There was a time, back in the day, where you’d just buy a finished game and played it. No day-one updates or extra patches—it was simple. These games couldn’t “die” because they simply…existed. But as MMOs and live-service games (or “games as a service”) began to proliferate, requiring online servers and constant…
Source: Kotaku – RIP To These 14 Games That Died In 2022
If 2022 is going to be the year of anything, it’s been the year of the city-builder, a strategy sub-genre that has exploded in popularity recently, especially on the PC. While most efforts are focused on sprawling urban landscapes and Viking outposts, and others make city-builders with even more systems, The Block is…
Source: Kotaku – The Block Is The Perfect (Tiny) City-Builder
For the past week, ArtStation—the world’s most popular portfolio site for professional (and amateur!) artists working in the entertainment business—has been rocked by protests from its users, after owners Epic Games refused to offer adequate protections against the growing threat of AI-generated imagery.
Source: Kotaku – Some Of My Favorite Images From ArtStation’s AI Protests
The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 gives Americans the right to sue companies over anticompetitive behavior, a fact which 10 self-described gamers are using to take Microsoft to court, aiming to halt the company’s acquisition of Activision.
Source: Kotaku – Gamers Are Suing Microsoft To Thwart Its Merger With Activision
When the year began, there were only a handful of video games that piqued my interest, and chief among them was the spin-off to the classic beat ‘em up series Kunio-Kun (or River City). River City Girls 2 finally arrived in the U.S. on December 15 after shifting release dates all year, and the game not only lived up…
Source: Kotaku – River City Girls 2 Is The Beat ‘Em Up That Dreams Are Made Of
Are you feeling a bit tired of all the big games this year or all the online service games that seemingly never end? Looking for something weird, fun, and only about an hour long? Well, then stop reading this (Editor’s note: Don’t do that.) and go play the recently released Chop Goblins, one of the year’s coolest…
Source: Kotaku – New Micro FPS Is The Coolest Game Of 2022
Pokémon saved the Switch in 2022, which was also the year that the console officially started to feel old.
Source: Kotaku – The State Of The Nintendo Switch In 2022
Warzone 2.0’s been out for a little while now, but not everyone’s been happy with some of the changes the battle royale received in its latest iteration. When, where, and how you access loadouts saw one such unpopular change. Raven Software, however, has recently announced that Buy Stations will once again grant you…
Source: Kotaku – Warzone 2.0 Finally Lets Players Purchase Full Loadouts
Racing to the last possible helicopter to flee an increasingly radiated map, my heart is pounding. I know the chopper is going to sit there for nearly two minutes, and here I am running, alone and vulnerable. I sped halfway across the map in a truck to outrun the radiation and must now defend my position to escape. I…
Source: Kotaku – Call Of Duty’s Year-Defining New Mode Is Everything Shooters Should Aspire To Be
Sony’s new PS5 controller, the wireless DualSense Edge, looks normal enough. It has the right number of buttons and enough space to rest your hands on its boomerang-shaped plastic. But its extreme customization presumably explains why it costs $200, almost three times the base price for the standard PS5 controller. A…
Source: Kotaku – Sony’s New 0 PS5 Controller Dies Faster Than The Original
Activision Blizzard president and Chief Operating Officer Daniel Alegre is leaving the company to become CEO of blockchain company Yuga Labs, which owns famous ugly NFTs like Bored Ape and CryptoPunks. Alegre, who was named in a February lawsuit alleging Activision Blizzard misled the SEC about its contested Microsoft…
Source: Kotaku – Activision Blizzard President Leaves To Take Over Bored Ape Yacht Club
InSight—or, less elegantly, the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport mission—is a robot that NASA’s JPL (with help from the European Space Agency) sent to Mars back in 2018.
Source: Kotaku – NASA Robot Sends One Of The Saddest Tweets I Have Ever Seen
John Carmack, legendary game designer, rocket guy and VR enthusiast, has announced that he is leaving both Meta/Facebook, and the virtual reality business itself, behind after a decade as one of its most prominent champions.
Source: Kotaku – John Carmack Quits Meta, Says ‘This Is The End Of My Decade In VR’
We have this on record, I know, but in case anyone needs reminding: Dark Forces is the best Star Wars video game ever made. It might not be the best video game made using the Star Wars license, but it is the most Star Warsy. So it is very cool seeing the game given a fresh coat of paint thanks to the work of a…
Source: Kotaku – Star Wars: Dark Forces Looks Fantastic In 2022
Wacky shooter High On Life, only a week after its initial release on PC and Xbox Game Pass, is currently the most popular game on the service, beating out big-name Xbox titles and long-running games like Minecraft. It’s a sign the shooter has a lot of fans, but also an indication of just how sparse Xbox’s big,…
Source: Kotaku – High On Life Is Now The Most Popular Game On Game Pass
Video game merch is rarely cool. You’d be hard-pressed to find wearable merch worthy of any place other than the gym, or household items you could display in a mid-century modern living room. It’s also rarely inspired or unique—my cabinet is full of slightly chipped Call of Duty coffee mugs, my storage bin overflowing…
Source: Kotaku – The Best Gaming Merch of 2022 You Can Actually Show Off
I only consider myself a “gamer” in a literal sense—I play video games every year, but only a modest handful of those already familiar to me, like my darling Bloodborne or Super Smash Bros. I started working at Kotaku this year, though, and by demand, 2022 became my most “gamer” year ever, with lots of new games…
Source: Kotaku – Ashley Bardhan’s Top 5 Games Of 2022
Today, Japanese video game developer Kojima Productions celebrated its seventh anniversary and gave everyone workspace envy by showing off what its new game studio looks like. And boy howdy, this studio is just as over the top as you’d expect, given that its repertoire includes a video game with a 31-minute cutscene.
Source: Kotaku – Hideo Kojima’s Game Studio Video Looks Like A Hyper-Futuristic Episode Of MTV Cribs
In a recent interview, The Last of Us showrunner Craig Mazin said that the original game contained the “greatest story ever told” in the history of video games. Not only is this statement silly, but it also continues this weird pattern of people trying to rewrite history to make Naughty Dog’s original PS3 adventure…
Source: Kotaku – Last Of Us Showrunner Says Original Game Is ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told In Video Games’
