ArmA III, a video game that in the right circumstances can look pretty realistic, has a long history of turning up on news broadcasts and being either confused with or intentionally used in place of actual camera footage of real-world events. That trend is continuing in the current crisis in Ukraine.
Source: Kotaku – Some Of The Most Popular ‘Ukraine Footage’ Is Actually A Video Game
I ran into my first Elden Ring trap. It was designed to look like a treasure chest, nestled safely in a low-level area of FromSoftware’s latest action RPG, but it took me on a whirlwind journey through some of the nastier parts of the game’s crumbling world.
Source: Kotaku – Screw This Elden Ring ‘Treasure Chest’
Early Elden Ring players were shocked when an NPC in the closed network test called their character a “bit player” who should “die in a ditch somewhere.” His outright and immediate hostility was seen by some as a personification of the Souls-like genre’s brutal difficulty, but I’m here to report that, for better or…
Source: Kotaku – Elden Ring Beta’s Most Notorious Jerk Has Chilled Out Now
Jason “JasonR” Ruchelski, a former CS:GO player and full-time Twitch streamer, is under fire for reputedly dodging Valorant games in which women are present. He’s also defending himself in the worst way possible, saying he can’t disrespect women if he never interacts with them. It’s not a good look.
Source: Kotaku – Valorant Twitch Streamer Accused Of Dodging, Muting Women
Despite the turbulent development roadmap of Dragon Age 4, BioWare announced yesterday that the RPG is in the middle of the production phase. The announcement coincided with the news that a Dragon Age executive producer was leaving the studio. As the blog post tells it, the developers’ morale is reportedly high right…
Source: Kotaku – BioWare Shares Small But Encouraging Dragon Age 4, Mass Effect Updates
Elden Ring finally comes out tomorrow amid high expectations, having been lauded by critics as “the best game of all time,” “the greatest game of all time,” and “not Horizon Forbidden West, which by the way is also pretty good.” There’s just one problem: Apparently, the game isn’t running so great on PC, and the…
Source: Kotaku – Elden Ring Isn’t Running So Great On PC
While many of you are no doubt champing at the bit for the release of this totally unknown game called Elden Ring that’s coming out this week, PlayStation Plus members who don’t feel the irresistible urge to hurl themselves into the unforgiving gauntlet of a new Soulsborne game have some new games to try out for free,…
Source: Kotaku – March’s PlayStation Plus Lineup Is Surprisingly Stacked
Last night Russian tanks moved across the border into Ukraine. The invasion saw bombings near the capital Kyiv and elsewhere, with the ensuing fighting leading to the deaths of over 40 Ukrainian soldiers, The New York Times reports. The attacks come after months of escalating rhetoric and build up of Russian troops,…
Source: Kotaku – Ukraine Game Developers Respond To Russian Invasion
The Pokémon Company is hosting a showcase on its YouTube channel this Sunday, February 27—the holy occasion known ‘round the world as Pokémon Day. Though the company has yet to detail the specific games the 14 minute pre-recorded video will cover, it’s a safe bet we’ll get some new info about the latest game in the…
Source: Kotaku – There’s A Surprise Pokémon News Showcase On Sunday, And Hopefully We’ll See Arceus
Today, Nintendo announced it’s acquiring longtime partner SRD (Systems Research and Development), a company that has helped in programming some of the company’s most iconic games, including Super Mario Bros.
Nintendo acquired 100 percent of SRD’s outstanding shares for an undisclosed sum, making the studio a wholly…
Source: Kotaku – Nintendo Buys Longtime Partner And Super Mario Bros. Programmer SRD
This Friday, Elden Ring is released. If you’re looking forward to the game, going into work that day will suck. How will you focus? You won’t. You’ll just be counting down the minutes—no, the seconds—until you can get out of that place and starting playing From Software’s latest opus.
But the game’s already being…
Source: Kotaku – Take The Day Off To Play Elden Ring, Says Japanese Game Studio
The proprietor of retro game shop Alive Yokkaichi Tokiwa Store in Mie, Japan was put into police custody for allegedly selling a fake Pokémon card for around 2,200 yen ($19).
The store’s 48-year-old owner Yukinori Harada was arrested for allegedly violating Japanese copyright law.
As you can see in this hour-long…
Source: Kotaku – Shop Owner Arrested After Selling A Fake Pokémon Card And Displaying Three Phony Games
Earlier today, a press release dropped on a Pentagon news service’s website titled Why Today’s ‘Gen Z’ is at Risk for Boot Camp Injuries. It is very funny.
Source: Kotaku – The ‘Nintendo Generation’ Have Weak Skeletons, US Army Weirdo Says
When I first started writing about Arknights last year, I had completed three-fourths of its main storyline. For all intents and purposes, I considered myself a bit of an expert of this gacha tower defense game, thinking of it as basically real-time chess with anime catgirls. Many months later, I realize that I was…
Source: Kotaku – One Year In, Arknights’ Bonkers Gameplay Finally Makes Sense To Me
Valve just released a new feature that lets you sign into Steam and check to see how many of the games in your library will run on the new Steam Deck handheld. I’ve ended up with a lot of games over my time in this job, from all kinds of genres and eras, so figured running the test on them might be a useful real-world…
Source: Kotaku – The Steam Deck Compatibility Test vs 810 Steam Games
In the future, if some of the most popular science-fiction games are to be believed, we’ll all be drinking in a bar called Afterlife.
Source: Kotaku – Cyberpunk 2077’s Afterlife Bar Vs. Mass Effect 2’s, The Comparison We Had To Make
A rickety, wooden bridge in many games is just that: a way to get across a gap to the next objective. But in Souls games, FromSoftware often utilizes these atmospheric flourishes for more devious ends. That’s why, when Elden Ring presented me with such an obstacle a few short moments into my new adventure, I couldn’t…
Source: Kotaku – Elden Ring’s First Scary Obstacle Is A Simple Bridge
Last week, I said FromSoftware was “back on its bullshit” in response to the moody Elden Ring cinematic that introduces the game’s world and major characters. I wish I’d saved that particularly evocative phrase for today’s story instead because, if finding a way to poison the player in less than 90 seconds isn’t the…
Source: Kotaku – Elden Ring’s First Poisonous Area Appears Less Than 90 Seconds Into The Game
Bungie’s massive Witch Queen expansion launched surprisingly smoothly and is extremely good so far. While everyone else has been celebrating, however, Destiny 2 Hunters have been going through an existential crisis of sorts as they grapple with some of the update’s low points. These include an extremely niche Exotic…
Source: Kotaku – Destiny 2 Nightstalkers Are Having A Crisis After Witch Queen Changes
The review embargo for Elden Ring, From Software’s highly anticipated and tough-as-nails action role-playing game, has finally lifted ahead of its February 25 launch. Critics have started publishing their reviews online, giving you an opportunity to see just where the latest Soulslike stands in relation to other genre…
Source: Kotaku – Elden Ring Reviews Call The Game A Challenging Open-World Masterpiece