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Shake Up At Studio From Hell

An awful situation may be turning around for the better. Trendy Entertainment president Jeremy Stieglitz will alter his role following Kotaku‘s report into the company’s practices yesterday, according to two people close to the situation. Yesterday, we published an investigation into conditions at Trendy, which included testimonials from nine current and former employees. They described…

More Proof That the Wii U Basic Is About To Go Extinct, Via Best Buy

Earlier this week, GameStop issued a June 18 “recall” of the 8GB $300 Wii U Basic, the version of the Wii U that smart consumers knew to avoid. (Edit: Okay, okay, see the comments for reasons why some smart people did buy the 8GB version.) Now a tipster sends us an internal flyer from Best…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Rolling Wonder: The Winners

America’s heartland has produced many great things on wheels, none greater than the pride of Youngstown, Ohio—the X-Box—the most ludicrously mobile operating base since the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. There are 17 more ridiculous uses our ‘Shop artists thought up for it, led by overall No. 1 silentstrife! For starters, here’s what everyone was working with: And…

As if free Saints Row: The Third and Deus Ex: Human Revolution weren’t enough, PlayStation Plus members also get free Uncharted 3, Littlebigplanet: Karting, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown beginning Tuesday.

This Game’s Starting Concept: What If John McClane Had Died?

In an E3 that is full of sequels and the same-old, same-old Murdered: Soul Suspect, may stand out as something that’s actually new. But one look at this game—the adventure of a ghostly detective who has one night to solve his own murder—probably wouldn’t make you think of its even more unusual origins. “Square Enix…

You Can Bark Orders to Call of Duty‘s Happy Scrappy Hero Pup

Though he practically upstaged the Xbox One at its own reveal event, don’t expect Call of Duty Dog to slink off into a corner during E3 week. He’s not going to be eye candy or a prop in Call of Duty: Ghosts‘ singleplayer campaign. If anything, developer Infinity Ward is doubling down on the Dog.…

Daredevil Gets Emotional in My Favorite Comics Panel This Week

Daredevil: End of Days #8 Daredevil’s a superhero who’s constantly in thrall to his emotions It often seems like Matt Murdock’s passion is in control of him and not the other way around. In this issue of potst-mortem miniseries, we see the Devil’s emotions in a calmer, more poignant light. I recently started co-worker Tina…

The PlayStation 3 will get the free-to-play Tekken Revolution on June 11, according toGameSpot (at 19:30 of the video linked) Characters shown include Kazuya, Lars, Bryan and Paul [via EventHubs]

Infinity Ward, 3 Years Later: A Call of Duty Comeback With a Caveat

The trailer for the next Call of Duty, November’s Call of Duty: Ghosts, makes it all seem so pleasantly straightforward. New Call of Duty! From the people who made the one that made this series a phenomenon. Not quite. But not completely wrong, either. Infinity Ward, the studio founded in 2002 by Jason West and…

Assassin’s Creed‘s Creator Sues Ubisoft for Control of His Next Game

Patrice Désilets, the creator of Assassin’s Creed, is suing Ubisoft for about $400,000 and control of the game 1666, which he had been building for THQ until it went bankrupt and sold the project to his former employer. Last month, Désilets said he was fired from Ubisoft, the publisher for whom he had worked until…

State of Decay, which “did not have an ad budget” nor “a physical copy to load onto shelves,” sold 250,000 copies on Xbox Live in its first two days. Only Minecraft has been more successful.

Seven Years Later, Sony’s CEO Doesn’t Mind All the Memes

From five-hundred ninety-nine U.S. dollars and Riiiiiiidge Racer seven years ago to more flattering presentations today, Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai has been one of the gaming industry’s most .gif-able and meme-able public figures. Hirai wants you to know he’s cool with that. Of course, Hirai might be sanguine because Microsoft is gettin’ toe up about…

No Retro Games in Future Animal Crossings—With One Possible Exception

The first Animal Crossing game released in the U.S. in 2001 let players add joy to their villager’s treasure-digging and furniture-arranging lives by collecting and playing emulated Nintendo Entertainment System games. There were Nintendo games within that Nintendo game. That’s not coming back, the series’ creator told Kotaku “Please consider it’s not happening ever again,”…

The Best of Kotaku, The Week Of June 3rd

It’s almost E3! Kotaku Selects is going to be busy next weekend, but we have plenty of our best stuff to show you from the past week. Check it out over here. I’ll be in LA for next week’s round-up, but Fahey will keep you all comforted. See you guys on the flip side. As…

You Only Need To Vaguely Look Like Ryan Gosling To Reap The Benefits

Doug here is most certainly not Ryan Gosling. But add a hoodie and some sunglasses and most people wouldn’t be able to tell—as shown by this video by MojoInTheMorning Granted, Gosling was filming something in that city at the time, and that probably predisposed some folk to seeking Ryan Gosling out. Still—I can’t help but…

The Internet Response League wants to turn gaming’s popularity into a humanitarian effort. If we took a minute to sort through crisis information (like Tweets) during a disaster, we’d be a huge help. Right now, there’s nothing in place to bring this vision to reality—IRL is looking for collaborators.

The Xbox One Might Seem Like A Horror Show Now, But That Could Change

So far, much of what we’ve seen about the Xbox One hasn’t been good, and yesterday’s news about iffy policies around internet connections, used games, and loaning games isn’t reassuring. Here’s another quote from Microsoft that was lost in the shuffle yesterday—it’s worth keeping in mind. Hopefully, the internet’s backlash against some of what we’ve…

Well-known vocalist Peter Hollens has put together this very nice a cappella version of “The Rains of Castamere” from Game of Thrones You may recognize Hollens from such YouTube performances as “Game of Thrones theme with Lindsey Stirling,” “Skyrim theme with Lindsey Stirling,” and recently, “That one song from The Hobbit.”

Monday Is The Perfect Day For Apple To Reveal A Game Controller

Monday marks the beginning of Apple’s 2013 Worldwide Developer Conference, where the tech giant is expected to reveal some of the enhancements coming to the next iteration of iOS. What if one of those enhancements is support for external gamepads for its iDevices? Indeed, what if Apple, on the eve of the biggest game industry…

Six Reviewers Say The Last Of Us Thrives On Story And Character

Uncharted developer Naughty Dog’s upcoming PS3-exclusive The Last of Us is a grim, grim survival horror game. Critics, however, found that beneath its bleak, dark exterior, The Last of Us hides a deep, extremely rewarding experience. Apart from a few technical issues, like the AI being wonky in places, reviews talked at length about the…