In 2016, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) released a documentary about Hayao Miyazaki, the director behind legendary Studio Ghibli films like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. Called Never-Ending Man, the documentary explores the beloved filmmaker’s artistic philosophy, but online, it remains most famous…
Source: Kotaku – Hayao Miyazaki Trashing AI ‘Art’ In 2016 Feels Really Prophetic Now
Sony is preparing to sell a Spider-Man 2 PlayStation 5 bundle that will include a digital download for the game, presumably at a discount, as it ramps up plans to try and sell a record-breaking 25 million consoles this year. The company is already giving away free copies of older games to any players who activate a…
Source: Kotaku – A New Spider-Man 2 PS5 Bundle Is Coming
How Fish Is Made is a horror game about life-altering choices. You can’t immediately tell from the free Steam game’s dumpy sardine graphics, I know. It and its new Katamari Damacy-type expansion, (which primarily serves as an entertaining ad for Swedish developer Wrong Organ’s forthcoming game Mouthwashing), are short…
Source: Kotaku – You Can Play This Life-Ruining Horror Game On Steam For Free
On Sunday, October 1, the Florida Mayhem defeated the Houston Outlaws in the 2023 Overwatch League Grand Finals in Toronto, Canada. It was the team’s very first championship, and it could very well be their last—as well as the last championship awarded in the once massively popular esports league, period.
Source: Kotaku – The Overwatch League Grand Finals Were Both Beautiful And Depressing
The Pokémon franchise doesn’t scare me that often. Sure, when I see Pikachu take a hard hit in a battle, I’m scared for his health. When Giratina shows up to fight my beaten-down team at the end of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, that’s also terrifying because I’m running low on Pokémon to fight back. But in terms of actual…
Source: Kotaku – The Pokémon Anime’s Spookiest Episode Aired 25 Years Ago Today
Today is the first day of former president Donald Trump’s $250 million fraud trial in New York. A case brought by the state’s attorney general accuses the Republican primary frontrunner of lying about his net worth by billions of dollars to try to secure more favorable loan terms. One of his attorneys, Alina Habba,…
Source: Kotaku – Trump Lawyer Sports Gamer Laptop At 0 Million Fraud Trial
Mediatonic is best known for the colorful battle royale Fall Guys. Long before it was purchased by Epic Games, however, the UK-based studio created the international HD remaster of the cult-hit dating sim about pigeons that go to high school, Hatoful Boyfriend. The game’s original creator, manga artist Hato Moa, now…
Source: Kotaku – Creator Of Hit Pigeon-Dating Sim Says Epic Never Paid Her Royalties
EA Sports FC 24, the latest soccer game in the series previously known as FIFA, has only been out for a little over a week and its loot box antics are already causing some fans to lose it in frustration. The Elite Season Opener Pack costs $30 and went live during the game’s paid “early access” period, jumpstarting the…
Source: Kotaku – Even Fans Are Shocked By EA Sports FC 24’s ‘Awful’ Loot Box
After a terrible launch week riddled with error messages, Payday 3 maker Starbreeze Studios says the matchmaking issues have finally been fixed. The promises come ahead of the heist shooter’s first big patch planned for early October.
Source: Kotaku – Payday 3 Devs Swear Matchmaking Is Fixed Ahead Of Big Update
October is here and it’s clear that 2023 is not done showering us with video games. This month sees the release of the long-, long-, long-awaited sequel to a classic Xbox 360 horror game, a sneaky new stab-stab simulator, a speedy hedgehog who definitely doesn’t need another cup of coffee, another chance to wear…
Source: Kotaku – October Is A Scary Good Time For Game Releases
Cyberpunk 2077 and its Phantom Liberty expansion have a problem with wasting your time. CD Projekt Red’s open-world RPG has a feature where you have to wait an undetermined amount of time for certain quests to activate, and that persists into Phantom Liberty. Even now, after the epic 2.0 update revamped a bunch of the…
Source: Kotaku – Players Are Having Trouble Activating The Cyberpunk 2077 Expansion’s Final Mission
Call of Duty’s collaborations this year have cast a wide net, ranging from putting rapper Nicki Minaj in as a playable character to adding cosmetics that are based on the Diablo series. Next month, the series is leaning into all things spooky and hellish, and that includes a tribute to Doom, the landmark 1993…
Source: Kotaku – Doom’s Iconic Super Shotty Looks Right At Home In Call Of Duty
South African-Canadian immigrant Elon Musk promised on September 27 that he’d test livestreaming on X (you know it as Twitter) “with some silly stuff,” he said, like a Diablo IV speedrun with no powerful Malignant Heart add-ons. On September 28, he decided to livestream the Texas-Mexico border in Eagle Pass, a…
Source: Kotaku – Citizen Journalist Elon Musk Livestreams Mexican Border In Dead Space T-shirt
The video game industry is still reeling from Epic Games’ September 28 announcement that it will lay off nearly 900 employees. If developers at the Fortnite money-printing factory aren’t safe, nobody is. In perhaps the worst-timed microtransaction ever, Fortnite’s “Share The Wealth” emote went back up for sale on the…
Source: Kotaku – Fortnite Brings Back ‘Share The Wealth’ Emote On Same Day As Mass Layoffs
Using a public copy of the Baldur’s Gate 3 script, one Reddit user discovered the worst decisions you could make when interacting with your companions, whose approval impacts the role-playing game’s story options. From the script, u/sudosussudio picked out 11 decisions that will set you back significantly in your…
Source: Kotaku – Baldur’s Gate 3 Script Reveals The Worst Things You Could Do To Your Companions
Doom is still a very good first-person shooter, even if it’s nearly 30 years old. But that first, world-changing chapter did lack something that its predecessor, Wolfenstein 3D, had plenty of—Nazi killin’. Thankfully a new total conversion mod for Doom, called Venturous, has fixed this and in the process created a…
Source: Kotaku – New Doom Mod Is Basically A Badass Indiana Jones Game
I woke up today hoping to buy a cute plush of Pikachu wearing an outfit inspired by world-renowned artist Vincent Van Gogh, but scalpers got to it the second it went up on the Pokémon Center website. I’m frustrated, and that’s the general sentiment a lot of Pokémon fans are feeling right now, as scalpers and resellers…
Source: Kotaku – Scalpers Ruin Online Sales Of Pokémon Van Gogh Merch, Too
Sonic Frontiers, Sega’s latest (and surprisingly well-received) entry in the speedy hedgehog franchise, received its final free content update on Thursday. It seems this new update is proving to be way more difficult than the base game, as players who once bragged about how easy the game was are getting their generous…
Source: Kotaku – Sonic Frontiers’ Final Free Update Is Kicking Players’ Asses
