In 2002, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter launched on PS2 and GameCube. The third-person action-adventure game let players hop into the bounty-hunting boots of Jango Fett aka Boba Fett’s clone dad from Attack of The Clones. It wasn’t great, but was a fun prequel to Episode II. Now, 20 years later, it’s been remastered, improved, and ported to new consoles, and while it looks and plays better than ever, it’s still mostly the same not-great PS2-era action game, but now with a flashlight. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Microsoft shutdown the Xbox 360’s marketplace this week and nearly two decades after the console first launched it feels like the final nail in the coffin for a particular era of gaming we’ll probably never see again.
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The Xbox 360 came out a year earlier than the competition and $100 cheaper than the base PlayStation 3. It seemed to make all the right moves, using Halo, Gears of War, and Call of Duty to jump start online multiplayer into the soon-to-be dominant form of gaming, while investing it all back into indie curation, big exclusives, and marketing deal that made the console feel like the place everyone had to be.
In some ways it felt like the best of all worlds, and by the end of the generation you could pick up an Xbox 360 for just $100 and play dozens of the best games ever made. The culture was far from healthy, and some of the places making everything were a mess to work for. But it was also a fun time, and a weird one. Here’s what we’ll miss about it and why the Xbox 360 still feels so special to us.
Carolyn Petit: The first E3 I ever attended was in 2005, with the Xbox 360’s launch still some months out and I have to say, the games I saw on the show floor looked amazing. It’s hilarious to me now considering I haven’t even thought about this game in probably 15 years, but at that time, the game that blew me away the most was probably GRAW. Interestingly, though, despite my initial excitement about the console being rooted in its graphical power and my lust for next-gen spectacle, now, when I think back on what made the console so special to me, it’s not really about that aspect of it at all. What about you Alyssa?
Alyssa Mercante: I’ve told mine on Kotaku.com more than once, but I had borrowed my high school sweetheart’s original Xbox to play Halo 2 when he went away to college, but not long after that Halo 3 came out, which wasn’t backwards compat. So I went out during my free period in high school (we had an open campus for seniors, you could take your car and leave if you didn’t have class), and drove to a Target where I spent my summer job savings on a 360, Halo 3, and Xbox Live.
Ethan: I have zero recollection of the Xbox 360’s launch. What was I even doing at the time? 2005. Hmm. I was going into my senior year in high school, barely playing anything except for the occasional late-stage PS2 game—Shadow of the Colossus and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai, followed eventually by Okami and Final Fantasy XII. My only real memory of the beginning of that console cycle is my brother getting a PS3 and me having almost no interest in it. It wasn’t until my girlfriend’s roommate’s boyfriend in college got me hooked on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that I finally picked up a super cheap used Xbox 360 arcade edition for like $150. That four years after the console launched but still somehow only the mid-way point.
Carolyn: Yeah, I don’t remember exactly when I finally got one myself—I certainly couldn’t afford one at launch, and my memories of the time around release have a lot to do with playing Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (lol) at GameStop kiosks.
Moises Taveras: The first time I ever played an Xbox 360 also had to do with Call of Duty: MW2. It was all the rage with the kids in my middle school, but I was largely looking from the outside in as a) a PlayStation kid since my youth and b) someone who came from a family too poor to afford more than one console. But eventually, I made friends who had 360s and I remember us all cramming onto a couch in the smallest bedroom imaginable at our friend Howard’s house and playing local multiplayer matches till we lost our voices from shouting. I learned really quickly then that the 360 was synonymous with multiplayer and socializing with folks and it made me want one so bad. Little did I know I wouldn’t get a 360 till the very end of the console generation!
Carolyn: I think part of the Xbox 360’s dominance in that era can be attributed to the fact that it offered the best online experience for folks wanting to play Call of Duty, but it also did something incredible that totally won over people like me. I’m not saying I didn’t have an amazing time playing Gears of War co-op, I absolutely did, and huge credit to Microsoft for putting out a steady stream of banger exclusives that really made Xbox Live feel essential. But for me, when I think about the Xbox 360, what still gets me excited most is Xbox Live Arcade, and particularly amazing games like Pac-Man Championship Edition. Games like this took the arcade leaderboard competition of my childhood and absolutely exploded it. Suddenly I was staying up nights pouring everything I had into beating my friends’ high scores on online leaderboards for all the world to see. Man, it was incredible.
Moises: Supergiant Games’ Bastion absolutely blew my mind as far as what I thought games could be. It being a console exclusive to the 360 through XBLA broke my heart and kept me from the portfolio of what’d become my favorite studio, and then Xbox just kept pumping out indie titles like it. Honestly, my working definition of an indie game was largely informed by this era of XBLA games.
Xbox Dashboard Evolution 2001-2019 (Xbox Original, Xbox 360, One)
Kenneth Shepard: The Xbox 360 was the first console launch I was really tuned into the industry for. I was full-blown sicko mode for that thing as a kid, and was counting down the days. I was a huge Rare fan at the time and Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero were a huge deal to me. But broadly, I think I fell off video games for a bit because the system just didn’t speak to my tendencies. As Moises said, the 360 became the multiplayer system and I preferred gaming in solitude, and eventually pivoted to the PS3 in the final years of that generation. But I played the Mass Effect trilogy on the 360, so I ended up keeping an old 360 in my home longer than any other system. I had to replace the household 360 more times than probably any other system my family owned.
We got a launch window system that died by the time Halo 3 came out, so we had to replace it swiftly. Then I got my own 360 for Christmas 2009, just before the launch of Mass Effect 2. That sucker lasted over a decade. It gathered dust for large swaths of the time, but since I didn’t own an Xbox One, it was the only way for me to go back to my old Mass Effect trilogy saves until the Legendary Edition came out in 2021. So while I had mostly abandoned the system by the end of the generation, the 360 is still a defining system in my life because it gave me one of the most important video game experiences of my life. I’ll always be grateful for it, even if I think the Microsoft was a trailblazer for some of the industry’s worst modern tendencies with it.
Ethan: That was the other thing that I think tipped me in the direction of the Xbox 360 besides the price and walled multiplayer gardens. As someone coming from the PS1 and PS2, it just had more of the RPGs I was craving earlier or in better condition. I came to the original Mass Effect late but it blew my mind. I got to catch up on Star Wars: The Old Republic. It was synonymous with retro and couch-coop indie games for me like Castle Crashers and Super Meat Boy. It really did just nail a lot of the same things that the PS4 did a generation later and which ultimately helped Sony to reverse the tide.
Moises: it’s so weird to think about now given Xbox’s current situation and catalog, but the 360 was where all the games were!
Carolyn: Another thing that was a big factor for me, I have to admit, is that I was totally cheevo-pilled. The Xbox 360 brought about the advent of achievements and I got extremely excited about pulling off absurd things like beating Call of Duty campaigns on Veteran to get all the achievements. I no longer put much stock in achievements or trophies, but to this day I greatly prefer the at-a-glance number that reflects your achievements compared to all the trophies of PlayStation’s system. And on top of that, the whole interface on Xbox just felt so much more inviting to me than that on Sony. I think avatars were really smart of them to introduce in that era. I loved signing on and seeing little cartoon versions of all my good friends online, playing games of their own. In comparison to that, the whole interface of the PS3 just felt cold and impersonal to me, and that console would end up gathering dust in my entertainment center.
Ethan: The Xbox 360 home screen definitely felt a lot more inviting and hit that sweet spot of clutter to chill. The controller was also very solid. Have any of you gone back and tried to hold a PS3 DualShock? It feels like you’re being pranked. I take it none of you ever had an issue with red-ringing or other hardware failures?
Photo: Mark Davis (Getty Images)
Moises: Nope! Correct me if I’m wrong but those issues got ironed out with later iterations of the console, so by the time one of my best friends let me indefinitely borrow his 360, it was smooth sailing for me.
Carolyn: I did have to send mine back for repairs once, and for a while there at least, it felt like everyone I knew who owned one was hitting the red ring. There was a period there, at least in my circle of friends, where there was real disbelief and anger that Microsoft had sold us all a product that was so prone to failure. I think it speaks to just how fond people were overall of the console—its library, its interface, its online features—that today, when you bring it up, you’re far more likely to get fond recollections than bitter complaints. It was so good that even the considerable irritations so many of us experienced with it are now just a footnote in our memories.
Ethan: My console ended up red-ringing in like, 2012? But then I read that you can just put it in the oven and bake it at a low temperature to loosen up the glue. Has worked like a charm ever since.
Carolyn: Wow, I never knew that!
Ethan: I think one of the reasons people look back so fondly on the Xbox 360 is that, in retrospect, it felt like the last time you could contain the entirety of what was going on, coming out, and being talked about in your head at any given time. It was still very intimate and physical, with midnight launches and stacks of controllers in the split-screen coop session. There was spectacle with E3 but also the feeling you alone were discovering these incredible hidden treasures on Xbox Live Arcade, which was like a return to finding the internet for the first time again.
Carolyn: I agree. And they just had so many games that became sensations for a time, from Braid to Geometry Wars. The curation was exceptional, and it was an era in which it still felt like the whole culture, or much of it at least, could still come together for a few weeks around some exciting new downloadable game.
Moises: Yeah. By comparison, when the PS4 really started to pivot to those smaller more intimate games early in its lifetime, it wasn’t that those games were lesser, but it did feel like they were being more haphazardly thrown on the platform to fill gaps between big exclusives. Meanwhile XBLA had these clearly thought out rollouts and events that made a big deal of Arcade titles. Also everything was less shitty. Xbox Live Gold was the original multiplayer subscription, and the only one for quite some time, but it at least seemed to provide value with great deals and a platform that produced rock solid multiplayer hits. It also wasn’t as expensive as anything is nowadays.
Carolyn: Before we wrap things up here, I think we can’t talk about what an amazing console the 360 was without saying a little more about its games. Are there any games y’all want to shout out as particular favorites that really helped make that library great or were emblematic of what the console was doing? When I think about the 360, I think about how the grittiness of Gears of War coexisted harmoniously alongside the whimsy of Viva Pinata, and I’ll never forget the dozens of hours my friends and I spent driving around doing challenges together in Burnout Paradise. It really did feel, more than a lot of other consoles, like it offered something for everyone, and like the people behind it thought deeply about how to bring people together to share in the experiences it offered.
And even though some of its games were also on PlayStation, at least everyone in my friend group, won over by the cheevos and online features of Xbox, always bought multiplatform games there, which perpetuated the console’s dominance in that generation. It’s a little wild to think how this generation it feels somewhat the opposite for me, like most people I know play most multiplatform games on PlayStation. Wild how the tables have turned. But yeah, any other 360 shoutouts?
Moises: I cannot separate the 360 from the stunning role it did in promoting so many smaller studios to the mainstream. I already invoked Bastion from Supergiant Games, but I can’t not shoutout Limbo and Playdead, which has now delivered two absolutely singular game experiences in a row. Oh and Shadow Complex does still own.
Ethan: Limbo was incredible. While the indie darling backlash was fair and warranted, it was really an incredible run of curation there for several years. The Dishwasher games were great, and really spoke to that sense of Newgrounds 2.0 animating the grungy vibe of XBLA. It’s also wild how much Microsoft tried to court Japanese RPG fans with Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. For me personally, Dungeon Defenders is still an all-time great. One of the last times I was able to rope friends into playing something for hours with me on a couch.
I was trying to think of my top five favorite 360 games, exclusive or no, and couldn’t stop listing stuff. The end of that console generation was so strong, on both 360 and PS3, maybe there’s hope that the Series X/S and PS5 pick up in their final years. But with massive budgets, long development times, and so much risk-averse consolidation, I’m not hopeful.
Carolyn: Whether it picks up to some degree or not, I think it’s safe to say that there will never be an era quite like that exemplified by the 360 again. The console was just perfectly poised to take advantage of a given moment in gaming culture and technology, employing exciting new ideas like achievements to build a sense of both community and friendly competition around games in ways that its library and online service leveraged brilliantly. Also, Sneak King was great.
Ethan: Any parting thoughts since you vanished, Alyssa?
Alyssa: LMAO. The time my 360 red ringed right before I went up for senior year of college. The day before. And I went out and bought another because not having one wasn’t an option. That or the time my mother heard me cursing out misogynists in Italian?
Ethan: Was it on the $3 phone bank operator Xbox 360 headset?
Image: Kotaku / Ubisoft / Sony / Rocksteady / Nosyrevy (Getty Images), Digital Sun, Vicky Leta / Blizzard, Nintendo, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios / Sega, Cyan Worlds Inc
This week, Ubisoft released a statement addressing what might generously be called a “controversy” about the upcoming Assassin’s Creed game, Shadows. Let’s be real, though. It’s just the latest salvo from a reactionary hate movement. You can read our thoughts on that, the terrific texture of Yakuza 0, the missteps of Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, the amazing sound design of the Riven remake, and more, in the pages ahead.
Photo: The Game Awards / Summer Game Fest / Kotaku (Getty Images), Image: Bungie / Sony, Supergiant Games, Screenshot: Ninja Theory / Claire Jackson / Kotaku
It’s summer, but just because it’s nice out doesn’t mean we stop playing games. It’s almost time for Not-E3/Summer Game Fest, and several major studios are planning showcases and reveals during the upcoming week. We break down what you can expect.
We also help you beat the final boss in Hades 2, and find all of the totems, or lorestangir, in Hellblade 2. You’re welcome.
I’m filling in some gaps in my RPG history. I’ve been playing series like Final Fantasy since I was a kid, but there are countless other landmark RPGs I’ve rarely touched, including the fantasy RPG Mana series, which splintered off of Final Fantasy Adventure in 1991. The only installment in the long-running franchise I’ve played, in fact, is Children of Mana on the Nintendo DS, which I loved! Nonetheless, I’m on a journey to right my wrongs, so when I was presented with the chance to see the first mainline Mana game since 2006 at PAX East last week, I had to check it out for myself. – Moises Taveras Read More
This week, one of the biggest stories in gaming involved updates to an eight-year-old game. Yes, Stardew Valley developer ConcernedApe trickled out a series of details about the game’s latest patch that had fans hanging on every word in anticipation. We’ve got all the facts for you about this game-changing update, as well as a report on Overwatch 2‘s once-vaunted story missions, a story on the motivations behind an Apex Legends hack, and more.
It was a rather big week in gaming, this last one in February—mostly because we got Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, and everyone came out of the woodwork to spout their hottest take and spiciest opinion about the Square Enix RPG. Is Cid redeemed? Is Aerith a goat lady? Is jank good?
It wasn’t all FF7 all the time: We also had some things to say about third-person shooter Helldivers 2, this week, because we’re a well-rounded bunch. Click through to see our most opinionated stories of the week.
Last week, thanks to the Final Fantasy VIIRebirth demo, some old video game discourse returned and overtook social media: The use of yellow paint to mark certain in-game objects or ledges. All it took was a now-viral tweet of Cloud climbing some yellow rocks in the new demo and a comment about how yellow paint was a “virus” and, bam, the debate is raging all over again. Like a comet returning for another scheduled pass by Earth, the yellow paint topic has once again predictably appeared, leading to endless takes, jokes, threads, opinions, and arguments. Why is this topic so incredibly capable of sucking in everyone around it for days or weeks on end? Well, it’s not really because of the paint, but everything the yellow splotches represent. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Screenshot: Square Enix, James Lambert, Bethesda / Xbox, Naughty Dog / Kotaku, Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
After a couple sleepy weeks, the gaming hype train of 2024 is finally moving at full steam. We saw the first major showcase of the year with Xbox’s Developer Direct, dug into The Last of Us Part II Remastered, and oogled MachineGames flamin’ hot digital dupe of ‘80s Harrison Ford. These are the week’s most important previews, reviews, and takes.
After playing through Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s epilogue I can definitively say I was mostly let down by the Hidden Treasure of Area Zero DLC. Don’t get me wrong, the “Mochi Mayhem” episode is an hour of silly fun alongside some of the best characters to grace the games’ Paldea region, but it is just that—silly, especially when compared to some of the games’ more memorable moments. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
Play it on:Windows Current goal: Dive into the second chapter
Having written up a bunch of fantastic boomer shooters for the site, I was reminded that the team behind the as-yet-unfinished Project Warlock II had added an awful lot of content to its Early Access build since I’d last played. In fact, previously it had only been a single, fantastic level. It’s now two full chapters, each made up of a pile of enormous, sprawling, open levels to tear around.
I’m so glad I’ve gone back to it. This is a screamingly fast FPS game, where you move like an ice cube skidding across a kitchen floor, facing down dozens of enemies at a time. What makes it feel different from the many other retro-FPS games is the sheer scale of the levels, which are far more open than the genre normally offers. Think of those times you got to go outside in the original Unreal, but far more densely packed with enemies, secrets, and loot.
Those secrets are a blast to find, and worth pursuing too, since they offer tokens for upgrades in the betwixt level zone. There are three different areas you can upgrade, with each weapon possible to adjust in two different ways (one shutting down access to the other), and then this upgrade boosted. Then there are affinities to improve, such as whether you want to improve your melee talent, firepower, or indeed your power with fire—you gain spells that let you do things like blast torrents of fire from your palms. And finally you can then specialize even further with—er—VHS tapes you can buy when you’ve increased your ability in a specific attack style, that enhance them in specific ways.
This is all then taken back to the next level, where enemies that were previously boss-like can now appear in gangs and be quickly taken care of. In this, it reminds me of the excellent enemy handling in the original Serious Sam. My plan this weekend is to get stuck into the second chapter, that has a whole other player character, with their own set of skills, perks, spells and weapons. — John Walker
Try out Project Warlock 2’s free demo on Steam
Neo-retro vibes of the “boomer shooter” variety got your interest? Good news: You can download a free demo of Project Warlock 2 to get shootin’ like it’s the mid ‘90s all over again
Photo: Valve / Kotaku / Roman Samborskyi (Shutterstock)
A Steam user on Christmas Eve had a question: How do you earn just one measly little Steam Point? They were at 68,999 points and wanted to hit 69,000 because, you know, it’s a nice number and all that. However, because of how Steam Points are earned, there seemed no simple way to get that one measly point. But then a Christmas miracle happened. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
2023 is almost over, folks. I’d say, “We made it,” but who am I kidding? 2024 will begin, and all the same shit that made 2023 a non-stop hellscape will continue in perpetuity. But 2023 did have a lot of cool games, and every December, we gather to talk about our favorites. We’re doing it here at Kotaku, as well. You might’ve seen some of our personal Game of the Year lists go up on the site already (like mine and senior editor Alyssa Mercante’s). We’ll be posting our site-wide Very Official top 12 list soon, but in the meantime, we wanted to ask you lovely folks: What was your favorite game you played in 2023? – Kenneth Shepard Read More
In 2023, Blizzard opened up Overwatch’s world for third-party collaborations. The first was a set of skins and other cosmetics based on the anime/manga One-Punch Man, which naturally turned Overwatch’s own “one-punch man,” Doomfist, into the titular hero with a new skin. The cape is luxurious, but he’s not the only hero who got to cosplay during the event. Soldier: 76 gets to ride a bike as Mumen Rider, Kiriko’s green wig is wigging as the Terrible Tornado, and Overwatch’s resident cyborg Genji naturally becomes One-Punch Man’s cyborg Genos.
Looking back, the collaboration was strange because One Punch Man hasn’t really been doing much as of late, with the third season still in development and the last one having come out in 2019. But there’s a surprising amount of love shown in the skins, highlight intros, and other cosmetics, as silly as it is seeing Soldier: 76 pedaling like his life depends on it.
The second big collaboration was with K-Pop girl group Le Sserafim, and it was an absolute banger of an event. Take my hand, walk with me. Have you heard the good word of Le Sserafim’s catchy as hell bop “Perfect Night”? Have you basked in the glory of Tracer, Kiriko, Brigitte, D.Va, and Sombra geared up for a K-Pop concert, serving some of the most glamorous skins Overwatch has ever seen? And did you watch the music video, in which all the previously mentioned girlies attend a Le Sserafim concert and use their various abilities to have their own perfect night? It ruled. I’m still wearing the Sombra skin when I play her, and have no plans to take it off.
Le Sserafim / Blizzard Entertainment
While Blizzard looked outside of its stable for crossovers, it also looked to the other side of the office and had a Diablo crossover, as well. Moira mains rejoiced as she finally got a decent skin out of the arrangement, though the Diablo-themed co-op mode was extremely mid and tiresome. Also, John Cena showed up in a viral marketing campaign for some reason, though that had no impact on the game itself.
Even if you don’t watch One-Punch Man or jive with Le Sserafim’s music, Overwatch 2’s collaborative events have felt meaningful, not like they’re just cheap crossovers. The team at Blizzard has done a lot to capture the vibes of its partners without it coming at the expense of its own identity. Crossovers can be exhausting, as games like Fortnite can lose their entire sense of self as they clutter their worlds with pieces of other properties. But so far, Overwatch 2 has found a happy medium in paying tribute to something within its own framework. — KS
You’ve heard it time and time again—2023 was a huge year for game releases, which made the battle for game of the year (GOTY) at sites and award shows across the globe hard-fought and difficult. Baldur’s Gate 3 won at this year’s Game Awards, other publications have handed the crown to Tears of the Kingdom, and Kotaku’s site-wide list may do something completely different. But what about our staff’s personal GOTY lists, the games that delighted us that maybe weren’t all brand-new titles or big-budget blockbusters, but also were fun little mobile games or shooters that got a second life?
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For me, 2023 was a year of branching out. Despite still plunging hundreds of hours into Overwatch 2 comp, I forced myself to try and get better at The New York Times’ Connections word game, and challenged myself to give turn-based RPGs a go for the first time ever. I dabbled in horror, in humor, in learning some hubris. Some of these games are expected, some may surprise, but they are all my top games of 2023—in no particular order.
New York Times’ Connections
Image: New York Times / Kotaku / Vladimir Gjorgiev (Shutterstock)
A few months ago, the daily New York Times’ Connections puzzle was a consistent hit to my self-esteem. Back then, I constantly wasted my finite chances to arrange the sixteen words into four different buckets based on their linguistic connections, and it irked me to a point where I seriously questioned my own intelligence. Was I, actually, a dumb-dumb? But after a week or so of struggling, I started to make important connections (eh? eh?) in my head, and the daily puzzle became a fun way for me to wake my brain up every morning. Now, I look forward to sending my sister a text featuring beautifully organized, colorful squares, and noting how often we figure out the groups in the same order. It took some time, but I’m proud to say I’m a Connections girly now.
Overwatch 2
Image: Vicky Leta / Blizzard
Despite everything I’ve been through as an open-queuing Overwatch 2 competitive player (who is also a healer main), I could not quit Blizzard’s hero shooter in 2023. Just call me Jack Twist. Blizzard gave us some pretty solid in-game events and collaborations this year, and the new heroes added more spice to the game, which made it easy to consistently return to it again and again and again, even when my rank never made any sense. No matter how much I hate on Overwatch 2 and the powers-that-be at ActiBlizz, it’s still my most-played game of the year by a country mile
Alan Wake 2
Image: Remedy
Once in a while, a game comes along that is so vibey, so incredibly curated, that it’s apt to call its creator an “auteur.” Sam Lake, Alan Wake 2’s writer and director, gave us a horror game imbued with the anxieties of a creative, dripping with blood from occult rituals, and bathed in the eerie neon glow of an alternate-reality Manhattan. From the opening sequence to the pitch-perfect ending and the surprise musical number in-between, Alan Wake 2 is perfection. It’s a game that will be remembered for decades to come, a beacon of beauty in what can too-often be a sea of sameness. Or more simply, as the kids say, this game fucking whips.
Halo Infinite
Image: 343 Industries
Halo Infinite had massive Spartan boots to fill, and it struggled to do so at launch. But two years later, the FPS has earned its flowers, offering a full-fledged Forge builder, new maps and modes, and consistent upgrades that keep it fresh. Halo Infinite is my go-to “brain off” shooter, a frustration-free FPS that lets me feel, briefly, like I’m in college again. The silly physics, the absurd weapons, the over-the-top announcers—it all offers up a low-stakes, high-fun experience that’s like snacking on a bag of Sour Patch kids (watermelon, of course). Kudos to 343 Industries for providing so much communication and support to a game that we were all so hard on—now I just wish we’d get some more campaign content…
Diablo IV
Image: Blizzard
This year was a really big one for me when it came to branching outside of my genre comfort zone, and it started with Diablo IV. I’ve never really played top-down RPGs, but the moment I saw the hellish, moody landscape of Blizzard’s latest game in the franchise, I was hooked. The hack-and-slash combat, the sexy devil lady, the endless quest for better loot, it all scratched an itch I never really knew I had. Sure, I eventually stopped playing as other games released and drew my attention, but the future promise of more content for an already-great game means I will inevitably return to Sanctuary.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Image: Insomniac
No, Spider-Man 2 never wowed me, but it did keep me pleasantly, blissfully entertained for a couple dozen hours. Maybe it’s because I wanted to find every New York City landmark with ease, swinging from Rockefeller Center to Madison Square Garden so fast I’m almost angry at the memory of how many times I’ve schlepped through the city on foot. Maybe it’s because Insomniac has perfected how their Spider-Man world looks and feels, making for a virtually unimpeded gaming experience that goes down like a well-chilled shot of mezcal. Whatever the reason, whenever I needed a break from the highs and lows of first-person-shooting, I turned to Spider-Man 2 for a palate cleanser.
Viewfinder
Screenshot: Kotaku / Thunderful
I first tried out Viewfinder at this year’s Summer Game Fest, and I was floored by its beautiful approach to puzzles. As a very impatient person, I often shun puzzle games, as I can’t brute-force my way through them, but the brilliant visual tricks Viewfinder plays were like a balm for my jittery nerves. Its forgiving rewind feature let me fix my mistakes without punishing me for them, which only gave me more runway when it comes to my dwindling patience, as I felt like every fuck up was a gently teachable moment (despite what you may think, I was a pleasure to have in class). Viewfinder is a work of art as much as it’s a game, with each frame feeling like it could be hung on a wall. I adored this game.
Starfield
Image: Bethesda
Starfield isn’t the future of video games. It doesn’t reinvent the Bethesda wheel, nor does it offer something that feels so demonstrably novel that it was worth all the incredible hype it was getting in the years leading to its release. It is, however, a solid-ass game to get lost in for hours at a time, and I’m incredibly grateful for that. In a year where I lost my grandfather and my dog and where the world felt more cruel than usual, I find solace in mindlessly completing silly little side-quests or trudging across distant, barren planets. Starfield allowed me to get lost when I most needed it, to disconnect from the noise of social media or my own grief for a little bit so I could return to both semi-refreshed, ready to take on another day. Like Skyrim, it’ll always be there when I’m looking for a little free serotonin, and that’s worth a place on this list.
Baldur’s Gate 3
Image: Larian Studios
It took me a few months to get onto the Baldur’s Gate 3 bandwagon, and it only happened because I was violently sidelined by a winter cold that whooped my ass. But once I booted up Larian Studios’ award-winning RPG, I was immediately lost to it, spending 25 hours’ worth of time scouring Faerûn within just a few days. By now you’ve undoubtedly heard the reasons why BG3 is a once-in-decade kind of game—it has a fantastic cast of characters that rivals Mass Effect’s, it offers incredible immersion that makes combat and traversal a delightful playground, its world envelops you like a hand-woven tapestry pulled from the stone wall of a castle. It’s been years since I’ve felt so wholly taken by a game and its universe, but Baldur’s Gate 3 has done it.
There you have it, my personal list of the best games of 2023. What do you think?
Despite The Game Awards officially capping off the end of video game news for 2023, we’ve still got stories to share, from GTA 6 controversies to the inglorious end of E3. Here’s your cheat sheet for the week’s most important stories in gaming.
What’s Coming Out Beyond Pokémon: The Indigo Disk | The Week In Games
The drama-filled saga behind one of Steam’s most-anticipated games of 2023 just took its weirdest turn yet. The Day Before maker Fntastic announced it will cease operations less than a week after accusations of swindling players with a massive bait-and-switch when it came to the true nature of its The Last of Us-looking survival game. – Ethan Gach Read More
Valve has a message to all you folks (myself included) who love huffing your Steam Deck exhaust fumes: Stop it. Please.
Have you ever taken a break from playing your Steam Deck to sample the complex fragrances emanating from its exhaust vent? If so, you aren’t alone. Since the release of the handheld PC, many owners have reported that they can’t stop sniffing the fumes that waft out of the Steam Deck during play. It’s become a bit of a meme among Steam Deck owners, with folks often posting online how much they enjoy the distinctive aroma. I’m one of those sickos, sticking my nose right above the exhaust and taking a big whiff each time I play. But someone finally asked Valve about this, and it turns out the company wants you all to knock it off. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
A Florida man is calling on Rockstar Games to pay him $2 million for showing literally one second of a character who looks like him in the reveal trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6. Lawrence Sullivan, AKA “Florida Joker,” accused the studio of stealing his likeness in his latest TikTok video. But a Red Dead Redemption 2 voice actor wasn’t having it. – Ethan Gach Read More
Remember when finding and capturing a Legendary Pokémon felt special? You would stumble upon these powerful creatures whose stories were woven into the world’s history. The Mewtwo encounter in the original Pokémon Red and Blue is an incredible endgame payoff for a story that’s unfolding in the background the whole time. When you finally find it in the Cerulean Cave during the postgame, you understand how significant it is to stand in front of this all-powerful monster. However, in the time since, the series has increasingly broken its own lore to come up with silly excuses for why these god-like entities are available to be caught in subsequent games, and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s Indigo Disk DLC seems to be the latest to continue the trend. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
‘Tis the season, once again, for Rockstar Games to drop another massive (and free) Grand Theft Auto Onlineupdate. And this time, not only has the company added a whole new chop shop business, but it’s also added drift races, new cars, and animals, too. Yes, it took a decade and three console generations, but finally, GTA Online will have animals running around its massive map. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Everything going on with failed Steam zombie shooter The Day Before continues to shock and amaze. The latest wild development is studio Fntastic’s response to the entire self-inflicted debacle: “shit happens.” – Ethan Gach Read More
Image: ESA / Kotaku / Frederic J. Brown (Getty Images)
E3, the video game conference that’s taken place annually in Los Angeles since 1995, is officially dead. After several years of struggles and rumors of its demise, its end was confirmed in The Washington Post’s exclusive interview with president and CEO of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), Stanley Pierre-Louis. – Alyssa Mercante Read More
Today, Sony and Insomniac confirmed that the PlayStation-5-exclusive open-world superhero action game, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, will receive a big, free update in “Early 2024” that will add highly requested features. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Vendors are a crucial component of Starfield, as you’ll need to make use of the RPG’s merchants in order to get better gear, obtain necessary parts to fix a damaged ship, buy healing items, and sell off all your contraband to earn enough credits to eventually buy that house in Akila City. The bars and restaurants in Starfield are also vendors, as the items you can buy from there are considered “aid” in that they’ll restore a little health or give you temporary buffs.
But we don’t just go into Starfield’s bars and restaurants to make use of their functionality—we go there to hang out. Video game bars are fantastic little lore dumps, lovingly detailed spaces that really make the game world in which they’re set feel lived-in and real. There’s nothing quite like walking into Mass Effect2’s Afterlife for the first time, or settling down for a game of Gwent in The Witcher 3’s Golden Sturgeon, to make it feel like you really are your character, and you really are jonesing for a drink.
And like other Bethesda RPGs, Starfield has its fair share of watering holes decorated with interesting objects and frequented by colorful characters (you could even call it Barfield, there’s so many). We ranked all the ones we could find, from worst to best, based on decor, menu, and overall vibes. Which Starfield bar would we most like to drink at? Read on to find out.
Starfield is officially out in Early Access for those who got one of several special editions of Bethesda’s long-awaited sci-fi RPG. Though everyone else will have to wait until September 6, several Kotaku staffers decided to shell out for the Early Access editions and spent the first night of launch zipping around space, hoarding junk in their ships, and blowing up pirates. Here’s what we had to say about our first few hours with Starfield.
This Narrative Adventure About Doomed Teenage Dinosaurs Feels Too Real
Ethan Gach: Starfield has to be the weirdest big new game experience I’ve had this year. I played five hours straight. I would have kept going but a space cowboy’s gotta sleep. At the same time there were so many things that underwhelmed or confused me. How far did everyone get and what was your most memorable moment?
Alyssa Mercante: I am currently trying to track down the VC guy with Sarah. I’m still a bumbling idiot in menus, still struggle to quickly determine how much ammo I have in my weapon, which ammo is for what, how to see the map of an interior space (can you?), and other stuff that’s almost all a mix of weird UI and my impatience.
It’s got the exact kind of grippiness in terms of gameplay loop that I’d expect from Bethesda—I don’t really care about any of this shit yet but I’m sort of lazily plodding on, and mostly enjoying it most of the time.
Levi Winslow: I’m maybe four hours in? I got to New Atlantis, met Sarah and the Constellation gang, then dipped off to Mars and Venus to hunt for Moara. I’m finding some of the systems quite cumbersome and unintuitive. Like, why do I have to bring up the weapon menu to select a different gun or whatever? It’s weird that in other Bethesda games, you can quick-swap between weapons on the fly, but you can’t in Starfield? Unless I missed something, which is totally possible. The game gives you so many tutorials for its menus and systems that a quick-swap could’ve been buried. Still, though, I’m having a blast living life as a space cowgirl. Currently, I’m on the hunt for some legendary ship.
Carolyn Petit: I admit, I only got as far as the door of Constellation’s base before calling it a night, and perhaps it’ll grow on me, but it just felt very dated to me, very much like Bethesda holding on to Bethesda design concepts that, in my opinion, it really doesn’t need to hold onto anymore. For instance, when I arrived in New Atlantis, I immediately walk past this group of people who are just dispensing exposition at each other in the clumsiest way. One character says something really disparaging and messed-up about a certain group of people, and someone else calmly replies, “That’s unfair,” before proceeding to rattle off an entire story about a positive experience he had with them, all while everyone else in the group just looks on. People just don’t talk or interact this way in my opinion, and I felt less like I was in a bustling new city and more like I was in line for a ride at Disneyland where animatronic figures are stiffly filling me in on the ride’s lore.
EG: Yea I didn’t immediately find a way to hot-swap weapons either. Between that and constantly being overloaded with enemy loot and no easy place to go to sell it all, I spent probably a third of my entire session last night just scrolling back and forth over a bunch of weapons (including to see which ones I actually still had ammo for).
My most memorable moment was talking down the initial pirates you run into outside of that first moon and then blowing them up with the literal red barrel behind them. 2010 is soooo back. I do agree Carolyn it feels very stagey in a dated sort of way. The game is constantly reminding you it’s a game, in a way I didn’t get from say, Cyberpunk 2077. It reminds me so much of The Outer Worlds in many ways, which was a much more satirical take on the whole genre.
LW: Just adding to your point about blowing up the first space pirates…
Levi shares a Reddit post showing how one person blew up the barrel behind the pirates before the cutscene could even begin.
CP: I also didn’t love that the game forces you to go do this combat mission so early on, before you even meet Constellation and really get introduced to the game’s core concept. To me, it felt a bit like Bethesda lacking faith in its own concept of this wide-open spacefaring game, as if it felt the need to reassure gamers: Don’t worry, this is still a video game-ass video game in which you get to gun down lots of dudes.
LW: I agree. I barely even listened to those dudes. Knowing what I was getting into, I skipped their dialogue and shot them up. Really, I just wanted some quick loot to sell for even quicker cash, which leads me to one of my biggest gripes with this game: There’s so much shit to collect. I know that’s very Bethesda but wow, the sheer amount of stuff to pick up and pore over in this game is staggering.
CP: That’s one Bethesda-ism I have no problem with. I find it comical and enjoyable. In that research base where you fight the pirates, I saw a little zen garden on someone’s desktop and immediately grabbed it for my own. It’ll be one of the millions of stolen items eventually decorating my ship or my space-house or whatever.
EG: Has anyone tried to do persuasion?
LW: Yeah I tried it on the dude at the bar when looking for Moara. (Jack, I think his name was. Maybe John?) I failed it, but then got Sarah to convince him to lower the price of his info, which worked.
CP: I tried to get out of killing the initial pirate boss with persuasion. I failed, and didn’t fully grasp how it worked. There was a pop-up that said something like “you can’t fail if your previous choice succeeded.” Huh? Anyway, I’m sure I’ll make sense of it in time but it was a little befuddling at first.
AM: I used one of my first skill points for speech, and tried persuasion with the bar guy as well. It worked, but I also did not fully comprehend what I was doing
EG: Yea, there’s a later mission where you are trying to convince a dad alienated from his son to hand over a map and at first it’s like, okay how are we gonna navigate 30 years of emotional baggage and then instead I said something like, you know giving him the map is what so-and-so would have wanted, and bingo. It was so goofy.
Claire Jackson and Zack Zwiezen enter the chat.
Zack Zwiezen: I’ve used persuasion a few times and it’s been helpful. Skipped the pirate boss fight, for example. I’m still learning how it works, but its nice to see Bethesda bringing back some RPG-ish systems like that. Reminds me of the weird Oblivion persuasion minigame! With the weird circle and sliding stuff around. I don’t think I ever got good at that one. This Starfield one seems a bit simpler and I think I mostly get it.
Claire Jackson: Good to know you can skip the pirate boss fight…my attempt at resolving that ended up with me bashing an ax into his face. And I was genuinely trying not to kill anyone. Period!
Maybe it’s just the nature of the game’s opening needing to hold your hand to learn all its complex systems and set you up for the quest, but I was also dismayed that I couldn’t choose to stay on the mining planet. I mean, I touched a weird thing, saw a weird thing, and now some rando is like, “Here take my ship and go talk to this space secret society or whatever, though they won’t have answers for you. Sorry. By the way, you’re a captain now!”
ZZ: It moves pretty fast and I wonder if that was a reaction to how slow Fallout 4‘s intro was and how people didn’t seem to like that.
EG: I was so relieved. No messing around.
ZZ: Agreed. It was nice to just get going. I was worried I’d have to spend four hours in the mine finding a sweet roll for someone.
CJ: I wanted to mess around lol. I wanted to just hang out and mine some stuff. The game wants me to be a hero so badly, and enough games do that for me that I kinda wanted this to unravel itself a bit more slowly.
ZZ: I will say, once you get through with that first big quest and intro stuff, the game truly goes, “Okay, do whatever you want.” At that point you can go be a space miner and never worry about the main story again.
CJ: That’s a relief. So maybe my space gal can be someone who just had one traumatic encounter with space pirates, dropped off some weird who-the-hell-knows-what to these brainiacs, and then just went about her life where she’ll unpack that PTSD-inducing episode after years and years of therapy. That’s all I want. Space therapy.
AM: Within moments of picking up my rock cutter laser I tried to kill someone in the mines, so the intrusive thoughts are already beating my ass.
ZZ: Hot tip: That laser cutter is a very good weapon early on and uses no ammo! It stunlocks people and can even blow up their packs, killing others. Handy! And fun.
EG: Starfield is definitely a resource-extraction fantasy. Mine stuff! Loot stuff! Steal stuff! Use it to do cool things. So far navigating relationships and political factions has really taken a backseat.
ZZ: It was nice to end my time with the first companion, Sarah, and not feel like she wanted to jump my bones. A break from Baldur’s Gate 3, haha. But yeah, it’s clear that certain parts of Starfield got more attention and resources than others.
EG: I found a mysterious map to a pirate hideout or something earlier this morning so that’s cool. The thing keeping me excited to come back at the moment is the fact that it still feels like there are a ton of possibilities lurking out there. Whether that’s actually the case or not, the early game is really good at making you at least feel like you’re barely scratching the surface.
LW: I agree. I’m sure the novelty of Bethesda’s systems will wear thin after a few dozen hours, but the early game has me hooked. Running up to my ship, hopping into the cockpit to blast off into the cosmos, getting into a couple of dogfights with space pirates then looting their ships, landing on a planet to sell my goods before embarking on a bounty—it’s all giving Cowboy Bebop, a fantasy I’ve longed for in video games. It’s not totally there. Some mechanics are still quite unwieldy, but Starfield is letting me live out that bounty hunter lifestyle, and I simply can’t get enough of that right now.
AM: I did get a similar feeling to one I saw Ethan mention on Twitter (X, whatever) before—I woke up excited to play this. For all the jank, for all the confusing menus, there’s enough good stuff here that I am willing to spend more time exploring, lurking, looting, and what have you. How long will this last me? I’m not sure yet. But for now, I’m not all that angry that I’m going into this long weekend with a cold—now I can just sit inside and play Starfield.
Play it on: Nintendo DS (but there are similar games on many platforms) Current goal: See if it can stump me
In the final days of the Neo Geo Pocket Color’s brief, beautiful life I imported several of the final English-translated games from the UK, and among them was an unassuming cart called Picture Puzzle. Little did I know it would be my gateway into the world of nonograms, a type of logic puzzle in which you deduce the layouts of dots on a grid based on numerical clues, eventually forming a picture. It was love at first furrow.
Though I got my fill of these games over the next few years, I still enjoy the way they scratch my brain, and there’s a near-limitless number of them available for Nintendo handhelds. So it was that I loaded Nintendo’s Picross DS onto my DSi XL this week and once again started deciphering the dots.
I don’t even remember if I’ve played this one before, but as long as the UI is good, and it is in the Nintendo ones, most any nonogram game will do. (Picross DS has some nice music, but stick with the basic blue-on-white color scheme, as many of the alt ones are eye-rending.) One thing I wonder, and I usually drift away before finding out, is if a given nonogram game, in its later stages, will depart from purely logic-based puzzles and start to require—I shudder just typing this—guessing.
I remember feeling some of the late-game Picture Puzzle grids did, but I was young and inexperienced. Even now it’s possible there exist some advanced, logic-based solving techniques that yet elude me. Perhaps this time I’ll stick with Picross DS, which I understand maxes out at monstrous 25×20 grids, long enough to see just how difficult it can really get. — Alexandra Hall
When Foamstars, Square Enix’s Splatoon-esque party game where two teams of four face off in a giant foam-spewing battle, was announced at the PlayStation games showcase, it wasn’t clear what to expect. Was this just Splatoon in PlayStation-exclusive form? What was the gameplay like? Would it be any fun?
Stylish Cel-Shaded Skating Shooter Rollerdrome Looks To Be Pure Joy On Wheels
Foamstars is four-vs-four splooge-fest where you shoot pink and teal foam and one another until your character is completely trapped and then bounced off the stage. In Star mode, the only one we were able to try, each team gets seven lives. Once they are used up, one player becomes the “star” based on who has the best overall performance that match. They get enhanced health and attack, as well as slightly faster cooldowns for their abilities. But once the star player is killed, the game is over and the other team wins.
FOAMSTARS | Announce Trailer
The game is being developed internally at Square Enix with a team composed of developers from Dragon Quest, Nier, and other franchises. It definitely feels like Splatoon, but with a Persona-style presentation and the balancing of Overwatch. Each “VIP,” aka hero, has two normal abilities and a special that can be deployed throughout the match in-between cooldowns. There are DPS characters and tank characters, with variations in gun speed and spread. The fundamentals aren’t bad, even if they’re mostly cribbed from other established competitive multiplayer games, but it’s not clear it has the magic to standout in a crowded field of already successful live service shooters.
When we sat down at Summer Game Fest for a hands-on demo, gratis beers in hand, we didn’t know what we were getting into.
Alyssa Mercante: First off I’d like to say that I’m very upset you were better than me at this game.
Ethan Gach: Get rekt. I like it. At least for the five matches we played. I don’t know that a successful live service game that makes, but the concept isn’t as dumb in practice as the PlayStation showcase reveal made it seem.
Alyssa: It actually is pretty fun. I do sort of feel like I was struggling to get the aiming down even after five matches, but I am also admittedly not a Splatoon player. Is the assumption that this will just sort of mimic that, content-wise? Maybe new characters and new weapons coming out every so often? They wouldn’t tell you any details right?
Ethan: “We want to focus on the foam right now” is not an exact quote but pretty close to what the Square Enix rep said when I peppered him with questions about microtransactions, unlocks, custom builds, alternative maps, and the other stuff that usually keeps players coming back.
The shooting felt no worse than third person Fortnite to me, other than the fact that you’re aiming cum bubbles instead of bullets.
Alyssa: Okay, it wasn’t as cummy as I thought it would be, it’s much more of a mousse. It’s very reminiscent of the shit I put in my hair in high school. I like that the foam can be used to change up the environment though, like build up walls and shit, which is definitely a nice differentiator from Splatoon.
Ethan: There are shades of a build mechanic, but I wish it was more directed. You can layer foam by shooting the same areas but it takes a while to really change the topography or build up anything resembling a protective barrier.
Alyssa: Yeah I wonder if different maps will be better for that kind of mechanic, as this one was pretty flat/open. Would be interesting to see it in play on a map that’s got two really distinct levels and you could use the foam as a means of cheesing certain height differences or something.
Ethan: The map itself was a pretty small and bland arena, though I appreciate the city pop metropolis backgrounds and general Persona-like stylings. What did you think of the different characters’ abilities. Who did you like playing as the best?
Alyssa: I liked Tonix, the burst-fire one. Her ultimate is a foam-shooting mech which is rad. I also, naturally, only picked the characters I thought looked really cool/want to dress like.
Ethan: The cooldown abilities and specials were neat enough, though I couldn’t quite figure out the the best way for it all to come together. A game like Overwatch has maps that funnel you into choke points that play nicely off of different heroes’ abilities. Here it felt a little more haphazard, though maybe with more time and practice those synergies would come into focus.
Alyssa: Yeah maybe you need to really get in the weeds for it to feel like who you’re choosing matters in terms of team composition, because that sort of felt like we were just picking randomly. And that shotgun guy was OP.
Ethan: While Splatoon is clearly the closest analogue mechanically and shoot-feel-wise, the overall package reminds me of Fall Guys in terms of its presentation, accessibility, and my skepticism of its longevity and what would keep me or someone else coming back in order to make it a sustainable online hangout.
Square declined to answer any questions about what the meta-progression, microtransactions, or additional modes will be like, although they did promise a ranked-mode, which seems very premature.
Alyssa: Ranked mode? I was already toxic during our hands-on, I can’t go anywhere near that. It’s definitely an interesting thing to have as a PS-exclusive, as well, so I’m veryyyy curious to see if it has legs. Can definitely see it being a fun, silly party game the same way Fall Guys was, but does anyone even play Fall Guys anymore? Is there longevity in this? More importantly, can I change the colors of the foam?
Ethan: I’m very curious about the origins of the game. Was this a mandate handed to the devs and this is what they came up with, or did they arrive at the prototype on their own and then Square saw the potential to bring it to a full release? PlayStation doesn’t do Early Access but maybe it should.
Alyssa: Also, what the hell is the single-player bit they wouldn’t give details on? Much to think about here.
Ethan: I just hope there’s a hub world where I can leave spunk messages on billboards for other players to discover.
Kotaku is covering everything Summer Game Fest, from the main show on Thursday to other events happening throughout the next week. Whether you’re into larger-than-life triple-A games or intimate, offbeat indies, you can keep up with all things SGF here.
