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Watch Us Play Yakuza 6: The Song of Life With One Of The People Behind It

Last year, Yakuza 0brought gaming’s best crime thriller and cabaret management series to a new group of fans. Yakuza 6: The Song of Life wants to be accessible to veterans and newbies alike. We took a closer look at the game alongside senior localization producer Sam Mullen to get a sense of what’s next for…

Nintendo’s Hardware Wizard Will Get Lifetime Achievement Honors

Genyo Takeda might not be a familiar name to Nintendo fans, but he’s been the driving force behind the company’s iconic game console hardware and revolutionary controllers, and a few classic games besides. And now, he’s getting a well-deserved lifetime achievement award. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has told Kotaku that it will…

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT‘s Mobile Spin-Off Is Pretty Chill

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT for the PlayStation 4 is a competitive real-time action game in which two teams of three players each do battle with an assortment of Final Fantasy characters. Dissida Final Fantasy Opera Omnia, NT’s mobile counterpart, is a just a regular old turn-based RPG. Characters from throughout Final Fantasy history converge in…

In Japan, Monster Hunter: World has set a record for PS4 retail debut, selling 1,350,412 package copies in its first three days. That doesn’t include downloads, so the actual total is higher. Either way, impressive launch!

More Anime Art Made In… Excel

Making art in Excel is a thing. Ditto for making anime art in it. Twitter user Maruaba specializes in creating anime drawings using Excel spreadsheets. Like so: Have a look at this work flow: Just doing an eye takes hours. Goodness. But here are the finished results: Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet…

Nintendo Printing Money, Profits Up 261 Percent

Nintendo released its earnings for the three months ending last December, and the Kyoto-based game company is doing extremely well. Revenue reached 482.97 billion yen ($4.44 billion) and surpassing forecasts of 407.86 billion yen. As CNBC points out, Nintendo’s operating profit also jumped 261 percent year-on-year. Nintendo has also increased its Switch sales projections to…

New Year’s Eve. Diver City Tokyo, Japan. By Nelson Diaz. JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line! 

The Last Player From NHL ’94 Has Left The League

In 2013, we were down to three active NHL players who had appeared in NHL 94, a video game released in 1993. It’s taken almost five more years, but we’re now finally down to zero. Just as Kevin Garnett’s retirement from the NBA closed the book on the 16-bit era with basketball games, Jaromir Jagr’s…

When a game owned by Microsoft is available on a Nintendo console, things are sometimes going to get awkward.

Alaska Man Arrested After Hitting Roommate With Zelda Sword

Ancohrage police were called to an apartment near the University of Alaska last Friday after a group of roomates got into a fight involving their fists, a knife and a replica Master Sword. 22 year-old Jeremy Tazruk was arrested after the fight—which Anchorage Daily News reports he did not begin—escalated from some pushing and shoving…

Players Have To Fight To Unlock Dissidia Final Fantasy NT‘s Story Mode 

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, out today for the PlayStation 4, is a game primarily built for competitive online play. It has a story mode, but each chapter has to be earned in battle. When I hear “story mode” in regards to a fighting game, I imagine a short-ish narrative dotted with battles against AI opponents,…

Next Month’s Hearthstone Nerfs Were Way Overdue

There comes a time when every Hearthstone metagame grows stale and players get tired of seeing the same competitive decks over and over. We hit that point with the latest expansion Kobolds and Catacombs a while ago, but now, with the announcement of a new set of balance changes, we may be in for a…

People Are Putting Video Game Faces On Real Porn, The End Is Nigh [UPDATE]

Fake porn has been around since time immemorial, but recent months have seen the practice take an unsettling leap forward thanks to AI-based video technology that allows people to easily map other people’s faces onto bodies that aren’t their own. Now video game characters’ faces are getting stitched onto IRL bodies as well. Warning: the…

BioWare’s Anthem Officially Delayed To 2019

EA said today that BioWare’s Anthem will be out in early 2019, confirming our report last week that the upcoming multiplayer action game will not make it this year. “It’s not a delay,” EA’s Blake Jorgensen told the Wall Street Journal, despite the publisher previously announcing the game for a “fall 2018″ release. Merriam-Webster defines…

A Guide To Understanding Monster Hunter: World’s User Interface

Monster Hunter: World might be full of dragons, but the hardest enemy for new hunters to slay is the UI. This quick guide should help you focus on what’s important. When you’re in the field, it’s crucial to know exactly what’s going on. Monster Hunter: World covers the screen with a ton of widgets and…

Players Find Subnautica Time Capsule With Early Dev Ideas

Underwater survival game Subanutica came out of early access last week. The full version includes time capsules, which are pods containing notes and gear that players can leave in each other’s games. One of the game’s developers left an early-game sketch in theirs, revealing some of the thought process behind Subnautica’s creepy alien world. Some…

Blizzard Nerfs Mercy’s Rez

After weeks on Overwatch’s public test realm, Blizzard’s big Mercy nerf has gone live. The controversial set of changes centers around the effect Mercy’s ult, Valkyrie, had on her resurrect ability. Previously, Valkyrie took away resurrect’s cast time. Now it doesn’t. It also granted a bonus resurrect. It doesn’t do that anymore either. In addition,…

Behind The Wheel With GTA Online’s Most Hardcore Gearheads

A line of sleek sports cars pulls into a small parking lot outside of a Los Santos Customs garage. The drivers get out, take photos, and boast about their cars. This is the beginning of a car meet, a type of event enjoyed by thousands of GTA Online gearheads who love racing, customizing and showing…

Anime Film Mary and The Witch‘s Flower Is Just Okay

The new anime movie Mary and the Witch’s Flower, released earlier this month in the U.S., pitches itself as a whimsical, enchanting film that could fit right in with the Studio Ghibli family of classics. Its dazzling animation almost obscures a plot with holes large enough to fly through with a broom. For kids, that…

Divinity: Original Sin 2 Is One Of The Best RPGs I’ve Ever Played

One Saturday a couple of weeks ago, I woke up around 8:30am excited for what I knew would be a productive day. I’d get some errands done, do laundry, and maybe even start outlining my next book. But first, I thought, I’ll play some Divinity: Original Sin 2. At 4pm, I knew I had made…