players can now see a new name for the trophy that they…

Perfectly Reasonable Excuses For Playing One More Apex Legends Match

Sometimes, you get a game that grabs you so much you feel that itch to play it all the time. You may find yourself making up ridiculous reasons to keep playing, even when you know you should stop. Here are some of the reasons I’ve made up to play just one more match of Apex…

Facing Financial Pressures, GOG Quietly Lays Off At Least A Dozen Staff

Amid a month full of mass layoffs across the video game industry, the digital store GOG quietly let go of what it says was a dozen staff last week. GOG, which is owned by The Witcher 3 publisher CD Projekt, did not say why the layoffs happened, but one laid-off staffer tells Kotaku that the…

One Of My Favorite Gaming Keyboards, Only Smaller

A couple of years ago, Japanese keyboard-maker Topre brought its fancy hybrid rubber dome technology to the gaming scene with the Realforce RGB. Between its amazing feel and sound and its configuration options, it’s one of the most satisfying gaming keyboards I’ve used. The only problem: I am not a fan of the number pad.…

Players Are Flooding Splatoon 2 With Demands for Japan-Exclusive Gear

Western players have been clamoring over Japan-exclusive Splatoon 2 gear on social media for months—now, they’re plastering the game itself with their desperate pleas. Sometimes, Splatoon 2’s developers release exclusive gear through special offers like the one in Japanese magazine CoroCoro, where the Splatoon manga runs. If you buy an issue of CoroCoro, there will…

Evo Japan Champion Gets To Keep His Prize Money Despite Japan’s Confusing Laws

Making a living in competitive gaming is difficult, but it’s even harder for folks living in Japan. The island nation limits prize money for video game tournaments, and also, strangely enough, its gambling regulations also apply to the world of esports. These two legal hurdles have made it almost impossible for competitors to maintain a…

I’m continuing my playthrough of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky over on Kotaku’s Twitch channel. At this rate, it should take us only 14 million more years to finish the game. Come yell at me!

Nintendo President Reggie Fils-Aime’s Long Career… Being Asked About Mother 3

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime announced last week that he is retiring in order to spend time with his family and friends, but it is entirely possible he just got tired of answering questions about Mother 3. In 2006, Mother 3, the long-awaited sequel to Nintendo’s cult classic RPG EarthBound, was released on the…