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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
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Kotaku Staff
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A new month is nearly here, as well as a new year, and that means updates to the PlayStation Plus catalog. January kicks off 2024 with three new games available for Premium, Extra, and Essential members to download starting on January 2, as well as some goodies if you happen to be a space ninja.
This month in particular is great if you love third-person games. A Plague Tale offers satisfyingly beautiful stealth action, while Evil West is here to let you blow up some demonic bad guys. Also, don’t forget to snag December’s games (that includes Lego 2K Drive, Powerwash Simulator, and Sable) before the new month kicks off.
In our review of Evil West, Kotaku’s Zack Zwiezen praised the third-person shooter as “a simple, honest-to-god, linear and fun, goddamn video game:”
There is no getting around it: Evil West is silly, but in a good way. Its narrative has a lot in common with the best B-movies and pulp stories from the past. Characters act more like people pretending to be people, than real humans. Dialogue is filled with swear words and exposition. All of it is cheesy and silly in the perfect kind of way. Combined with the steampunk gadgets, monsters, and violence, it really does play out like a grindhouse flick you might have caught on TV at like 2 am back in the 90s on TNT.
Howlongtobeat.com estimates you can get through Evil West’s story in about 11 hours, or 19 if you want to take a completionist route.
Are you a PlayStation Plus Premium or Extra subscriber? You can download Flying Wild Hog’s 2016 FPS Shadow Warrior 2. You can also snag its sequel, Shadow Warrior 3 on sale for just $14 until January 18. And if you’re in the mood for some side-scrolling, samurai hack ‘n slash fun, Trek to Yomi is on sale for $8 until January 18.
This rat-infested third-person sequel to 2019’s A Plague Tale: Innocence features some gorgeous visuals and a lovely score. It might be a tad buggy from time-to-time, but if you like sneaking around in the dark and avoiding rats, this one is worth a download. On A Plague Tale: Requiem, former Kotaku writer Ashley Bardhan said:
The environment itself is a spectacle, a black-and-white cookie sometimes lit by the Mediterranean coast’s burnt-orange sun, sometimes spotted with flies as Amicia trudges around the game’s stacks of dead bodies that get dumped and burned and forgotten. Requiem is also heavy on vibration feedback, and crouching through thick braids of grass and the misplaced brightness of lavender always feels good and tense.
A Plague Tale: Requiem offers a 17-hour story, with close to 30 hours if you’re looking to complete everything it has to offer.
Don’t like jumping into a sequel without playing the first game? Good news: A Plague Tale: Innocence, which introduces us to Amicia and Hugo, is on sale until January 6 for just $12.
Nobody Saves The World impressed us back in 2022 with its satisfyingly grindy (yes, grindy like in a good way) progression and fun combat. In our impressions of it, Kotaku’s Ethan Gach said:
If you like filling up meters and testing out new and creative builds for dispatching enemy mobs efficiently, like I do, it’s a recipe for several long nights of fun. Drinkbox has tried to keep tedium to a minimum by making new milestones come quickly and often. Dungeons you might have to grind a handful of times before taking down a larger boss subtly remix themselves each time in a roguelite fashion so they feel more like theme park rides than prisons.
Looking to spice up your Tenno’s wardrobe? The Warframe: Syrinx Collection is a great way to add some new cosmetics to your existing collection or a great way to get some variety if you’re just starting out with this free-to-play sci-fi looter shooter. According to Sony’s official blog, you can claim the following items on January 2:
Which game are you most likely to download first?
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Claire Jackson
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You’d expect a new Bethesda game would be the biggest RPG of the year, but nope. Instead, it was Baldur’s Gate 3, which officially launched earlier this year to rave reviews. We’ve written a lot about the game already on the site and you should check out those posts, too.
What I wanted to talk about here is how incredible it was to see a turn-based, PC-focused, Dungeons & Dragons game developed by an independent studio and released via early access explode like the latest Call of Duty or GTA.
Everyone I knew was playing it. Everyone online was sharing screenshots. Everyone was talking about all the people they were digitally fucking in the game.
It was wild to watch and a reminder successful games don’t always need flashy years-long marketing campaigns featuring big stars and Super Bowl ads. Instead, sometimes, you can just make a really good game that people want and you’ll sell millions of copies. And maybe end up inspiring a lot of erotic fan fiction.
Any big 2023 video game surprises we missed? What unexpected developments got you all excited this year?
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Zack Zwiezen
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On the heels of The Game Awards, this week saw the launch of two expansions for fan-fave games: God of War Ragnarok and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. We also took a meaty deep dive into Analogue’s latest and greatest new retro console and did a year-three rundown on the state of the PS5.
From the latest and greatest to cult gems and retro classics, these are the games and consoles we’re loving—and loathing—this week.
Valhalla takes place after the events of Ragnarök, as Kratos seeks out the titular hall of heroes due to a mysterious invitation. Once inside, he finds himself faced with combat arenas built from his memories that repeat as he ascends through Valhalla. Old vistas and enemies are a decent enough framing device, and an effective way to unpack Kratos’ nearly 20 years of baggage. While the 2018 reboot used shame and fatherhood to interrogate the pornographic violence and carnage of the series’ past, Valhalla actualizes that idea without having to be tied to his relationship with his son Atreus. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
We made it. After a tumultuous 11 months of really high highs (the games) and really low lows (the layoffs), we’re finally rounding out the last month of 2023. Good riddance. And to really underscore that goodbye, we here at Kotaku thought it’d be fitting to take a look back at what felt like the longest year yet to compile some of the most buggy, broken, and busted games to drop in 2023. – Levi Winslow Read More
Today the company’s launching another retro console recreation, the Analogue Duo. And this time, it’s something of a deeper cut.
Just…god, there’s so much random info you gotta know to understand this thing’s deal. So before we get into it, here’s a tl;dr: Analogue Duo is a very solid PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 replacement that looks pretty good on modern displays and controls pretty well, too. It’s also not for everyone. It may not even be for me. – Alexandra Hall Read More
The Indigo Disk picks up with new characters Kieran and Carmine returning to their Unova-based school, Blueberry Academy. The school invites you to be an exchange student, and Blueberry Academy is a Pokémon trainer’s dream facility, as it’s built around a terarium that emulates four different biomes. Students capture and study Pokémon in habitats analogous to their natural homes. It’s a decent enough framing for a reasonably sized open-world environment, while also bringing some familiar Pokémon back into the fray. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
A slick new VR headset, a “slim” console refresh, tons of flashy new accessories, and multiple exclusives, including the fastest selling PlayStation game ever, Spider-Man 2. The PlayStation 5 made big moves in 2023. So why does it feel like the console spent most of it resting on its laurels while flailing for a new direction? – Ethan Gach Read More
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Kotaku Staff
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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.
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 Online update. 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
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
The free Valhalla DLC for the surly son of Sparta is an epilogue to 2022’s action-adventure epic while tinkering with it’s tied-and-true formula
A new Granblue, House Flipper 2, and One-Armed Robber are also dropping this week
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It was a big week for the scantily clad at Kotaku this week, with both GTA 6 and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth giving players plenty of skin. We’re also feeling very excited about the new Fallout show, but decidedly less enthusiastic about the minimal focus on the actual awards at this week’s Game Awards.
These are the week’s most interesting perspectives on the wild, wonderful, and sometimes weird world of video game news.
Grand Theft Auto 6 looks gorgeous. Unless its debut trailer this week was faked, it might end up being one of the best-looking games of this console generation when it comes out in 2025. By that time, my Xbox Series S will be five years old. I shudder to think of that sleek little white box trying to play Rockstar Games’ latest open-world blockbuster. – Ethan Gach Read More
I’ve played about six hours of Ubisoft’s new Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora and my big takeaway is that Avatar sickos will love this game, Far Cry Primal fans will get a kick out of Ubisoft returning to this formula, and everyone else, well… uh…dang, the game sure is pretty, huh? – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Good news, everyone! Unless you’ve been living in a monastery, you’re likely aware that 2023 is the year that video games got horny again. And no, I don’t mean tastefully Hades frisky, I mean Leisure Suit Larry and Night Trap levels of unhinged lust, the likes of which “mainstream” gaming (whatever that means) hasn’t seen since the 1990s. – Jen Glennon Read More
Historically, TV and film adaptations of video games don’t have the greatest track record. The last few years, however, have started turning that around. Pikachu, Sonic, and Mario have all starred in successful movies, and earlier this year The Last of Us got a proper prestige adaptation that certainly left a mark on fans. – Claire Jackson Read More
And so that’s that. The Game Awards 2023 are over. 32 awards were handed out over three and a half hours. You might think, with that much time to spare, the show took its time and truly celebrated all the creators and games nominated for what the show calls “Gaming’s Biggest Night.” Nope. Instead, more so than before, the show sped through them at a rapid pace, making me wonder why it still pretends to be an award show at all. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Final Fantasy Tactics is one of the best games Square Enix ever produced, and it’s not available anywhere on modern consoles or PC. A remaster is an obvious way to fix that problem, and it seemed like all signs were pointing to one getting announced any day now. So it’s an especially cruel twist of fate that the original game’s director, Yasumi Matsuno, keeps toying with fans’ emotions about whether a remaster is actually happening or not. – Ethan Gach Read More
Cyberpunk 2077 is in a pretty good spot these days. After a dumpster fire of a launch, the next-gen update, 2.0 patch, and Phantom Liberty expansion have gotten CD Projekt Red’s open-world RPG to a respectable state. The 2.1 patch that launched this week adds a nice little bow to the game as its “last big update.” It has long-requested features like a working subway you can take across Night City, and it also lets V, its mercenary protagonist, spend a little time with their lover in their apartment. The results are an adorable stay-at-home date with your paramour, but for as sweet as it is, these hangouts underline something that felt left out of the Cyberpunk 2077 redemption arc: the romance. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
The first trailer for Rockstar’s next Grand Theft Auto game, likely to be named GTA VI, comes out December 5. What can we expect the trailer to reveal? Well, based on Rockstar’s past GTA trailers, which are fantastic, there’s a pattern that can help us predict what we might see during GTA VI’s official debut. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Earlier this week, we asked you all to give us your choice for the best video game sequel. Any sequel would count and everyone was free to suggest any game they wanted, no matter how old, obscure, or divisive. And we tallied up all the answers, crunched the numbers, and figured out your top ten sequels. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
The secret is out: the Yakuza / Like a Dragon series has great minigames. Whether you enjoy playing retro arcade brawlers like Virtua Fighter, dumping dozens of hours into becoming a real-estate tycoon, or chatting up bodacious babes at the hostess club, Sega’s goofy action series has plenty of pleasant timesinks to wile away the hours. Though it’s still several weeks away, it’s already clear that the upcoming Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is no exception to that rule. – Jen Glennon Read More
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Gaming’s biggest night has come and gone, and perhaps the biggest surprise of all was just how little time devs were given to thank their family, fans, and recently deceased colleagues during their acceptance speeches. But before that, we finally got our first in-depth look at Rockstar’s GTA 6, the most anticipated game in a decade. Here’s your cheat sheet to the week’s biggest news.
Rockstar Games has confirmed that, at least at launch, the company’s long-awaited open-world crime sim, Grand Theft Auto VI, will launch on Xbox Series X/S and PS5 only, with no mention of a PC version. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is often heralded as one of the best adventure games of the past 25 years. With the nefarious Ganon once again scheming to conquer the land, it’s up to Link to traverse through time, space, and yet another aggravating water temple to save the Kingdom of Hyrule. While the epic for the N64 is celebrating a major birthday this year, inspiring tribute mash-up videos and social media celebrations, another classic Zelda title is quietly celebrating a major milestone of its own. – Jen Glennon Read More
The Day Before kicked off 2023 as one of the most wishlisted games on Steam. Now, after endless controversies, the self-proclaimed open-world survival-horror MMO styled after The Last of Us is finally in Steam Early Access, and it’s getting panned. The first players to lay hands on the much-hyped zombie shooter are sharing footage of game-breaking glitches and leaving thousands of negative reviews. – Ethan Gach Read More
We knew it was coming. Heck, we knew it was mere hours away. But Grand Theft Auto VI is finally, truly happening for real, and we just got our first official glimpse of the game, thanks to Rockstar Games. – Jen Glennon Read More
Overwatch 2 season eight begins today, December 5, but Blizzard showed off its new skins, events, and latest tank hero, Mauga, before kick-off. And the sentiment from players about the skins for season eight has been mixed—Baptiste’s formal wear is a standout, but it’s sandwiched between some real stinkers and an unremarkable Mythic Skin. But one cosmetic has stood out for all the wrong reasons: Mercy’s Year of the Dragon event skin. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
2023’s The Game Awards just wrapped. Did you watch it? Well, no worries if you missed it (or had something better to do) as we’ve rounded up every major game trailer and world premiere you could want to watch in a single sitting. So if you’re looking to check out a new trailer or catch up on all the games that were announced this year, you’re in the right place. – Claire Jackson Read More
A seven-second TikTok reverberated across the internet over the weekend, after it claimed to show the “first look” at in-game footage of a city in Grand Theft Auto VI, the open-world blockbuster whose official trailer is just a day away. Frantic speculation about whether the footage was real or not ensued, including unverified rumors that the leak involved a Rockstar Games developer’s own kid. – Ethan Gach Read More
While Sony acquired Destiny 2 maker Bungie for $3.6 billion in 2022, it repeatedly claimed the creator of Halo and other hits would remain an “independent subsidiary.” Now IGN reports that if Bungie’s sci-fi MMO keeps failing revenue targets, Sony could dissolve its existing board of directors and take full control of the roughly 1,100 person studio. – Ethan Gach Read More
The creative director of the studio behind Sonic Dream Team shares his thoughts on the future of mobile gaming
After a long and tumultuous road, Cyberpunk 2077 appears to be getting its final major update today. The sprawling patch includes a new ridable metro system and more romance options, as well as a host of other tweaks, changes, and additions. Unless it ends up breaking something big in the game, consider patch 2.1 Night City’s last overhaul until Cyberpunk 2 arrives a decade or so from now. – Ethan Gach Read More
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Like Insomniac’s original Marvel’s Spider-Man, the studio’s new sequel, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, looks really good. It’s one of those games that just about anyone will look at and go “Wow, what a great-looking game!” But if you dig a bit deeper and compare the original 2018 Spider-Man and its 2023 PS5-exclusive sequel, you’ll discover an interesting mix of improvements and compromises.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, Spider-Man 2 (out on October 20) is the bigger, better follow-up to the critically acclaimed 2018 game and 2020’s Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. In his review, Kotaku’s Ethan Gach said that the latest Spider-Man sequel is as good as the previous games, adding that in many ways it’s “even better.” And I’m inclined to agree after playing Spider-Man 2 for the past two weeks. The sequel is likewise visually impressive, and at first glance seems to be a complete improvement over the prior two. But in reality…well okay, yeah, it’s mostly an improvement. Yet when you directly compare old and new you can spot some cutbacks and tweaks Insomniac presumably made to ensure the sequel’s performance is silky smooth.
Thanks to a fantastic direct comparison video from Youtuber Nick930, we can see just how Spider-Man 2 improves on the already-impressive graphics of the first game.
For example, the sequel sees a huge increase in traffic density. Comparing the new game with 2018’s, it’s almost laughable how few cars can be spotted in the original. NYC looks like a ghost town.
Main character models and textures also see a nice bump in quality, and improved ray-traced reflections can be found throughout New York. Something I noticed when playing Spider-Man 2 is how buildings now reflect other buildings, which helps the city look more real and less like a movie set or video game world. The rivers in NYC have also been improved, with better reflections and more lifelike physics when objects like boats are seen interacting with the water.
But on the flip side, the number of people you’ll see milling about in the city that never sleeps has been reduced, with some areas of the game being more devoid of pedestrians than I expected. As suggested by Nick930, this change was likely made as a result of Insomniac adding more variety to crowds, and for the most part, I never noticed this when playing.
Another example of some cutbacks is that very small details—soda cans in trash bins, newspapers lying on rooftops—aren’t as nice looking up close as they were in the original game. Similarly, the level of detail of the city seems reduced. So when you climb up a skyscraper and look out you’ll notice, on close inspection, objects like distant radio towers, AC units, or trees are missing or much lower quality than in Spider-Man 2018.
These changes were likely a result of the game increasing its map size to include Brooklyn and Queens, nearly doubling the playable space. At some point, to keep performance from dipping, it’s likely that things most players barely notice were tweaked so resources could be spent elsewhere.
Update 10/19/2023 7:08 p.m. ET: Video creator Nick930 just tweeted that Spider-Man 2 may have a bug wherein the engine’s level of detail system might be misbehaving when the game is installed on a secondary drive, resulting in lower-than-intended detail in certain visuals. Sounds like more investigation will be needed to nail down exactly what’s happening there.
Overall, the main takeaway shouldn’t be that Spider-Man 2 is a visually inferior game to the first entry. In fact, most of the cutbacks and compromises spotted in the video were tweaks or changes I didn’t notice in my 30 or so hours playing the game on a fancy 4K 120Hz TV. Instead, it seems Insomniac went through Spider-Man 2 with a fine-tooth comb and subtle hand, trying to balance impressive visuals and responsive, consistent performance. I personally didn’t notice a single dropped frame.
In an era when it seems like every other big game released these days is launching in a dismal state, with numerous performance issues or game-breaking bugs, it’s nice to see a studio taking the time and effort to ensure its game arrives in a rock-solid state. I mean, one look at how snappy fast travel is in this game, and I’m sold on whatever minor, hard-to-spot tweaks had to be made to get this thing running so well.
Maybe some of these changes mean cups and soda cans in Spider-Man 2’s trash bags don’t look as good as before. But if the tradeoff is I get a 60fps open-world Spider-Man game featuring two playable characters and hours of side content and RT reflections everywhere, I’ll live!
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Zack Zwiezen
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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.
Read More: All Of Our Starfield Tips, Guides, and Reviews
Buy Starfield: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop
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 Effect 2’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.
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Alyssa Mercante
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It’s become tradition over the last few years for modders to import Carl Johnson from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas into different video games. And with FromSoftware’s latest game, Armored Core VI, it didn’t take long for someone to add CJ. In fact, it happened in less than 24 hours.
Released on Friday, Armored Core VI is the first entry in FromSoftware’s mech franchise in over a decade. And it’s a very good game. In Kotaku’s review, Ethan Gach called it a “sometimes messy” but also “exhilarating and exhausting” game that is unlike anything he’s played in a long time, rewarding players who like to tinker and experiment with bombastic action and intense boss fights. In a lot of ways, it’s a perfect Armored Core sequel. But there’s always room for improvement. For example, Armored Core VI doesn’t normally include CJ from Rockstar’s hit open-world game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Let’s fix this glaring oversight.
Thanks to the fast work of FromSoftware modder and YouTuber Dropoff, Grove Street’s very own Carl Johnson is playable in Armored Core VI. Though, uh…be warned that CJ flying around as a giant mech-like warrior was never intended by God and the end results are disturbing. Impressive and fast work, sure, but you might have some nightmares afterward.
As mentioned, adding CJ to video games that don’t star CJ (which is most video games) has become a popular tradition in recent years. Thanks to modders, Rockstar’s famous gangster has appeared in Zelda, Elden Ring, and Resident Evil 2 remake, to name just a few. Someone even replaced the cat in Stray with CJ, which is somehow even more nightmarish to look at than CJ horrifically stretched out to pretend to be a mech.
Now for the bad news. At the moment, the CJ mod for Armored Core VI isn’t available to download anywhere, including Dropoff’s Nexus mods page. So while Dropoff (with the help of modder TKPG) was able to add CJ to FromSoftware’s latest game in less than 24 hours, you can only watch for now.
Hopefully, soon enough, you’ll be able to take to the skies and die 30 times to a giant tank robot as San Andreas star CJ.
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Zack Zwiezen
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The sequel to Immortals: Fenyx Rising (2020’s open-world, Greek-inspired adventure game) was cancelled in July 2023, and we’re just now learning exactly what that game was meant to entail—and how much of a break from tradition it was planned to be for Ubisoft.
According to Axios’ Stephen Totilo, who broke the news on August 21, the sequel (codenamed Oxygen) was an ambitious one that would combine features of two distinct, beloved games: FromSoftware’s action RPG Elden Ring and Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Anonymous sources familiar with the game’s development spoke to Totilo, painting a detailed picture of a “vast game set across a fictionalized version of the Polynesian archipelago, made primarily by Ubisoft’s Quebec studio but developed alongside Polynesian consultants.”
Read More: Assassin’s Creed Publisher Axes Sequel To BotW-Like That Was Pretty Good
“The goal was also to make a game very different from the rest of the Ubisoft portfolio,” a source told Axios. Instead of the typical Ubisoft map overwhelmingly dotted with icons, Immortals 2 would have far less map markers, and require players “to search harder to figure out where to go, by tracking animals, following the wind, or navigating via the position of stars in the in-game sky,” alleged a source. The core inspiration for this change? Elden Ring.
The sequel would reportedly also be very different from the original Immortals, with more realistic graphics, the abandonment of the first game’s narrator, fewer puzzles, and a “more malleable story in which player choice is significant.” According to Axios’ sources, the player’s character would try and “curry favor with various Polynesian gods” that would give them special elemental powers and the ability to shape-shift. They’d gain new tattoos on their body based on the narrative choices they’d make in game, all of which is rooted deeply in Polynesian cultural traditions and the notion of mana, or the belief that there’s a supernatural force flowing through humans, animals, plants, and more. A player’s decisions would affect the various islands on which Immortals 2 would have been set.
According to Axios, part of the reason Immortals 2 was canned was so that Ubisoft could focus on established IP like Assassin’s Creed Red. The first Immortals game was reportedly developed in just over a year, but the sequel was taking longer because of its ambitious scope and its comparatively small dev team. Apparently, however, “several playable hours were available in an internal demo” by spring 2023, and Ubisoft was “at a juncture about whether to fund full development or nix the project.”
We know Ubisoft ultimately decided to can it, but as Kotaku’s Ethan Gach pointed out in July 2023, Immortals: Fenyx Rising was “pretty good,” and the idea of a more expansive sequel that abandoned some of the tired markers of a Ubisoft game sounds exciting. Oh well, guess we’ll just get more Assassin’s Creed games instead.
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Alyssa Mercante
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Copies of Baldur’s Gate 3’s sold-out Collector’s Edition are being purchased on online reseller eBay for up to $1,975 as of this writing. That’s slightly more than seven times as expensive as the developer’s original $270 asking price.
The Collector’s Edition, of which only 25,000 units exist, has been on sale since 2022, though it sold out closer to the game’s August 3 PC release date, toward the end of July.
Now that players have had two weeks with the Dungeons & Dragons-based role-playing game, discovering that it is, as Kotaku senior writer Ethan Gach says, “a sprawling fantasy adventure filled with an overwhelming number of choices that let you spark a civil war one moment and have sex with a bear the next,” they’re battling hard for it.
So hard, apparently, that some fans are willing to drop a month’s worth of rent on BG3’s Collector’s Edition. Currently, eBay shows most units selling for $1,000 or more. Recent sale prices include $1,459, $1,387, and a more modest $1,099. Meanwhile, some enterprising resellers are scrapping the Collector’s Edition for parts, turning its unique dice skin downloadable content into $299.
Read More: Baldur’s Gate 3 Is One Of 2023’s Best Games, Don’t Turn It Into A Weapon
The Collector’s Edition, at least, has plenty of parts to spare—in its hefty box, along with digital copies of either the PC or PS5 version of the game, it brings downloads for a bunch of in-game items, including that dice skin, a Mind Flayer diorama, a hardcover art book, and cloth map. It also comes with a sticker sheet, a tadpole keyring that the BG3 website lists explicit instructions to “not insert into brain,” and so much more nerdy catnip.
Am I making you hungry? Are you suddenly overcome with the urge to spend your entire paycheck? You’re in luck. The latest open eBay listings for the Collector’s Edition have finally broken $2,000.
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Ashley Bardhan
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Long after the world has burned and civilization has fallen apart, the robots of Fallout continue to function. Even centuries after Earth has been nearly destroyed by nukes and humanity barely clings on, the AI-powered robots of humanity’s heyday roam the wasteland and continue to do their jobs.
Some may say they are impressively dedicated. I think it just shows how stupid and awful these robots tend to be. They can’t even tell the world has ended, they just mindlessly do what they were programmed to do. They can’t create art, invent anything, or really provide any benefit of their own to humanity because they are merely tools we created.
And in Fallout, they aren’t just idiots still trying to run diners after the nukes have fallen, but dangerous enemies, too. Their AI-powered brains—unable to understand context, history, or emotion—will attack most people on sight. Ironic, isn’t it, that robots and AI in the Fallout universe might end up killing us all and destroying all we have created when they themselves are our own creations? Anyway, grab a laser rifle and double-tap any robobrains you see in Fallout 3. They deserve it. —Zack Zwiezen
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Zack Zwiezen
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Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch, Windows (Steam Deck OK), macOS, Linux
My current goal: Consume blood and achieve penitence
When I was watching Geoff Keighley Fest last week, I was taken aback by one particular showcase debut: the release date trailer for Blasphemous 2. Its harrowing atmosphere, unsettling pixel art, and fluid combat had my eyes locked for all 90 seconds. All I could think about was how this game was practically made for me, yet I had never given the first Blasphemous a try. So, I dusted off my trusty barbed capirote helm, filled that thing with way too much blood and set off into the Metroidvania world of Cvstodia.
Blasphemous leaves an undeniably awesome first impression. The world is blanketed by religious iconography, from a nun’s blood-curdling screams to cryptic riddles on Catholic repentance. You won’t find many games that trap you in their spine-chilling atmosphere as quickly as Blasphemous. It’s mesmerizing, detail-obsessed art is borderline uncomfortable, yet I yearn to descend further into Cvstodia.
The Metroidvania with a Dark Souls spin has been done countless times, but few match the lore and mystery that Blasphemous brings. The combat invokes feelings of Hollow Knight or Owl Boy, but far more grotesque. The addition of fight-ending executions is now a feature I’d like to see in every single Metroidvania.
Blasphemous is relatively short, so if you’re ready to dedicate your weekend to The Miracle, there’s a good chance you can hit credits by Sunday evening. That being said, I’d recommend taking your time and to really soak in the environment. It’s also pretty dang difficult, so be patient, Penitent One. — Jeb Biggart
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Claire Jackson
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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?
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.
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: Jizz D.va you mean?
Alyssa: Stop that’s definitely a Pornhub search.
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.
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Alyssa Mercante
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My life changed forever when I got a copy of Final Fantasy VII in 1997 (losing those discs has haunted me ever since). While I enjoy much of the 2020 Remake, the original experience is irreplaceably special to me. I start a new playthrough of it at least once a year, every year. Other times, I’ll just jump into a random save file I was working my way through at some point. It must be on anything I own that can run it.
Since 2015, the remaster (not Remake) has made the experience much smoother; and it’s always fun to occasionally mess around with mods that tweak character models or apply AI upscaled backgrounds to clean up the image.
The story, the characters, the landmark soundtrack with gorgeous compositions and tear-jerking melodies surpass the limitations of the rather humdrum sounds the midi-controlled sequencer on the PSX produced, it culminates into not just one of my favorite video games of all time, it’s one of my favorite media experiences, period.
Watch: Let’s Mosey: A Slow Translation Of Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VII, in its original form, is an epic story of identity, friendship, love, and struggle in the face of insurmountable odds against seemingly unstoppable foes. I delight, as I did in my youth, blissfully getting lost in it. Its world, with blocky polygonal models might seem primordial by today’s standards, but to me its graphical limitations are an abstract that paints a bigger picture in my head—one that no amount of modern, hyper powerful game engines with all the bells and whistles will ever be able to touch.
And, yeah, you were right, Aeris; it was always the only way.
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Claire Jackson
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Zelda fans have been starving for anything they can get, any crumb they can catch, and it seems like Nintendo is finally taking pity, rewarding them with a 10-minute gameplay trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
During the gameplay snippet, Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma says through a translator that Tears has changed the world “in many ways,” including pieces of Hyrule that float high in the sky, or “sky islands.”
Link can reach these sky islands through his new “recall” powers, which alters an object’s movement, or “ascend,” which allows Link to pass through ceilings in a path of twisting turquoise light. The recall power lets Link take a giant boulder that fell from a floating island back up to said island like a cool rock elevator. And ascend means you no longer have to always scale the sides of mountains, keeping an eye on Link’s stamina meter while you do it.
Another new power “fuse,” lets Link combine two objects, like a branch with a boulder, and use it as a unique weapon—a hammer, in this case. “Ultrahand” is what Link will use to construct those vehicles we’ve seen in previous trailers.
Fuse seems to be one of the game’s most versatile new powers, letting Link attach almost anything to anything to improve and alter its qualities. At one point, for example, Link attaches two fans to a raft to turn it into a sort of rustic speedboat. You can also attach objects to your arrows to increase their utility, including a hunk of meat. The term “meat arrow” is currently all over our Twitter timeline, as Zelda fans rushed to wonder what they can do with such an arrow in Tears of the Kingdom.
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Other surprising reveals include breaking weapons (in the trailer, it’s a branch that breaks, for realism) and a fresh enemy, the Construct, which looks like a stony robot.
The lengthy gameplay trailer also appeared to accidentally confirm the presence of the Zonai, a prehistoric tribe in the Zelda universe whose ruins dot Hyrule. During the gameplay, we see Link collect something called a Zonai charge from a fallen Construct. It’s unclear what they do just yet, but it certainly has fans excited to see how much Tears of the Kingdom will explore their lore.
This is what I would call a big meal. Before today, we had a very narrow idea of what the highly anticipated Breath of the Wild sequel would contain. Existing trailers revealed that the game—Nintendo’s first $70 game (pro tip: it will be cheaper if you use a Nintendo Switch Game Voucher to purchase it)—looks even more fantastic than BoTW.
“Hopefully it runs okay on the aging Switch hardware,” Kotaku senior reporter Ethan Gach wrote at the time of the reveal.
Good graphics are a nice thing to have, and a nice thing to see demonstrated before you in a Nintendo trailer, but it isn’t something you can run with. Past trailers have provided a general sense of what the hell is going on: Zelda isn’t sure that Link will be able to handle the latest threat, but he also gets to fly through the sky on a hulking hoverboard and what appears to be a hot air balloon, so who’s really winning?
But it wasn’t enough for fans to sink their teeth in. They’ve been subbing facts for wild dreams, theorizing that Tears will feature the first speaking Ganon, some sort of lost soul mechanic. They also surmised that the game would have homing arrows, which today’s trailer confirmed…you just need to fuse your arrows with squishy yellow Keese Eyeballs to make it happen.
Today’s trailer, which continues to show Link and his verdant world at its best and adds even more gameplay mechanics to the ones previous trailers revealed, is hopefully only the start to Nintendo preparing to open up the flood gates of cold, hard Zelda information. It doesn’t have much time, anyway—the game releases for Switch on May 12.
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Ashley Bardhan
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There was a lot of hype going into Lightfall, Destiny 2‘s big cyberpunk expansion. The reality has been much more muted, full of ups and downs, fun discoveries and tedious chores. Live-service games are unwieldy creatures to try and examine under a microscope, and Destiny remains one of the toughest of them all.
Free-to-play sandbox changes are launching alongside the paid campaign, and separate seasonal story missions will be dropping week to week as hotfixes continue rolling out. Below fellow Kotaku writer and Destiny 2 glutton Zack Zwiezen and I discuss the highs and lows of Lightfall’s initial kick-off.
Zack Zwiezen: Eyes up, Guardians. We will be talking about Destiny.
Ethan Gach: Okay, let’s start with the Lightfall campaign. What were your most and least favorite parts? The high point for me was obviously the opening cinematic that shows The Traveler confronting The Witness and everything going sideways. The low point was crawling through air ducts while Osiris barked at me to quit wasting time and become one with the green space magic (Strand).
Zack: My favorite part was also the opening bit and the ending. It felt like stuff was happening and actually seeing the Traveler do something was amazing. Finally, the orb is helping us. My least-favorite part was how much the rest of the main campaign feels like season three of Lost, just spinning its wheels until the big finale.
It’s ironic that Osiris is so angry about us wasting time when this whole campaign feels like a waste of time.
Ethan: I felt extremely torn throughout most of it between the gravity of the story Bungie is telling at this moment and the lightheartedness of the ‘80s tropes littered throughout the campaign.
Neomuna feels like a cross between a Saturday morning cartoon and an afternoon at a futuristic space mall. The training montage with Strand was cute but also felt like a complete waste of time. Nimbus has grown on me over time, but I think they suffer from being the loan representative of an entire new civilization.
Read More: 13 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting Destiny 2: Lightfall
Zack: I kept wondering, as I played through the campaign, what the point of this expansion was. And the weird mix, as you mention, of ‘80s tropes and serious storytelling, didn’t help. With Witch Queen, I really liked how the narrative developed the idea that the Light isn’t some inherently good thing. That it can instead be used by anyone and how that really shook up Zavala and others. This time around the Strand was just a fun Darkness power we got via a Rocky-like montage, beat Calus (again) and I was left going “Okay…cool?”
I really enjoy exploring Neomuna and Nimbus has also grown on me. And I do like how the post-campaign quests seem to be expanding more on the lore of the planet and its people. But compared to last year and Witch Queen, I mostly felt disappointed by Lightfall.
Ethan: Yes, Witch Queen felt like a very tightly calibrated story with a beginning, middle, and end that built out the lore and stakes of the larger story while still focusing mostly on expanding on Savathûn’s backstory and motivations. No characters really provided that in Lightfall.
The end-game quests are much stronger than many of the campaign missions, I think, and probably would have provided a nice middle point to help the expansion breathe a bit more. I think backloading finally getting Strand, learning about Neomuna’s history, and also what Rohan was up to prior to our arrival, only served to make the campaign feel even more rushed and underexplained.
Zack: Yup. And I’ll also admit now that I still don’t fully understand why The Witness couldn’t just pop down to Neomuna and get his fancy Veil thing and do what he needed to do. And I also found it weird that Bungie—which is usually good about seeding stuff long before it becomes a big part of the story—just invented this whole Veil thing outta nowhere.
It just added to the feeling that this was rushed or not planned out as well as past expansions and seasons. Ethan, where did The Witness go? And will we find out before the next expansion via the upcoming seasons?
Ethan: I’m sure there will be hints of it throughout the upcoming seasons. But as tends to be the case with the expansion/season divide, my guess is the plot won’t move forward until The Final Shape. Which is fine, honestly. I get why some people felt like Lightfall needed to deliver more than a couple cutscenes, but I would have been completely satisfied if it felt like Neomuna had been properly fleshed out and had more tension.
I do think it’s been much more successful as a patrol space and launching pad for new exotic missions, however. What have you been thinking of the post-game and the broader content changes and additions in Lightfall?
Zack: I like the quality-of-life stuff! The loadout manager is cool and actually works. The way red frame weapons work now, where you just get the plan right away, is nice. But it’s not all great. I hate the new guardian rank system. And the commendation stuff, which could have been cool, just sucks.
Commendations seem so generic and everyone is giving them out all the time, regardless of how I played, and it all feels pointless at the moment.
Ethan: Yea it feels very caught between wanting to incentivize good behavior and also not lead to negativity. Also since matchmaking is reserved for the easiest activities, I’m also rarely ever paying attention to who I’m playing with.
By the end of a Defiant Battleground or Nightfall I rarely remember who was the person that went out of their way to revive me or kept us from wiping. I do see who is the best dressed, and yet there’s no style commendation. It also feels moot when you can assign one to both people, and a chore considering the number of button presses. How do you feel about the overhauled mods?
Zack: All of the mod changes are solid and much needed, I feel. The mod manager helps a lot too. I really like how much easier it is to play how I want without having to worry about costs or energy types as much. I also like that the artifact mods are now active perks. Overall I now enjoy messing with mods and my build more than before. And I was someone who barely cared about that stuff before because it was such a chore.
Ethan: It definitely feels like the builds have less personality around them. Warmind mods had a very specific flavor, and I miss elemental wells a ton. Overall I think the changes are good to great on average, though I think the way mod benefits are communicated is still a little obtuse, especially for newcomers.
It’s clearly part of the design philosophy at Bungie to slap “+10% kinetic damage” on something, which I admire, but the current system requires learning a lot of keywords to break down what are, at the end of the day, numerical trade-offs. Speaking of which, man it’s rough out there for legendary primaries.
Zack: I’m still mostly using stuff from the last two seasons, which is often a bad sign. I’ve not liked most of the new Neomuna-themed legendary weapons. Which feels like a change from past seasons, where I would often end up swapping out most of my stuff for the new toys and having a good time!
Ethan: The Neomuna weapons haven’t been super exciting, and it’s a pain that the Terminal Overload ones aren’t craftable. I’d almost rather have it be reversed, with Nimbus’ engram weapons being RNG rolls only, since Terminal Overload is a much more targeted farm.
If the Queensguard weapons didn’t also roll out alongside it, I think there would be a lot more talk of Lightfall lacking loot on par with some of the criticisms of Beyond Light, though the exotics are head and shoulders above other expansions (with the exception of Witch Queen’s Osteo Striga, which remains undefeated).
One complaint I have is that I’m over 30 hours into the new content and still don’t have a new crafted weapon yet, with the exception of the Vexcalibur exotic. As with Strand, the campaign would have been a great time to level one of the new guns up and grow attached to it. Now, I almost don’t care anymore. Crafting in general, while less painful, still feels under-developed. It was the key feature of last year’s expansion, and it feels like a footnote now.
Zack: *Looks off into the distance, dreaming of Osteo Striga. What a gun…*
But yeah without the Queensguard weapons I’d be pretty damn bummed about the loot this time around. And about crafted weapons, I too lack any still. And I often forget about the whole system now that I just hit a button to get the plans. It really feels like a misfire, and keeping it around in this current half-baked form feels bad. Rip it out and just let us have generic plans that can be used to craft stuff, or something.
I do think it’s maybe telling that we’ve talked so much about the new expansion and neither of us seems excited about Strand. I don’t hate Strand or anything like that. I enjoy using it. But it’s not as exciting to me as the other subclasses after the big 3.0 overhauls.
Ethan: It’s definitely very powerful, and I like that it can be utilized very effectively in both offensive and defensive ways, sometimes even in the same build. The grappling hook, like every moment-to-moment action in Destiny 2, feels great. Sorry though, not trading away my grenade for it. I mostly find myself using it now when I want to speed through lower-level grinds. I also don’t find it quite as visually and auditorily satisfying as Stasis, which, as evidenced by the stellar Verglas Curve exotic bow, remains so satisfying every time. But the damage output on Strand is wild. Players bemoaned the boring-sounding Titan Strand subclass, but I think it turned out to be the most fun version of it.
Read More: 14 Things I Love About Destiny 2: Lightfall
Zack: Oh the grappling hook feels soooooo good. But yeah, giving up a grenade for it and the long cooldown compared to the campaign makes it far less enticing to use regularly.
I think your comment about it not being as visually or auditorily satisfying is accurate and it leads me to the other problem with it: It just doesn’t seem as unique. The other subclasses being mostly elemental worked well to make them stand out. Strand is the first new subclass that seems less obvious to explain to someone. It’s like green space strings…I guess?
Are you excited about the rest of the year? Or has Lightfall dampened your Destiny 2 excitement for 2023? I’ll admit that I came into this new expansion and year very excited and pumped after Witch Queen and the last two seasons. And this has definitely made me a bit less excited for the rest of the year.
Ethan: I was extremely burnt out after last fall, and didn’t play a ton of last season. So far, I’ve actually been playing more of Lightfall than Witch Queen, which I loved it, but which I ended up dropping off pretty hard. We haven’t mentioned the Root of Nightmares raid yet, but I think while not as spectacle-driven as some past ones, it will get a lot more play because of how much shorter and more straightforward it is to grind. That’s especially surprising considering how the more general ramp-up in difficulty this season has completely turned me off of doing Lost Sectors and Nightfalls, which just feel like more trouble than they’re worth right now.
Zack: Yeah it’s interesting to see the raid be so much simpler than past raids. I wonder if Bungie wants more people playing raids or is just trying to shake things up and not always do some complicated beast for each new raid. Yet, meanwhile, other parts of the game are harder than ever. I imagine Bungie has data to back up these choices, but then again, as I write this, I see the hotfix patch notes for the game mention increasing rewards on solo Lost Sector runs. So maybe this is more evidence that this expansion and update didn’t get as much time in the oven as it needed
Ethan: As we look forward to the rest of the year—and to be clear, a Destiny expansion really is a year-long $100 commitment at this point (both for Bungie and the player)—there are definitely some things coming that I wish could have arrived alongside Lightfall. An in-game looking-for-group tool is one of the big ones, but the biggest of all is an end to the Power grind. It’s tedious. It gates content. And it’s just not fun.
RPG leveling has always been an uncomfortable fit for Destiny, which is a shooter at heart and fundamentally about chasing guns. Without skill trees or stats to pour points into, there’s really no reason, besides padding. to have to hit an arbitrary number before being able to participate in new content. It’s always been a fundamental tension in Destiny, but I don’t think any of the solutions have ever fixed it. And on a more optimistic note, I’m more confident than ever that the fundamentals of the game are strong enough to survive without it.
Zack: More so than ever, this expansion and season I feel the Power grind and I’m excited to hear Bungie isn’t going to raise it again next season. It feels like the beginning of fully removing it completely. The game can live on without it.
Reading back through this chat, I worry I sound super down on Destiny 2. But I’m still ready for the rest of the year and I’m excited to play more. I think, for me, this expansion just reminded me of how damn good Witch Queen was. It was always going to be hard to compete with that.
Ethan: Lightfall is definitely a slow burn. I can’t recommend it to people who aren’t already invested in the game in some way, unlike The Witch Queen, which was arguably the best shooter campaign of 2022.
But I think, or at least I’m hopeful, that it will bear more fruit over the long run. Season of Defiance is already off to a really strong start compared to other expansion-adjacent seasons, quality of life is improving, a lot of the currencies and grinding is getting streamlined, and there’s room to tie up a lot of interesting loose ends before The Final Shape.
Zack: Agreed. The future is still bright for Destiny 2. We just have to get there.
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Ethan Gach
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2022 was the year I decided to get serious about my retrogaming setup. I was tired of having a 104lb CRT dominating half my computer desk and a PlayStation 2, MiSTer, and whatever other consoles I was currently interested in always in peripheral vision. After a bit of thought I concluded that the TV and all the consoles would be better off on a wheeled cart. A retro cart, if you would. It could live in my closet, or be wheeled out to wherever seemed fun. So I started speccing that out.
The best form factor ended up having two lower shelves—for the consoles, a smaller TATE-friendly/PAL-compatible PVM-1354Q CRT a friend had recently sold me, and bookshelf speakers—with the big-ass 29” TV up on the third, top tier. Both CRTs could accept RGB or YPbPr/component video…which to standardize on? Component seemed easier for a couple reasons, so I went with that. Then I just needed a switcher to not only flip between MiSTer, PS2, Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, Wii, and Xbox, but to route any of those sources to either of the two screens.
That’s six in, two out. I wanted optical audio switching, too, for MiSTer, Xbox, and possibly PS2. Combined, those requirements take us far beyond the feature set of any basic switcher you’ll find on Amazon or Ali these days. Thus I turned to the bright, shining past of the mid-aughts, when component video adoption peaked and specialty A/V products catered to the more esoteric YPbPr-wrangling needs of the era’s home theater enthusiasts.
A few promising candidates surfaced. One high-end mid-2000s switcher was very fancy indeed and could actually transcode between analog and optical audio (wow!). But ultimately I was won over by the still-fancy but slightly more modest Impact Acoustics Deluxe Component Video / Digital Audio 6 In / 2 Out Matrix Switch, aka the “40697″. You can see it above. Not only can it route those six inputs to either screen, it can output to both screens simultaneously…the same source, or two different sources. Oh dear, am I blushing?
After a week or two I managed to snag a NOS (new old stock) one on eBay, and it proved just as performant as hoped: Any console on any display is now just a button-push away. The cart project is still in progress as I seek a working Xbox, look into appropriate Wii hax, and transition to a new display up top (kinda wishing I had gone with RGB now, actually!) but I’ve already been enjoying having all my beloved old games in a single, self-contained, no-compromises tower of power. Even got a beanbag! Hell yeah.
Alexandra Hall, Senior Editor
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Claire Jackson
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I was warned of how heated Kotaku’s GOTY arguments traditionally get when I first started here in November, so I was a little nervous when I was put in charge of organizing and tabulating our list of the best games of the year.
Would everyone vote? Would they get mad at me for ranking Destiny 2: The Witch Queen too high? Would Ethan Gach actually do what he was threatening and “hobgoblin” the voting process by adding negative points to the equation?
Turns out, however, that even though organizing this entire process was a pain in the ass, the team at Kotaku is exactly as opinionated, intelligent, and professional as you might expect, offering great insight and honest takes on the top games of 2022. Though we voted on over 20 titles (including ones that narrowly missed this list like Rollerdrome and Sifu) we narrowed it down to a top 10, and have ranked them in order below.
How does Kotaku’s top 10 games of 2022 stack up with your personal GOTY lists?
Reductively, Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s story is an amalgamation of Japanese RPGs whose emotional climax rests on the age-old theme of “war is bad.” Nevertheless, the fact that the trope has become a well-trodden cliché doesn’t dismiss how well developer Monolith Soft executes its anti-war theme throughout Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s 150 hours of playtime.
Read More: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Is A Genius JRPG Vision That Began 25 Years Ago
In Xenoblade Chronicles 3, you play as a troupe of child soldiers from warring nations locked in an endless battle where their limited lifespans fuel a giant mechanical clock once they meet their untimely demise. The kids are not alright. But despite the painful emotional journey its child soldiers must go on, which is portrayed with the emotional maturity and complexity it deserves, the game is not without some great moments of levity as well, courtesy of some lighthearted and silly sidequests. Meanwhile, Xenoblade’s more serious sidequests drip-feed players with rich character studies that flesh out each member of the party, along with the game’s expansive world and its deep cast of supporting characters.
Although Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was snubbed for the best roleplaying game and best soundtrack at Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards, it did give us an impassioned flutist performance from Pedro “Flute Guy” Eustache. This shows that even if Xenoblade loses at gaming’s glorified popularity contest, it still provides some of the best moments in gaming this year.
Isaiah Colbert, Staff Writer
Much like how I use Devil May Cry 5 as the measuring stick for how good a hack-and-slash game is, whenever I brave playing a survivor horror game I do so with the hope that its story measures up to Silent Hill 2. Big shoes to fill, I know. Signalis not only manages to fill those shoes, it damn near tore the seams off of them joints with how bloody good it was. I’d even argue that it’s better than Silent Hill 2.
Signalis has all the bells and whistles that make for a good sci-fi survival horror game. It’s got a brutal-but-fair limited inventory system, brain-teasing puzzles, and breadcrumb storytelling conveyed through codex entries scattered about its levels. However, where Signalis sings is with its gripping story about two lesbian androids desperately trying to find each other in a space hellscape.
Read More: Signalis Is A Grimy Exercise In Survival Horror, And I Love It
Throughout the game, you play as an android named Elster who’s stranded on an alien planet rife with horrific monsters and derelict spaceships. Elster’s sole mission is to reunite with Anne, a fellow android unit she both literally and figuratively can’t live without. Signalis sticks its landing with the emotional climax of Elster’s perilous journey, regardless of which of the game’s multiple endings you arrive at. This feat is even more impressive considering Signalis is the first video game made by its two-person development team, rose-engine. Ay yo, 2023, can we get some more of those sapphic survivor horror vidya games, plz?
Isaiah Colbert, Staff Writer
Norco emerged this year and joined Kentucky Route Zero and a few others on the shortlist of games that speak deeply to the experience of living under late-stage capitalism in America at this precise moment in time. Like Cardboard Computer’s masterpiece, Norco also takes its cues from point-and-click adventures, using stunning pixel art to pull us into its industrialized Louisiana landscapes. And where KR0 lent its midwestern road trip a heaping helping of magical realism, Norco uses near-future sci-fi elements to cast the forces its poor, marginalized characters face in sharper relief.
Read More: A Stunning Southern Dystopia Is One Of The Best-Written Games Of The Year
But don’t let my easy comparison make you think Norco is a pale imitator of another game. It’s very much its own remarkable experience, one with its own visual identity, its own poetic voice, and its own noir-ish mystery. Everything about Norco rings painfully true, from its observant little environmental details like the electrified hum of a street light, to the much larger way that religion, cryptocurrency, and the oil industry all become woven together in the haunting texture of your character’s search for her missing brother. Norco, Louisiana is a real place. The Norco of this game is not quite that place, but it’s nevertheless one that feels very real in its own way, and that will leave you reeling from the piercing gaze it levels at the world we’ve made for ourselves.
Carolyn Petit, Managing Editor
Poor Aloy. Twice now, her adventures have been somewhat overshadowed at the time of release by other games that more dramatically captured the world’s attention. Her first outing, Horizon Zero Dawn, launched just a few days before Breath of the Wild. This year, her second quest was followed a week later by Elden Ring.
But despite repeatedly serving as the opening act for games that go on to sweep the GOTYs of a hundred gaming sites, Guerrilla Games and Aloy can be proud of what they’ve accomplished. Arguably the most visually stunning game of the year, Guerrilla’s latest takes Aloy into the ruined American west for more of the thrilling, spectacular battles with hulking metallic beasts that helped make the first game an original in a sea of samey open-world blockbusters. And although the larger narrative may fly a bit off the rails in this outing, Forbidden West wisely stays focused on Aloy’s personal journey as someone who feels the weight of the world on her shoulders and doesn’t know how to let her guard down and allow her friends to carry that burden with her. It complicates her character and trusts us as players not to turn on her the moment she behaves in ways that are arrogant, cruel, or misguided. Oh, and you get a really sweet new travel option near the end of the game, too.
Yes, when all is said and done, Aloy and her escapades can stand tall alongside the Links and the myriad Tarnished of the world.
Carolyn Petit, Managing Editor
It was about 3 in the morning. I had plans the next day. I really needed to go to bed. Yet, here I was hunched over my computer focused on shaving just one more second off a level in Neon White so I could beat a friend on my leaderboard. That’s the power of fast-paced, FPS platformer Neon White. It’s the kind of game that feels so good that you just can’t stop playing it. Once you get skilled enough to start finding shortcuts in levels, it’s over–the game has you at that point. You’ll end up going back to old levels you thought you mastered to shave off more time. And if you enjoy anime nonsense, angels, demons, and sick-ass music, too, then Neon White will dig its angelic claws deeply into you and never let go. “One more run…and then I’ll go to bed.” I didn’t get to sleep that night until nearly 4:30 am.
Zack Zwiezen, Staff Writer
The profane and sacred mingle with delicate grace in Jump Over The Age’s minimalist cyberpunk RPG about trying to earn your humanity from a world that can’t pay its debts. Every detail from the writing and art to the branching choices and tabletop-inspired dice rolls connect, overlap, and reinforce each other with precision and care so that no piece is weaker than the rest and no rough edge is left exposed. Few games manage to evoke universal feelings or personal truths, but Citizen Sleeper does both at the same time. The future never felt so hopeless and yet so comforting.
Ethan Gach, Senior Reporter
Going into 2022, I don’t know how many people expected a free-to-play Marvel card game designed for phones to end up being one of the best and most popular games of the year, yet, here we are. Second Dinner’s fantastic bite-sized card battler, Marvel Snap, really is one of the best digital card games out there right now thanks to its small decks, fast rounds, and random nature. Matches always feel different and even a loss doesn’t sting too bad because it’s over so fast. Sure, it’s still a free-to-play mobile game, so you can expect stuff like iffy over-priced bundles and having to grind for currency. But luckily Marvel Snap is so fun to play that it’s pretty easy to overlook those bits and enjoy one of 2022’s best games.
Zack Zwiezen, Staff Writer
One more run. A sentence I’ve repeated countless times in 2022 either in my head or quietly aloud to justify playing Vampire Survivors for just a little while longer. The gothic roguelike shoot ‘em up became a surprise smash hit while spawning worthy spiritual siblings like 20 Minutes Till Dawn.
Since Valve started releasing the data in August, Vampire Survivors has been tops in total hours played on Steam Deck month in and month out. This is the same Steam Deck that can run frickin’ Elden Ring! But people want to play Vampire Survivors instead!
All those players are onto something, Vampire Survivors has a simple yet satisfying gameplay loop: your character (I’m partial to Peppino) must survive an ever-growing horde of ghoulies while choosing between randomly generated weapons. If you make it to 30 minutes, the reaper will come calling, which lets you spend coins on power-ups for future runs. You can be strategic in choosing weapons that complement each other or you can just try shit out! These elements of discovery, relentless isometric top down action, and Vampire’s lax attitude towards player death (it has zero impact) remind me a lot of Hades, another regular on that Steam Deck most-played list, and another GOTY contender from years past.
Vampire Survivors’ developer Luca Galante/poncle has regularly been updating the game since it left early access, adding modes, quality of life improvements, and settings to tweak for extra replayability. What’s more, the game recently got its first full-fledged DLC the other week with Legacy of the Moonspell. With the base game retailing at five dollars ($4 under the current Steam sale), Vampire Survivors makes for one of the better bang-for-your-buck propositions in gaming. Go ahead and treat yourself to some floor chicken.
Eric Schulkin, Video Lead
Sony Santa Monica’s God of War Ragnarök is more of everything. More abilities and weapons. More enemies and locations. More characters and plot details. Hell, even more loot. Though you could interpret this as a knock against the game, especially since more isn’t always better, Ragnarök takes the “more” and deftly applies it in tasteful ways while making room for a compelling narrative and gameplay experience that’s enjoyable and immersive. Combat is crunchy, exploration is intriguing, dialogue is captivating, and the themes are deep and engaging. But what stands out as the glisten on the diamond is the character development between daddy Kratos and adolescent Atreus, an element that sees the co-protagonists finding common understanding in the face of the end of the world. Sometimes, it takes things falling apart for empathy to be reached, and God of War Ragnarök is a glowing example of just that. It’s good shit.
Levi Winslow, Staff Writer
Are you surprised? Elden Ring easily and inevitably took the top spot during our voting process, further proving that 2022 was the year of Elden Ring. Many Kotaku staff members ranked it as their number one game of the year, and for good reason. FromSoftware’s open-world epic feels like a giant leap forward for the Souls-like franchise, offering us a beautifully deformed and dangerous Lands Between to explore, rife with opportunities to discover oddities, collect goodies, and die over and over again.
Elden Ring opened up Hidetaka Miyazaki ’s sick, twisted world for the normies who haven’t enjoyed FromSoft games before it, while also making sure to still cater to the hardened vets looking to prove their worth in incredibly tough battles. It found a perfect balance between that punishing gameplay so many long for in a game from this studio and a newfound sense of agency, of a chance to get gud without having to run into the same noxious swamp over and over again.
Elden Ring is technically impressive, visually stunning, and satisfyingly challenging. It has humor, it has sadness, it has turtle popes. It dashes your hopes up against a jagged rock only to hand you hope back bit-by-bit as you strengthen your character and your resolve. It is everything that we hope for in a video game, and then some.
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Alyssa Mercante
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