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Google’s DeepMind AI Just Beat Two Pros At StarCraft II

Add StarCraft II to the list of increasingly sophisticated games at which well-trained AIs can smash fallible, meat-fingered humans to chunky bits. Google’s DeepMind AI beat two professional players of Blizzard’s StarCraftin two multi-game series that happened in December, the companies jointly announced today. The AI, which the DeepMind team has named “AlphaStar,” beat Team…

At The Gates Is A Gruelling Strategy Misfire

Jon Shafer, lead designer of Civilization V, has spent the last seven years working on a 4X strategy game of his own called At The Gates, which puts you in control of a barbarian tribe during the last days of the Roman Empire. There’s a lot of exploration and expanding to be had, but also…

The creators of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey said in a new forum post today that they will change a cutscene and some dialogue related to a controversial, required relationship in the game’s second paid DLC, a relationship that seemed to run afoul of promises regarding player choice. Last week, the team confirmed to Kotaku that they’d…

Some Fortnite Guns Fire More Slowly On Switch

It turns out that people playing Fortnite at 30 frames per second are at a slight disadvantage in shootouts compared to opponents who are operating at higher frame rates. Speculation on the subject has been going on for some time in the Fortnite community, but a recent test by Digital Foundry has introduced some interesting…

We played Kingdom Hearts III live on our Twitch channel earlier today. We played on an Xbox One X and skipped all the cutscenes. Here’s two hours of sweet 60fps battle action in Hercules town!

Alien: Blackout Is A Great Concept But Falls Flat

Alien: Blackout sounds great on paper. Take the grimy world of the films and boil the terror experience into a tense management game during which you direct survivors, lock doors, and watch for the alien on your motion tracker. Mixing real-time strategy and survival is a smart concept, but Alien: Blackout is a bit too…

For Honor‘s Third Year Looks Promising

Ubisoft detailed upcoming plans for For Honor’s third year in a developer livestream today, showing/hyping new heroes, maps, and balance changes, alongside narrative driven seasonal events. The first major update of year three goes live on January 31 adding a new heavy class fighter belonging to the Black Priors, a cult-like group of “dark agents”…

Survey Of 4,000 Game Developers Says Half Of Them Want To Unionize

In a survey of nearly 4,000 game developers published today by the Game Developers Conference, half of developers surveyed said they thought game industry workers should unionize. Unionization has been a hot topic among game developers over the last few years, as anecdotes of 100-hour work weeks and $28 million CEO salaries circulate among game…

Bethesda Outlines How Fallout 76‘s New PVP Mode Will Work

In a blog post today Bethesda announced that Fallout 76’s upcoming new player-vs.-player mode will go into beta in March and will be called Survival. Unlike in the regular game, the stakes in Survival will be higher, with no rules of engagement and the potential to lose more valuable items if you die. According to…

Kingdom Hearts’ Multiverse Paved The Way For Everything Else

With the long-awaited Kingdom Hearts 3 almost upon us, I wondered how much the entertainment landscape has changed since the series first showed up on the scene. In today’s media, nearly every franchise has started to build their own vast universes, just like the Kingdom Hearts franchise did 17 years ago. Tim and I chatted…

Life Is Strange 2 Is More Moving If You’ve Played Captain Spirit

Before you start the second episode of Life Is Strange 2, you’ll get a prompt that it’s more enjoyable if you play The Awesome Adventures Of Captain Spirit first. After finishing the Life Is Strange episode, I’d recommend taking that advice. I didn’t play Captain Spirit initially. Its preview made it look a little too…

BioWare Says They Are Adding A Social Hub To Anthem Because Fans Asked For It

Anthem, BioWare’s upcoming online loot shooter, is only a month out from release and is already changing based on player feedback. The game’s lead producer, Michael Gamble, announced on Twitter yesterday that, following feedback gathered from alpha test players in recent weeks, the game will be getting a social hub. “After a mission, you can…

Wow! We’re streaming Kingdom Hearts III. We’re going to play the very first action segment. We will skip all the cutscenes. So if you’re not scared of level-design-related spoilers, come yell at Goofy and Donald with us!

FutureGrind Is A Trippy Stunt Fest

Tron’s lightcycles are some of most iconic bikes in the history of nerddom, but they could honestly use a few more backflips. The stylish racing game FutureGrind, for PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC, combines all the stunts of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater with the neon looks of cyberspace landscapes. Created by Milkbag Games, FutureGrind takes the…

What We Love (So Far) About Kingdom Hearts 3

Tim Rogers and I have had Kingdom Hearts 3 for only one full day, and we played as much as we could. Here’s what we think so far. We try not to spoil anything major, but of course, we can’t spoil anything that happened beyond the first ten hours or so. Enjoy! Maddy Myers: Are…

Tetsuya Nomura Explains How To Unlock Kingdom Hearts III‘s Secret Movie

When Kingdom Hearts III leaked, creator Tetsuya Nomura said the biggest spoilers in the game were the game’s secret movie and epilogue. Earlier this month, Kotaku reported on how players can watch the epilogue, but the details for the secret movie were vague. In a newly published Famitsu interview, Nomura explained how the secret movie…

A Platformer Where You’re Too Exhausted To Do Anything 

When I first started playing the demo of Yet Another Exhausting Day, I careened headfirst into a pillow and died. This, I believe, is what is known as a Big Mood. Yet Another Exhausting Day bills itself as “a 3D crawling platformer about ordinary people’s exhausting lives.” In it, you play as a noodle-limp worn-out…

Last Oasis Is The Most PC Game Imaginable

Last Oasis is an upcoming survival game where the world has stopped spinning, and everyone left alive has to “outrun the scorching sun in a massive Open World.” It’s coming to Steam, of course, and the game’s trailer certainly ticks all the boxes for a game laser-targeted to the platform’s whims: it’s post-apocalyptic, there’s resource-gathering,…

Switch Is Selling Like Wii, Thanks To Traditional Nintendo Games

Nintendo had a wildly successful December in the U.S., the market research company NPD said on Wednesday. Both Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and the Switch hardware itself sold in quantities that could legitimately be called “record-breaking.” Nintendo’s dream of selling Wii-like quantities of the Switch is looking more likely today—and it didn’t have to have…

It’s 2019 And I’m Starting Final Fantasy XI

When Final Fantasy XI was released for PlayStation 2 in 2002, it was part of the first wave of massive online experiences for consoles. Alongside games like Phantasy Star Online, it helped bring the MMO experience to the living room and pushed the Final Fantasy series to explore new frontiers. While the PS2 and Xbox…