It feels like forever since the war in Ukraine began, but it hasn’t even been a year; Russian tanks rolled across the border in February, just ten months ago. Yet what was once headline news has now blurred into the background for most of us, a conflict that for the rest of the world is now simmering three scrolls down the front page of a news website.
For the tens of millions of people still directly affected by the war, though, little has changed! Ukrainians are still under siege, their lands still invaded, their armed forces still locked in a struggle against a nation that within living memory was still considered a superpower.
And while the last few months have seen Ukraine gain the upper hand on the frontlines, Putin’s growing desperation has also led to a switch in tactics. With swift battlefield gains now a thing of the past, Russia has begun attacking Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles, hoping to not only knock out the nation’s fragile power network (world leaders pledged nearly $500 million just this week to help keep the lights on) but also inflict terror on the civilian population.
Today, the team have shared a number of images and stories on Twitter showing what the war looks like in December 2022 for those who don’t have luxury of ignoring it on the news. I’m sharing them below, but if you’d rather see them as the HellSite intended, you can find the thread here.
If you’ve played Half-Life 2 or Source engine mods, you’ve likely seen the in-game model “Corpse01.mdl.” The burnt corpse appears multiple times in Half-Life 2’s sewers and other parts of the game, and modders often used it in fan projects. All is well, yes? Well, it was until recently, when fans noticed that the game’s creepy-looking corpse has the face of an actual dead man on it.
Released in 2004, PC shooter Half-Life 2 was the highly anticipated follow-up to Valve’s first game, Half-Life. Upon release, it was widely praised by critics and players. But while it came out to huge acclaim, there was a time when Half-Life 2 wasn’t such a sure bet, as its development process was messy and protracted. Valve scrapped different versions, cut entire sections, and lightened up the game’s intended darker, grittier tone considerably for the final retail release. However, some leftovers of this darker version remain in the final game, including Corpse01.mdl. Playing the game as a kid, the body always looked hyper-realistic and creeped me out whenever I stumbled upon it. Now, we know why.
Valve’s macabre texture-cribbing was discovered completely by accident (h/t The Gamer). About two weeks ago on the r/eyeblech subreddit, someone posted graphic images of dead bodies they claimed were from a medical forensic textbook. (While I’ve personally verified the images posted are real and out there, I won’t be linking to them. A little Googlin’ will lead you to them if you really want to see them.)
In the comments on that post, someone pointed out that one of the images showing a burned corpse looked identical to the Corpse01 model from Half-Life 2. Another post picked up the thread and people quickly began comparing the images to the art in the game. Sure enough, they look identical. The only change appears to be that Valve copied the right eye of the corpse onto the left. That’s it though. The entire face of that model is seemingly a dead dude’s face. Yikes.
Then, three days ago, gaming YouTuber Richter Overtime uploaded a short and concise video detailing the history of the corpse and its connection to the image, and this seemed to take the story fully mainstream, with folks tweeting about it and sharing it more widely online. As you might expect, a lot of Half-Life fans were freaked out to learn that they have been looking at a real corpse for the past two decades. One modder has already created a new model to replace the old one for folks who feel uncomfortable leaving the original dead face in Half-Life 2.
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Kotaku has reached out to Valve about the corpse to verify its origins and to ask if the company has any plans to change it with a future patch.
Personally, I’m not sure this is a thing that should be in a video game. It seems to me like it might be time to remove this model and replace it with an image of anything but an actual burned human corpse.
If you want to become the very best, you’ve gotta beat the very best.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
Defeating the Elite Four and the regional champion in battle is a rite of passage in most Pokémon games, and that includes Scarlet and Violet. These are supposed the most-powerful Pokémon trainers in the Paldea region, and overcoming them and their teams is the only way to become the regional champion yourself.
But what should your team look like if you’re going to take on these trainers? Before we go trainer by trainer and talk about what weaknesses you’ll need to exploit to become Paldea’s champion, let’s touch on some general tips.
Level up before you go-go
Between all the trainers you’ll fight in the Paldea Pokémon League, you’ll face Pokémon whose levels range from 57 to 62. Since you’ll have already beaten all eight regional gym leaders, you’ll notice Scarlet and Violet have a sizable gap between the most powerful gym leader and the first of the Elite Four. Grusha, the Glaseado gym leader, had his Pokémon in the late 40s, and the Elite Four starts out 10 levels higher. So definitely do some training beforehand to get your team leveled up to at least the mid-50s.
“You need healing!”
Pokémon veterans will tell you that before you challenge the Elite Four, you need to stock up on healing items. These fights all happen in sequence, and you won’t be able to leave to heal your team and come back between them. However, you will have a chance to use healing items before each fight to your heart’s content. The PokéMart right outside the Pokémon League building will have plenty of Hyper Potions and Revives for you to buy. These will be helpful both between battles and during them, as it’s likely you’ll need to heal up if one of the Elite Four manages to take out some of your team.
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Jack of all trades is better than a master of one
Over the years, I’ve seen a handful of Pokémon players who like to play with teams that double up on moves of the same type, rather than having a nice spread of attacks that lend themselves to more diverse situation. I prefer greater versatility. For example, during the main game, my Raichu had Thunderbolt (Electric), Play Rough (Fairy), Iron Tail (Steel), and Focus Blast (Fighting). Between these four moves, he could reasonably deal damage to nine out of Pokémon’s18 creature types by himself. This is the kind of moveset I try to have with my entire team, which gives me more options for whatever situation the game throws at me.
If Raichu could use a super-effective Iron Tail on a rock/ground-type Pokémon, but would still be in danger of being one-shot by a devastating Earthquake, I could switch to my Quaquaval and use a water or fighting move without having to worry about him succumbing to the same weaknesses Raichu would. Versatility is a good rule of thumb to keep in mind when you’re building a team, because a team of six Pokémon can’t cover this many weaknesses without learning moves outside its base typing. While it’s important to keep in mind what moves your Pokémon will get a bonus for thanks to their base typing or tera typing, don’t put all your Poké eggs in one Poké basket: You’ll just limit yourself and make fights harder than they need to be.
Save between fights
It can feel cheesy, but you should always be saving between fights at the Elite Four. If you lose a battle, all you’ve gotta do is close the game and reopen it to start where you left off. Do this before you’re transported back to the Pokémon Center in order to circumvent the autosave (or turn it off in the options menu), and you’ll be able to just try each fight again with new knowledge. You can also use this time to change your team’s movesets around if you find yourself lacking a super-effective response to one of your opponents’ Pokémon.
Without further ado, let’s talk about the Elite Four and the champion of Paldea.
Rika specializes in ground-type Pokémon and will stomp you into the ground if you’re not prepared.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
Rika, the ground-type master
She is beauty, she is grace, but Rika’s team of ground-type Pokémon is full of a bunch of doofuses. Between Whiscash, Dugtrio, and Clodsire, half her team has big “not a thought behind those eyes” energy. But they’ve still got some hard-hitting moves and effective defenses that can take you by surprise if you’re not prepared.
Dugtrio and Donphan are the most straightforward of Rika’s team, as they’re standard ground-type Pokémon weak to all of ground’s weaknesses: grass, ice, and water. Having a mix of these types of attacks will be important, however, as the other three Pokémon she uses have inherent counters to each of these types.
Rika’s Whiscash sets a precedent for how you should approach her party: You can’t just stick to one of ground’s typical weaknesses for the entire fight. As a water/ground-type Pokémon, Whiscash is only weak to grass-type moves, but it is double weakened by them, as they overpower water and ground-type Pokémon. So a grass-type move is best to start with, but be mindful of its Blizzard attack, as that will knock most grass-type Pokémon out real quick. Luckily, Whiscash is fairly slow, so if you can get a reasonably strong, risk-free attack like Energy Ball—or Meowscarada’s signature attack Flower Trick for those who chose Sprigatito as their starter—Whiscash’s double weakness to grass should do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.
Camerupt also requires a bit of forethought, as its fire/ground typing makes it more resistant to grass and ice attacks. However, water attacks will do four times as much damage against it, as both fire and ground are weakened by it. Unlike Whiscash, who could severely damage a grass-type Pokémon who weakened it, Camerupt doesn’t have a strong offensive option for the average water-type Pokémon. Its moves lean hard into its fire and ground typing, but it does have a steel-type move in Flash Cannon, which could be rough on any rock Pokémon in your roster if you decide to target its ground weakness rather than water. So the safest course of action is to use a water move like Aqua Tail or Quaquavel’s signature Aqua Step to take advantage of its lower physical defense stat.
Clodsire is Rika’s final Pokémon, and one of her trickiest. She will use her tera orb on it to overwrite its poison/ground typing and make it simply ground, so if you were planning on using a psychic attack to exploit its poison base typing, you’ll have to adjust. On top of this, Clodsire also has Water Absorb as its ability, which negates water attacks and also heals its HP by a quarter of its health. So it’s not just a wasted turn to try and use a water attack, it’s actively beneficial to Rika’s big oaf. Clodsire’s weaknesses in this scenario are grass, water, and ice.
Normally, I would advise against using a grass-type Pokémon against it because of its base poison typing, but Clodsire doesn’t have any damaging poison moves that could weaken a grass-type Pokémon. It does have Toxic, but that will only inflict the poison status, rather than do poison damage. The biggest struggle with Rika’s Clodsire is that, if you go in expecting to use certain moves, its tera typing or ability can trip you up. But once you know its actual spread of weaknesses, it’s a bit more straightforward.
Clodsire has a bulky special defense, but its physical defense is much lower. So if you can hit it with a physical ice or water move (such as Ice Spinner, Ice Hammer, or Aqua Tail), or fall back on the Aqua Step (if you’ve got it), Clodsire should go down pretty quickly.
Poppy’s cutesy personality is a façade hiding a powerhouse party of steel-type Pokémon.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
Poppy, the steel-using child labor law violation
The second of the Elite Four is a case study in juxtaposition between trainer and Pokémon, as Poppy is probably the youngest trainer in the Paldea region, but has some hefty steel-type brawlers on her team. All that being said, fighting her team requires the same flexibility as Rika’s, as her Pokémon ebb and flow between the steel type’s strengths and weaknesses. As nice as it would be to pick your strongest fire type and set them all ablaze, Poppy’s team has a few notable counters for the types that weaken steel.
Poppy leads with her Copperajah, and it’s an immediate counter to fire types. It just has a simple steel typing, but with moves like High Horsepower, it can go toe-to-toe with a fire-type Pokémon with little issue. It also acts as a setup Pokémon because it has Stealth Rock, which will scatter stones around your team, dealing rock damage to any Pokémon you send out throughout the battle. This is especially bad for fire-type Pokémon, as they’re weakened by rock attacks.
You have a few options to counter this. One is to just knock Copperajah out so quickly it doesn’t have the chance to use Stealth Rock, which is best accomplished by using a powerful fire, fighting, or ground attack. Copperajah has a lot of HP and can pack a punch, but its defenses are pretty middle of the road, and it’s exceptionally slow. So if you can manage to outspeed it (fairly easy) and knock it out in one hit (challenging, but doable) you can circumvent the danger of Stealth Rock altogether.
I generally avoid teaching my Pokémon the most powerful moves in their respective typings because they often come with drawbacks to accuracy or recharge time, but if you want to be thorough here, a Fire Blast or High Jump Kick can wipe Copperajah out before it has a chance to set up. These are often overkill in typical play, but when you’re facing a match-long threat like Stealth Rock, better safe than sorry.
If you’re not so lucky to take Copperajah out quickly, having a Pokémon who can clear enemy hazards is always smart. Pokémon like Donphan, Forretress, or Coalossal can learn Rapid Spin, which will clear out the Stealth Rock without being in too much danger from Poppy’s steel Pokémon.
Magnezone is fairly straightforward, as its double weakness to ground-type moves makes it an easy one-hit knockout. Corviknight is also pretty simple, as it doesn’t have much to counter its fire and electric weaknesses.
Bronzong is a bit trickier, as it has plenty of counters for fire-type Pokémon with Rock Blast and Earthquake. It also has the Levitate ability, which makes it immune to ground-type moves most steel Pokémon would be susceptible to. As such, it’s better to focus on its psychic typing, rather than steel. A good dark-type Pokémon would be an ideal counter thanks to its immunity to Bronzong’s psychic attacks, and one that has high physical defense would be able to withstand all of its moves. Umbreon would be a good fit, as it has strong physical defense, and its base dark typing would give it immunity to Bronzong’s psychic moves, as well as strengthen its dark-type attacks like Dark Pulse or Crunch.
Poppy’s last Pokémon is its Tinkaton, which she will terastalize into a full steel-type. Even without the tera type, Tinkaton’s physical moveset packs a punch, so it’s a force to be reckoned with if you’re not careful. Luckily, its weaknesses don’t really change too much with this typing beyond adding fighting. So, if you have fire-, fighting-, or ground-type moves (which you will probably have needed to get this far in the fight), you should be good to take out Tinkaton.
I’d recommend opting for ground, as Poppy will likely exploit either of the other two with Play Rough and Stone Edge, which weaken fighting and fire, respectively. Tinkaton has a hefty special defense, so using a physical-based ground move like Earthquake is your best bet.
Larry, the star of the show, can’t show up only once in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
Larry returns to fly to new heights
I can’t lie, he made such a positive impression on me as a gym leader earlier in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet that I lost my mind when Larry, Pokémon’s embodiment of the Dolly Parton song “9 to 5,” showed up as a member of the Elite Four. But while his normal-type team required one strategy, his flying-type party in the Pokémon League requires another.
Unlike Rika and Poppy, most of Larry’s trickiest Pokémon lead his team. While most flying-type trainers in this series can be easily handled with a good electric-type Pokémon like Raichu or Jolteon, Larry’s Tropius, Oricorio, and Altaria all require you to look for alternate weaknesses.
Tropius is a grass/flying type, which means it’s double weak to ice. Historically, I don’t typically make space for an ice-type Pokémon on my team because most water-type Pokémon can reliably learn ice moves, but Tropius is kitted out with Sunny Day and Solar Beam, which is a combo that can make short work of any water-type that dares to enter the field. So if you don’t have an ice-type Pokémon to throw out a quick Ice Beam or a water-type that’s both fast and strong enough to interrupt this setup, it might be best to opt to target one of its other weaknesses.
Luckily Tropius has many with its grass/flying typing, so we can pick from fire, flying, rock, or poison, as well. Presumably, you have a fire-type Pokémon from your fight with Poppy, so that’s a good Pokémon to lead with and get a good Flamethrower out before Tropius has a chance to set up its Solar Beam.
Oricorio’s electric/flying typing is interesting, because separately, those two elements have straightforward weaknesses to exploit. But together they limit your options because it will be immune to ground moves and relatively resistant to electric ones. Its remaining weaknesses are rock and ice, Either option is as effective, but be mindful that it also knows Icy Wind, which can be super effective on some rock-type Pokémon if they have a secondary ground affinity.
Larry’s Altaria is one of the Pokémon you’ll face that feels directly spec’d to counter its usual weaknesses. The dragon/flying Pokémon knows Moonblast (Fairy), Flamethrower (Fire), Ice Beam (Ice), and Dragon Pulse (Dragon), which is a hard counter for almost anything you can throw at it…almost.
Altaria can counter dragon and ice pretty handily, but it doesn’t have much to take out fairy Pokémon, or defend against fairy-type moves. It has pretty respectable physical and special defense, but its physical defense is a tad lower. So if you’ve got someone on your team that knows Play Rough, it’s a solid counter that exists in the gaps of Altaria’s moveset.
Then all that’s left is Starapator and a terastalized flying-type Flamigo. You can take out both of these handily with strong electric attacks. It’s best to avoid ice-type Pokémon for these last two, as both of them have fighting attacks that could do significant damage.
Hassel teaches art at the academy in Paldea, but he also teaches the art of Pokémon battling as a member of the Elite Four.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
Hassel teaches one final lesson
The final fight before the champion is against Hassel, the art teacher in Paldea’s academy. He specializes in dragon-type Pokémon, and his team includes a few ‘mons you likely won’t have seen by this point in your playthrough. So it’s good to be prepared for the twists and turns of this battle.
Noivern leads Hassel’s team, and it’s one of the simplest in the group. It’s weak to all of dragon-type’s usual weaknesses, but its flying/dragon typing makes it twice as weak to ice-type moves. So blow a gentle, cold breeze in its direction (Ice Beam) and it should fall pretty quickly. Flapple is also pretty straightforward, as its grass/dragon typing makes it extremely susceptible to ice attacks, which it doesn’t have any real counters for.
Haxorus is also just a dragon-type, but it has a wider type coverage with its attacks. With Dragon Claw, Crunch, Iron Head, and Rock Tomb, it can reliably counter both ice and dragon Pokémon, so your best bet is to exploit the fairy-sized gap in its offensive capabilities as you did with Larry’s Altaria. Its physical defense is notably stronger than its special defense, so if you have Pokémon like Sylveon with an attack like Moonblast in your bag, you can make short work of Haxorus.
Dragalge is complicated because it can easily take down dragon and fairy Pokémon with its poison-type Sludge Bomb and dragon-type Dragon Pulse. So the safest weakness to exploit is likely psychic. You could also try ground, but do keep in mind Hassel’s Dragalge knows Hydro Pump, which can drop ground-type Pokémon in a single turn. Meanwhile, it doesn’t have any real counters for a psychic Pokémon, making it the poison/dragon-type’s biggest vulnerability.
Finally, we have Baxcalibur, Hassel’s ace and Scarlet and Violet’spseudo-legendary. Hassel’s strategy with this Pokémon is pretty simple: Terastalize into a full dragon-type, and then use its signature move Glaive Rush until it wipes your team. If you have a fairy-type Pokémon you’ll be immune to this attack, so that will take the greatest threat off the table. But, oddly enough, Hassel’s Baxcalibur only knows two other moves, the ice-type Icicle Crash and fighting-type Brick Break. Fairy Pokémon are resistant to fighting attacks, and damaged normally by ice. So if you’ve got a fairy with decent special attack like the aforementioned Sylveon, you can carve your way through this Pokémon.
Geeta charges her tera orb as if it will make any meaningful impact on this battle. Go, girl. Give us nothing.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
Here comes the final challenger, Geeta
After you defeat all the members of the Elite Four, you’ll be given a complementary party heal before you face Geeta, the champion of the Paldea region.
As fans have noted since Scarlet and Violet launched, Geeta’s team is a bit underwhelming for a champion, even compared to the Elite Four who are supposedly under her. She doesn’t specialize in any one typing, so there’s not the same subversion and adaptation you see in the other trainer fights. No one on her team is particularly powerful like Hassel’s Baxcalibur or Poppy’s Tinkaton. The weirdest part of all of it is that Glimmora, which is treated as her signature Pokémon, is a setup Pokémon by design, but she uses it last and wastes its Toxic Debris ability. As such, the only real strategy with her is simply having Pokémon who know attacks that weaken hers.
More than half of her team has a one-type elemental affinity, with psychic-type Espathra, grass-type Gogoat, and ice-type Avalugg all starting out as such, and Glimmora becoming one by terastalizing into a rock-type.
Espathra and Gogoat are mostly lacking in hard counters to their weaknesses. A ghost, dark, or bug attack will take Espathra out, though be wary of its Dazzling Gleam if you choose to go the dark route. Gogoat has basically nothing to combat a fire, bug, or flying Pokémon. Avalugg fares a bit better—Earthquake gives it something to fight off any fire or rock Pokémon—but its remaining moves feel like they’re there to fill spaces rather than help it overcome anything you throw at it. So feel free to safely use a steel or fighting attack.
Veluza and Kingambit have dual typings, which makes them a little more complicated, but their movesets are still pretty straightforward. Veluza is a water/psychic type, but those types together don’t create any sort of interesting resistances or immunities to be aware of. It’s weak to everything those types are weak to, so a bug, ghost, grass, electric, or dark move will be super effective. Geeta also hasn’t taught it any moves that weaken its usual vulnerabilities, with the closest thing to a subversion in its kit being Ice Fang, and ice moves are fairly predictable for a water-type Pokémon to have. As such, there’s not much to worry about here.
Kingambit has one saving grace, in that the dark/steel Pokémon knows Zen Headbutt, a psychic move that would make short work of a fighting-type Pokémon who would otherwise be able to exploit its double weakness to fighting. But the Pokémon is also terribly slow, so if you can outspeed it, you have a chance to avoid the attack altogether.
Then there’s Glimmora, whose puzzling placement just really underlines how suboptimal Geeta’s team is. The rock/poison Pokémon will terastalize into a rock type, which does halve its normal double weakness to ground into just a standard one, but it is still very much weak to fighting, steel, and water. This change also opens itself up into a grass weakness it didn’t have before.
When it comes to attacking those weaknesses it has Dazzling Gleam to handle fighting-type Pokémon and Sludge Wave to handle any grass-type Pokémon without a secondary type to resist it. So the safest type to use is water, but Glimmora is also slow enough that you can probably get those attacks out fast enough to defeat it anyway.
There are hints in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’sendgame that Geeta and Glimmora are tied into story elements that have yet to be explored. As such, it makes some sense that narratively Geeta would use Glimmora as her partner Pokémon and ace in battle. But the way the Pokémon is built as a setup Pokémon through its Toxic Debris ability, which lays out Toxic Spikes on the battlefield after it’s hit with a physical attack, means it doesn’t make sense for it to be utilized this way in battle. All of Geeta’s team just feels like it lacks the same forethought of the rest of the Elite Four. What an odd fight.
After you defeat Geeta, that’s the last time you can face the Elite Four in this sequential structure. This is a departure from previous games, which let you challenge the Pokémon League multiple times. However, you can still face all of these trainers in the postgame Academy Ace Tournament, where their teams will be slightly stronger and have different movesets. Geeta’s team still sucks, though!
The campaign, which had comfortably passed its initial funding goals, said its pitch was:
This is to fund the development of open-source, community first, AI models that will achieve the dream of a billion people exploring and creating art with nothing but their imagination. This revolution in human expression will be equivalent to the invention of the printing press, or of the internet. AI that allows for anyone to make art.
Basically, as TechCrunch report, these guys are frustrated that existing AI-generated image models don’t make good porn, and so they want to build a community to help them do a better job. Now, I’m not here to poo-poo anyone’s kinks or desires for online content, we’re all adults here and everyone has their own stuff they’re into.
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But porn or not, this is still AI-generated imagery, and given the protests currently going on at ArtStation, and with the wider controversy surrounding the field in general, Unstable Diffusion landed at the right time to be the campaign to get Kickstarter looking at their own policies on the matter.
The crowd-funding platform are yet to release firm guidelines, saying “we’re sometimes navigating some really tricky and undefined areas”, but the company did release a statement suggesting that they will, for now at least, “on the side of creative work and the humans behind that work”.
I want to share some of our thoughts on Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated images and AI art as it develops, because many creators on Kickstarter are understandably concerned about its impact on the creative community.
At Kickstarter, we often have projects that are innovative and push the boundaries of what’s possible. And that means we’re sometimes navigating some really tricky and undefined areas.
Over the last several days, we’ve engaged our Community Advisory Council and we’ve read your feedback to us via our team and social media. And one thing is clear: Kickstarter must, and will always be, on the side of creative work and the humans behind that work. We’re here to help creative work thrive.
As we look at what’s happening in the creative ecosystem and on our platform, here are some of the things we’re considering when it comes to what place AI image generation software and AI-generated art should have on Kickstarter, if any:
– Is a project copying or mimicking an artist’s work? We must consider not only if a work has a straightforward copyright claim, but also evaluate situations where it’s not so clear — where images that are owned or created by others might not be on a Kickstarter project page, but are in the training data that makes the AI software used in the project, without the knowledge, attribution, or consent of creators.
– Does a project exploit a particular community or put anyone at risk of harm? We have to consider the intention behind projects, sometimes beyond their purpose as stated on our platform. Our rules prohibit projects that promote discrimination, bigotry, or intolerance towards marginalized groups, and we often make decisions to protect the health and integrity of Kickstarter.
This tech is really new, and we don’t have all the answers. The decisions we make now might not be the ones we make in the future, so we want this to be an ongoing conversation with all of you. You can share your thoughts by writing to suggestions@kickstarter.com as we continue to develop our approach to the use of AI software and images on our platform.
That statement was released at the same time Unstable Diffusion’s campaign was suspended (with all backers refunded). It’s important to note that while this post is mostly about the general idea of AI-generated imagery, the mentions of harm appear to be addressing specific criticisms of Unstable Diffusion:
The last few years have been fairly bursting with TV shows and movies adapted from popular games. And even more are coming down the pipeline. If you ask some fans, many of these shows have strayed too far away from their original source material, so it might be nice to hear that the producers of Amazon’s God of War TV show aim to stay “incredibly true” to its original source material: the games.
While it had been reported early this year, it wasn’t until last week that Amazon officially confirmed it was developing a TV show based on the popular and long-running God of War franchise. The PlayStation series features Kratos, a god-like Spartan warrior, running around the world killing everything. Recent games have aged him up and given him a son, changing the tone of the series and helping make it more popular than ever. And now, in an interview with Collider, Amazon Studios Head of TV Vernon Sanders explained that the upcoming streaming show will be “incredibly true to the source material” which he says has a “real emotional core.”
“We know that there’s such a passionate fanbase for God of War,” Sanders told Collider. “But the thing that we’re always looking for is whether there is a real emotional core, if there’s a real narrative story, and I think [that’s] part of what makes God of War so special.”
The Amazon TV boss continued, explaining that the newer games, while being “giant epic” adventures are still focused on telling a story about “fathers and sons, and families.” He thinks this will appeal to everyone, even people who haven’t played the games.
“So what [showrunners] Rafe Judkins and Mark Fergus and [writer] Hawk Ostby have come up with for the first season, and for the series, I think, is both incredibly true to the source material, and also compelling on its own,” explained Sanders. “So we think it’s going to be huge.”
Paramount / Xbox
Recent video game adaptations, like Resident Evil on Netflix and Halo on Paramount+, have been heavily criticized online by fans for veering too far from the original source material the shows are supposedly inspired by. And while I do hesitate to agree with angry fans online and I think adaptations should be allowed to make changes, it’s hard not to get a bit annoyed by how often the Master Chief takes off his helmet in the new Halo show. And as Sanders points out, Amazon has a good track record with adaptations that fans like, listing The Boys and Invincible as examples of how to do adaptations correctly.
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Of course, talk is cheap, and making TV shows is hard. It’s always nice to say you’ll stay true to a video game’s storyline and narrative, but it’s much harder to do when so many of the games being adapted into TV shows are mainly 20 hours of combat with about four hours of cutscenes and script. But hey, maybe God of War on Amazon Prime and The Last of Us on HBO Max will be fantastic and true to their source material. Apparently, The Last of Us is actually the greatest story ever told in a video game. Seems like that should make for a few good episodes of prestige TV?
If 2022 is going to be the year of anything, it’s been the year of the city-builder, a strategy sub-genre that has exploded in popularity recently, especially on the PC. While most efforts are focused on sprawling urban landscapes and Viking outposts, and others make city-builders with even more systems, The Block is going in the opposite direction.
If you have ever seen or played Townscaper, or Dorfromantik, The Block has a similar idea: strip city-building back to its bare essentials, and let the player do nothing else but drop stuff on a map and be happy with whatever comes out of it.
The Block strips things even closer to the bone, though; while those two games simulated a village, or at least a village’s surrounding countryside, The Block is interested in only a single…block. That’s all you get. There are no guidelines you need to follow, either, you just get a very small space and can built whatever you want on it.
At the start of each game you’re randomly assigned a style (like European and Middle Eastern), can choose the size of your block and then given a map with a single tile pre-filled with something. From there you’re given tiles of your own and have to build out from the centre, laying down a new structure (or park, or street) only when it’s touching an existing one.
The Block – Official Launch Trailer
That is entirety of the experience. No clocks, no meta, no optimal build paths, no power needs, no public transport, no traffic congestion. It’s almost more of a plaything than a game, like a LEGO architecture set or a box of wooden blocks, because there’s no right or wrong way to build anything here.
I was mildly critical of Ixion last week for its repeated interference with the thing I love most about city-builders: the zen-like experience of nurturing something and watching it grow. Here that’s all there is, and while this is a very basic thing (and priced accordingly, at just a couple of bucks) I love The Block for its clarity.
For the first few days of that protest, most users simply pasted a clean, bold image by Alexander Nanitchkov, using repetition in numbers to have the site’s front page looking like this:
Screenshot: ArtStation
As the days have marched on, though, and ArtStation and Epic refuse to offer more suitable protections for the very artworks their site is designed for, artists have moved on and have decided to come up with pieces that are a bit more elaborate, and personal.
I thought I’d highlight some of my favourites in this post. You’ll find links to their passionate, creative and deeply human portfolios of each artist responsible in the names under each image.
We first wrote about this saga back on December 13, when a growing number of AI-created images appearing on ArtStation’s front page prompted a backlash from artists. In response, ArtStation’s owners Epic Games said:
ArtStation’s content guidelines do not prohibit the use of AI tools in the process of creating artwork that is shared with the community. That said, ArtStation is a portfolio platform designed to elevate and celebrate originality powered by a community of artists. Users’ portfolios should only feature artwork that they create, and we encourage users to be transparent in the process. Our content guidelines are here.
ArtStation then published an FAQ seeking to “clarify” the issue, but instead just made things worse, implementing a policy where users would have to opt out of having AI scrape their artworks (and even then being unable to guarantee AI wouldn’t just scrape it anyway). There have been no updates in the days since, meaning the protests have continued, with today’s front page looking much like last week’s (many of the images not using the standard, pasted response are still anti-AI).
InSight—or, less elegantly, the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport mission—is a robot that NASA’s JPL (with help from the European Space Agency) sent to Mars back in 2018.
It’s job was fairly simple. Or as simple as “a highly complex robot built on Earth then fired from a rocket into deep space then landed on another planet” can be, anyway. InSight put a seismometer on Mars and has sat around for the last four years reading and interpreting the data received from it, killing its time providing “accurate 3D models of the planet’s interior” and measuring “internal heat transfer using a heat probe called HP3 to study Mars’ early geological evolution”.
A selfie taken by InSight back in 2018Photo: NASA
Aside from its main role, InSight has also been useful because it has a camera attached, allowing it to take some very nice photos of the surface of Mars. Its coolest achievement, however, at least for anyone not in the field of hardcore space science, is the fact that the robot was able—via vibrations detected on its solar panels—to record the sound of wind on Mars, which is the first time anyone had ever heard wind from another planet.
Sounds of Mars: NASA’s InSight Senses Martian Wind
So yeah, nice robot! But like any robot sent into space, InSight is running on a battery, and while solar panels and judicious use of its systems have helped prologue its life, the time is fast approaching where it runs out of juice for good and is forced to power down.
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This should be a routine matter. This is a machine, it’s going to stop working, we will all get on with our lives. But somebody at NASA had the bright/terrible idea to anthropomorphize InSight’s final days, and so instead of a press report saying “machine stopped working, it did neat stuff”, we have to read this:
Excuse me. I just have some…Martian dust in my eye.
I hope, one day soon, we ourselves are able to travel to Mars. And when we get there, I hope one of the first things we do is find InSight, and give it a hug.
John Carmack, legendary game designer, rocket guy and VR enthusiast, has announced that he is leaving both Meta/Facebook and the virtual reality business itself, after a decade as one of its most prominent champions.
Carmack’s position was as an executive consultant. He initially sent his farewell message to colleagues in an internal memo, but when that was leaked in part to the media, he decided to post the whole thing—including some clarifications—on his Facebook page instead.
Here it is in full:
This is the end of my decade in VR.
I have mixed feelings.
Quest 2 is almost exactly what I wanted to see from the beginning – mobile hardware, inside out tracking, optional PC streaming, 4k (ish) screen, cost effective. Despite all the complaints I have about our software, millions of people are still getting value out of it. We have a good product. It is successful, and successful products make the world a better place. It all could have happened a bit faster and been going better if different decisions had been made, but we built something pretty close to The Right Thing.
The issue is our efficiency.
Some will ask why I care how the progress is happening, as long as it is happening?
If I am trying to sway others, I would say that an org that has only known inefficiency is ill prepared for the inevitable competition and/or belt tightening, but really, it is the more personal pain of seeing a 5% GPU utilization number in production. I am offended by it.
[edit: I was being overly poetic here, as several people have missed the intention. As a systems optimization person, I care deeply about efficiency. When you work hard at optimization for most of your life, seeing something that is grossly inefficient hurts your soul. I was likening observing our organization’s performance to seeing a tragically low number on a profiling tool.]
We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort. There is no way to sugar coat this; I think our organization is operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy. Some may scoff and contend we are doing just fine, but others will laugh and say “Half? Ha! I’m at quarter efficiency!”
It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I’m evidently not persuasive enough. A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. I think my influence at the margins has been positive, but it has never been a prime mover.
This was admittedly self-inflicted – I could have moved to Menlo Park after the Oculus acquisition and tried to wage battles with generations of leadership, but I was busy programming, and I assumed I would hate it, be bad at it, and probably lose anyway.
Enough complaining. I wearied of the fight and have my own startup to run, but the fight is still winnable! VR can bring value to most of the people in the world, and no company is better positioned to do it than Meta. Maybe it actually is possible to get there by just plowing ahead with current practices, but there is plenty of room for improvement.
Make better decisions and fill your products with “Give a Damn”!
As his clarification states, while his comments may seem damning, they’re not necessarily related to any individual people he worked with, or decisions made above him. They’re more about his clear passion for the idea of optimisation itself, a structural and systemic issue that, at a company as big as Meta, might have been maddening for a guy used to writing code and firing rockets into space.
As Web3 Is Going Just Great’sMolly White reports, the deal was supposed to run for seven years, and involve FTX making “substantial payments” to Riot, starting with $12.5 million for the 2022 calendar year (and escalating to $12.875 for 2023, and so on). So far only $6.25 million of that 2022 sum has been paid, and there is almost zero chance Riot will ever see another cent, so the company has filed a case with a Bankruptcy Court in Delaware seeking to have the rest of the sponsorship deal nullified.
In strictly business terms, that’s perfectly understandable. As Riot points out in their filing, FTX have declared bankruptcy, which should send the whole deal straight into the bin, no questions asked. Just in case anyone does ask questions, though, Riot have added, “There is simply no way for FTX to cure the reputational harm already caused to Riot as a result of the highly public disrepute wrought by the debacle preceding FTX’s bankruptcy filing. FTX cannot turn back the clock and undo the damage inflicted on Riot in the wake of its collapse.”
Prior to, and throughout this media firestorm, Riot’s image and reputation to its customer base, remained inextricably linked to FTX through its former CEO, Mr. Bankman-Fried. Media outlets and Twitter commentators splashed images of Mr. Bankman-Fried playing League of Legends—Riot Games’ game— at the same time that FTX was crashing. Mr. BankmanFried is famous for his affinity for the game. He is well-known among investors to play League of Legends during meetings. He acknowledged on Twitter that he played “a lot more [League of Legends] than you’d expect from someone who routinely trades off sleep vs work.” Even Mr. Bankman-Fried’s ranking in League of Legends has been the subject of online commentary with public figures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elon Musk weighing in.
Even back when this deal was first signed, in August 2021, it was agonisingly clear what the endgame for this whole scam was going to be, whether it was video game developers or NBA teams or overly-eager celebrities.
You would think Riot would know this, especially now in the middle of all this, but another part of the filing argues that the FTX deal needs to be terminated because it is preventing the company from further “commercializing the crypto-exchange sponsorship category…currently owned by FTX.” Fool me once, shame on you, etc, etc.
Like a lot of other people around the world, streamer xQc put a bet on the World Cup final earlier tonight. Unlike a lot of other people, however, he claims he threw down half a million dollars, then publicly bragged about it before kick-off.
His bravado was understandable! I loved the Messi narrative as much as the next football fan, but seeing France put both my teams (Australia and England) to the sword without breaking a sweat—and while missing stars like Benzema, Pogba and Kante—made their march to a second successive World Cup win feel somewhat inevitable.
But no! After one hell of a final, Argentina survived first a Kylian Mbappe-led comeback and then a nervy penalty shootout to emerge victorious, winning their third World Cup final, and first since 1986. Their side is full of great players, from wily veteran Angel Di Maria to beloved shithouser Emi Martinez, but the real star (and focus of the entire planet’s media) was of course on Lionel Messi. The best player in the world over the last 15 years, the one thing missing from his trophy cabinet—and for certain folks his place among the absolute all-time greats—had been a World Cup triumph, so it was wonderful to be able to see him close out what is surely his last campaign with a win.
Anyway! I’m not here to give you a game recap, I’m just providing context as to why putting $500,000 down on France to win is called a bet, and not a sure thing.
Here’s the chaser.
At least he took it well! It was indeed a good game all around, and a fun watch. Especially for those of us who watched it for free.
Terastallizing isn’t the only way to power up a Pokémon.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
For most players, Pokémon games are a pretty straightforward affair of attacking enemies’ weaknesses and scoring that sweet one-shot. But Pokémon can become incredibly overwhelming once you start playing competitively. What’s an IV? What’s an EV, if not the cute brown fox who can evolve into a bunch of other, more colorful and elaborate foxes?
In fact, they refer to hidden numbers and background math that competitive players like to tweak and manipulate to create the strongest versions of their favorite ‘mons. EV and IVs stand for Effort Values and Individual Values. These hidden numbers determine the final state of a Pokémon’s six stats, and understanding how they work and how to influence them can give you an upper hand in competitive battling. Let’s take a closer look.
Listen up, students! It’s time to learn how to make your Pokémon the very best.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
Not Eevee…EV!
Manipulating Effort Values is quite a time investment, as they’re entirely based on what you expose a Pokémon to as you raise them. Each Pokémon has up to 510 total EV points to distribute among all six stats, but each stat can only have 252 EVs individually.
You raise EVs by using items like vitamins and feathers, which each boost specific stats. Vitamins are the most immediately effective, as each will raise an individual stat by 10 EVs. Before Pokémon Sword and Shield, Vitamins were only effective up to a Pokémon’s first 100 EVs, but now, these items will work to max out an individual stat to the ceiling of 252. Feathers aren’t as powerful, raising an EV by only one point. Pretty straightforward so far, but influencing a Pokémon’s EVs while you train them in battle requires a little more planning.
Every Pokémon you battle grants specific EV boosts when defeated, often reflective of its own base stats. The amount of EVs you’ll get per stat depends on how powerful the Pokémon you’re fighting is. For example, if your Pokémon beats a Pichu, it will add one EV point added to your creature’s Speed stat. However, if you’re fighting its fully-evolved form Raichu, that will net you three Speed EV points. If you felt so compelled, you could go beat up a bunch of unsuspecting Pichu to raise a Pokémon’s Speed EVs, but you’ll hit the stat-specific 252 limit much faster if you’re battling more powerful Pokémon.
Some Pokémon don’t dump all their EVs into a single stat like Raichu does, however. Take Butterfree, for example. It divides its three EVs into Special Attack and Special Defense. So while there are better Pokémon to fight for either individual stat, defeating Pokémon who earn you a spread of EVs is a way to raise multiple EVs at once. It’s just a matter of your goals for stat raising and how you want to spend your time.
One thing worth noting about EVs is that, because modern Pokémon games allow an entire party to gain experience after battles, EVs gained are shared through your party as they gain experience, even if they’re not on the field. So be mindful of what you’re training against and what Pokémon you have waiting in the wings to join the fight, as their EVs will be influenced by these battles even if you’re not using them directly.
Grinding EV can take some time, but you can speed up the process of raising specific EV stats by equipping Pokémon with power items that correlate with a specific stat, such as the Power Anklet that increases Speed EVs, or the Power Belt that increases Defense EVs. All of these are purchasable at Delibird Presents stores for $10,000 each.
This man will help your Pokémon overcome their natural stat deficiencies.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
“The circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant”
Individual Values, known as IV, are a bit more complicated. IVs are essentially Pokémon genetics, in that these are stat boosts inherent to the specific Pokémon you have, which range from zero points to 31 points. Once unchangeable, the Pokémon series has implemented various ways to influence them over the years.
Imagine you had two level 100 Raichus and one had 31 Speed IVs and the other had zero. Even if you trained these two Raichus exactly the same way and curated the same EV build, the one that was born with 31 Speed IVs would have a Speed stat 31 points higher than the other. A lot of competitive players will breed Pokémon to try and attain optimal IVs, as parent Pokémon pass on higher IVs based on their own to their offspring.
In more recent games, Pokémon has given players the ability to “Hyper Train” their ‘mons to increase their IVs in exchange for Bottle Caps. This can be done in locations like Montenevera in Scarlet and Violet by talking to a trainer standing close to the town’s Pokémon Center. Bottle Caps can be hard to come by. You can buy them at the Delibird Presents stores around Paldea, but they’re pretty pricey at $20,000 per cap. You can also win them in high-level tera raids, but often just as a random drop. So while it might seem more immediate to be able to use Hyper Training, acquiring those Bottle Caps can take time, which is why some players opt to max out a Ditto’s IVs and use it to breed better versions of whatever Pokémon they’re trying to raise.
My Raichu is not EV/IV optimized, I’m simply showing you the menu where you look at them. Do not yell at me. He is a good boy.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
“Just tell them that it’s Pokémon nature”
But no matter what a Pokémon’s EVs and IVs are, a few additional factors will determine whether or not it’s is inherently effective in certain builds compared to others.
Each Pokémon has a set of base stats inherent to its species that grow as you raise your critter, and the direction those numbers go will be determined by how its EVs and IVs pan out. Raichu’s base stats position it as a fast, special attack-driven Pokémon. It has a base speed stat of 110, and its special attack stat of 95 outshines its base physical attack, which is 85.
This helps you determine what attacks are probably most effective for it to learn. Its physical attack stat is still respectable, but at a glance, Raichu is meant to primarily be a special attacker. Understanding EVs and IVs can help you shift those scales, or at the very least make up for certain deficiencies. Raichu’s base physical defense stat is much lower than the rest, coming in at just 50, so if you wanted to help make up for that, raising its IVs through Hyper Training or fighting Pokémon that naturally raise physical defense EVs can help it bulk up a little. But those base stats can be influenced by another factor that can play into how you divvy up your EVs and IVs: Natures.
Alongside its universal base stats as a species, every individual Pokémon you come across will also come with a Nature. These appear in the status summary screens as a means to give you a sense of your Pokémon’s personality, but they also determine one increased stat and one decreased stat. As such, some players will breed multiple versions of a Pokémon in an effort to get one with the most desirable Nature and stat distribution for the build they want.
There are 25 total Natures in Pokémon games right now, and the stats they increase and decrease are as follows, courtesy of Serebii:
Hardy: No change Lonely: Attack/Defense Brave: Attack/Speed Adamant: Attack/Special Attack Naughty: Attack/Special Defense Bold: Defense/Attack Docile: No change Relaxed: Defense/Speed Impish: Defense/Speed Lax: Defense/Special Defense Timid: Speed/Attack Hasty: Speed/Defense Serious: No change Jolly: Speed/Special Attack Naive: Speed/Special Defense Modest: Special Attack/Attack Mild: Special Attack/Defense Quiet: Special Attack/Speed Bashful: No Change Rash: Special Attack/Special Defense Calm: Special Defense/Attack Gentle: Special Defense/Defense Sassy: Special Defense/Speed Careful: Special Defense/Special Attack Quirky: No Change
While Natures themselves are fixed, Sword and Shield introduced Mints, a new set of items that can change the stat distribution associated with them. For example, a Modest Mint will increase a Pokémon’s Special Attack, but reduce the Attack stat as if the Pokémon’s Nature had changed. This won’t change the actual personality it talks about in their summary (that would be brainwashing), but it will allow you to tweak their stats for any competitive schemes you might have in mind.
He’s happy because I just told him we’re going to go change up his EV/IVs so the Kotaku comments won’t roast him for his unoptimized build.Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
Different pokés for different folks
All of these moving parts can be a lot to keep track of, and these mechanics are really there for the sickest of competitive sickos. It can be rewarding to get a Pokémon to the competitive state you want and see them excel in battles, but it’s also a huge time investment to get your team’s numbers precisely dialed in. But if you’re curious about the world of competitive Pokémon, understanding EVs and IVs is a good metric for whether or not this side of the scene is for you. And if it’s not, you can still do cool tera raids with your friends, like the ongoing Charizard one happening in Scarlet and Violet right now.
Blizzard is now taking pre-orders on a large, nearly $100 special Diablo IV collector’s box which includes many things. But it doesn’t include the game. And while Blizzard isn’t trying to trick people into accidentally buying this game-free box, it still seems very odd that there’s not even an option to get the game with this pricey package of demonic goodies.
Expensive collector’s editions of video games and movies have become more and more popular over the last decade. Personally, I never felt the need for all the random gubbins and statues usually included in these pricey bundles, but I get it. Some folks just really love to collect everything involving their favorite franchise or series. Whatever floats your boat! Just don’t get confused and think this $100 Diablo IV Collector’s Box actually includes the game it’s named after!
This week, Blizzard started taking pre-orders on something it’s calling the Diablo IV Limited Collector’s Box over on its merch store. This large, spiffy-looking box will cost you a cool $96.66 (I see what you did there…) and includes all of these items:
Occult Mousepad
Cloth Map of Sanctuary
Pin of the Horadrim
Diablo IV Collector’s Edition Art Book
Matted Fine Art Prints (x2) – 18.54″ x 10.79″
That’s very nice and all, but you’ll notice that the game isn’t part of this pricey bundle. Now, Blizzard isn’t trying to deceive anyone. It’s clear in the store description that this box doesn’t contain the game. It also isn’t selling the box on Battle.net but instead on its merch site, further separating it from its video game store. So I’m not trying to imply that Blizzard is trying to pull a fast one and trick diehard Diablo players into forking over $100 for something that doesn’t include the upcoming ARPG. I’m just saying it’s a bit odd, is all!
I guess for folks who prefer buying a digital copy of the game via a third-party site or who might want to provide a physical gift to someone who might already have the game pre-ordered, this is a nice idea. But why not have a different version that is $60-70 more and includes a code for the game? Or even a discount on it! Though that kind of stuff might make things more confusing.
This is my cat. Imagine the game is called Cult of the Cat. Image: Massive Monster / Devolver Digital / Kotaku
2022 wasn’t just the year that I started here at Kotaku, or the year that I accidentally went viral for daring to ask rich guys to dress nice at awards shows—it was also the year that I forced myself to stretch outside of my comfort zone.
I am a video game jock, always searching for the high of a win earned in buzzer-beater plays through solid communication amongst teammates. I spend most of my spare time playing competitive shooters in an attempt to mimic the feeling I get when I PR at the gym, or beat our rival co-ed footy team after an especially physical match. Much like how I am as an athlete or just a regular ol’ civilian, I’m not a fan of trying new things that I could potentially be bad at. It’s why I quit guitar lessons after a month, why I doggedly refuse to go bowling, why I can only do karaoke if I am absolutely pickled drunk.
But this year, I tried some new stuff—and not all of it was technically new. I took competitive breaks from Overwatch 2 with round after round of Marvel Snap. I sunk hours into Elden Ring after swearing off Soulslikes. I gave Cyberpunk 2077 an actual effort, rather than just ragging on it to anyone who would listen. I wouldn’t say this is the most well-rounded GOTY list you’ll find here at Kotaku, but it’s indicative of my growth as a gamer.
I can try new things, and I can like them. Just don’t fucking take me bowling.
Overwatch 2
Screenshot: Blizzard / Kotaku
Its battle pass isn’t great, its cosmetics are too expensive (people want loot boxes back, for fuck’s sake), and as a healer main I’m still tired of getting my ass beat in 5v5 combat, but Overwatch 2 has consumed me ever since its launch. It’s the only game I play consistently with people I also hang out with in real life; we send each other daily texts as the workday nears its close that just read “ow?” Then, we spend the night ignoring our respective partners and screaming bizarre Overwatch slang into our headsets.
With Overwatch 1 dead and gone, Overwatch 2 is the only way to scratch my hero shooter itch. And even though there are aspects of it that bring me great pain (the move towards a more generic, shooter-y shooter being the main issue), I still get so much satisfaction from a hard-fought comp win. I’m an Overwatch-er for life, sadly. I wish I knew how to quit you.
Cult of the Lamb
Image: Massive Monster / Devolver Digital
Not long into my Cult of the Lamb playthrough, one of my cultists (a cow my partner named Cunty), tells me that he wants to eat shit. Literally. He has always wanted to try and eat poop. So, I go and collect some shit produced by a fellow cultist of his, cook it up into a meal, and serve it to him. He’s happy. He’s more of a believer. I’m assuming this is what Scientology is like.
Cult of the Lamb is pretty much this all the way through: dumb fun that looks really good. I find I enjoy the village cultivation more than I enjoy the roguelike elements, but the latter is so simple and solid that it’s easy to zone out and spend a few hours hacking away at enemies. Then, when you return to your village, there’s always something stupid waiting for you, whether it’s a dissenter talking shit or a loyal follower eating it.
Marvel Snap
Screenshot: Second Dinner / Kotaku
When I first joined Kotaku, everyone was deep in the throes of Marvel Snap. I felt a little left out and wanted to make myself likable as quickly as possible, so I downloaded the mobile card battler on my first day in office. The rest, my little goblin friends, is history—Snap consumed my every waking moment whether I was on the subway, walking to the subway, waiting for the subway, in-between rounds of Overwatch 2 comp, or on the toilet (the latter of which I’m sure my gastroenterologist will be very upset with me about).
For a while, I stuck with a build that another Kotaku staffer had helped me out with, but then, as my Snap senses improved, I started building decks to purposefully fuck with other players. Now, I am the Snap devil. I’ve only been here a few weeks and I am insufferable. I’ve been told by loved ones that the horrific, evil giggle that escapes me when I hit an enemy player with Elektra one turn, then Killmonger the next, then Shang-Chi after that is concerning, and I would have to agree.
Destiny 2: The Witch Queen
Screenshot: Bungie / Kotaku
Bungie’s best bit is coming around once a year to remind you that it still makes some of the best campaigns of all time. The Destiny 2 conversation so often gets bogged down in sunsetting content, skill-based matchmaking drama, and the value (or lack thereof) of the grind, but when an expansion like The Witch Queen drops it’s all anyone can talk about—and for good reason.
The story of Savathûn managed to fill gaps in Destiny lore, establish her as the best villain the game has ever seen, and lay out a path for the ideological struggles that will continue into the franchise’s future. It was a legible hunk of narrative meat (a rarity for Destiny, which needs video explainers to explain its video explainers) that cashed in on plot threads Bungie has been spinning for years. Plus the Witch Queen gave us a sick raid and new Void abilities for players to go gaga over. Destiny good.
Stray
Photo: Alyssa Mercante / Annapurna Interactive
I am NYC certified in Trap-Neuter-Return and cat colony management and I have three rescue cats (one of which I caught and socialized myself), so of course I love the cat game. It’s a game where you play as a cat and do cat things. There are cat sounds. My cats like the cat sounds and sometimes they watch me play—this is all very wholesome shit.
Stray isn’t going to break any boundaries but it is going to let you scratch up a couch like a cat would, and it does feature some of the prettiest level design of the year. I’m also a huge fan of how the robot NPCs react to your little cat: I will never forget when I jumped up on a surface and interrupted two of them playing a tabletop game, just to trot past them a few minutes later and see them still struggling to pick up all the pieces.
Neon White
Image: Annapurna Interactive
Neon White is crazy, sexy, cool. This game has it all: pop-art visuals, speedrunning mechanics, a soundtrack from Machine Girl, and a collection of attractive demons called Neons competing to purge heaven of their demonic ilk. It’s hard to define Neon White, as it feels almost like the anti-game-genre game—there are FPS elements, sure, but there’s also dating sim stuff, and a lot of platforming. There’s cards, but it’s not a deck builder. It’s got puzzles. You’ll speed through some of its levels in under 20 seconds, while larger, boss-y levels may take you a few minutes—but nothing in Neon White will eat up your time unless you let it. Trust me, you’ll let it.
Apex Legends
Image: Respawn
Apex Legends is always there for me when I need it. It’ll lay dormant in my gaming pile for months, but whenever I return, it consistently gives me the tight, focused shooter gameplay I crave after some wonky Warzone 2.0 matches or a frustrating Overwatch loss. Apex Legends is one of the best live-service games out there right now thanks to a near-perfect mix of new content, necessary patches, and smart, measured updates. Respawn is always shaking up the maps and weapon pool just enough to keep the game fresh, but not too much that it upends its impressively precarious balance.
Catalyst, the game’s latest playable character, dropped just in time to obliterate an annoying meta that had been building up for months, and brought with her yet another reminder that Respawn is one of the few popular games unafraid to center trans and non-binary folk. That’s probably why I find members of the alphabet army in so many of my Apex Legends lobbies—and I live for it. Apex Legends is my safety net. It will always be on any GOTY list of mine.
Cyberpunk 2077
Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
Like many who participated in the two-year wait for Cyberpunk 2077 to become playable, I finally decided to try out CD Projekt Red’s latest RPG this year. From the moment I saw the character creator, I knew that it was going to be the kind of time-suck game that would threaten my relationships, gym sessions, and personal hygiene. I pored over every inch of my V, from her buzzed head to the smattering of freckles across her cheeks. I agonized over her body mods and tattoos. When I finally left the character creator and started playing the game, I’d pause and take screenshots anytime her shiny chrome nails were in view.
When I give myself the time to get lost in Night City, I get lost lost, and emerge blinking into the sunlight of the real world half a day later, crunchy thumpy techno music still ringing in my ears.
Weird West
Image: WolfEye Studios
I previewed this top-down, twin-stick RPG from Raphael Colantonio last year and it was absolutely brutal. It’s still just as brutal today, but getting some proper time with it helps drive home that this is a rock-solid immersive sim set in a supremely cool world. Undead miners and sirens lurk everywhere in this alternate-universe Wild West, but along with an arsenal of weapons you’ve got ample opportunity to use the environment to keep yourself alive.
And the world of Weird West remembers. At one point, I hired a bodyguard to accompany me across the plains because I was sick of getting my ass kicked. Together, we successfully made it through a tough section, but as we emerged into the next area and got jumped by some zombies, I accidentally lit him on fire. I didn’t think much of it as he died in front of my eyes, but I did pause to rifle through his pockets for spare change. Hours later, when I returned to the town where we first met, an NPC sitting near the saloon was mourning their lost family member. “Oops,” I mumbled under my breath. Weird West doesn’t want you to think of its characters as disposable, asshole.
Elden Ring
Screenshot: FromSoftware / Kotaku
Until Elden Ring, I was a proud Soulslike hater. The games were the epitome of everything I despise: frustratingly difficult, punishingly cruel, and full of gamers with superiority complexes. I had tried and failed to play both Dark Souls Remastered and Bloodborne and wanted no part of Elden Ring—until it was revealed that you’d be able to freely roam through its world, avoiding annoying early-game bosses and honing your abilities so that you’d be strong enough to take that boss down with one flourish of your staff.
From the moment I rose as a Tarnished in the Lands Between, I knew that this was the kind of title that would be considered a benchmark in gaming history. For it to live up to and exceed the hype that surrounded it for years is something special, but what’s remarkable is how Elden Ring ushered in an entirely new player base thanks to its open-world opportunities. The flexibility of Elden Ring and its beautiful, bizarre world made me FromSoft-pilled, and now I’m ready to go through the studio’s entire portfolio.
2022 was the year that Genshin Impact’s developer rebranded to HoYoverse to convey its ambitions for expanding its offerings to global audiences. It was also the year when players left the Japan-inspired region behind in order to explore Sumeru—a nation based on Southwest Asia, South Asia, and North Africa (SWANA).
Not all changes were warmly received. The Sumeru leaks received significant backlash for colorism, orientalism, and fetishization, but mechanical changes to exploration and resource gathering were welcome. And the new Dendro element made the combat feel exciting and new again. Which makes it an even bigger shame that not everyone can enjoy playing Genshin without reservations. I know that light-skinned folks from the SWANA region exist, but it even feels awkward to me that every city-dwelling NPC with an Arabic name is light-skinned. For a game that sells the idea of an immersive world, Sumeru kept taking me out of it.
It also sucks that we’re not getting a new endgame mode. But I find the new card game so much fun that I don’t really care. I can’t wait for more people to learn the rules so that I can squash them in Genius Invokation matches.
Here are the fun additions to the game, the grievances both new and old, and controversies that tore its community apart.
The Good
Screenshot: HoYoverse / Kotaku
Sumeru transforms open world exploration
After months of burnout, the addition of a new North Africa/Southwest Asia/South Asia inspired region helped Genshin feel like a fresh open world game. I absolutely adored zipping around the forest canopies and waterfalls, which allowed me to explore more of the map than I otherwise would have. I just wish that the designers kept it up for the more recently introduced desert area, which still demands that I leg boringly plain distances.
The Dendro element revives disfavored characters
Remember how bummed the community would get whenever it was revealed that a cool new character would have thunder powers? Electro was once widely considered the worst element, and for good reason. Its reactions with other elements weren’t as powerful unless a character was built as a rare physical attacker. Its main role was to provide energy particles—but there are other ways to gain energy. Using an electro character was almost considered a waste of a party slot.
Sumeru Preview Teaser 01: The Fascinating Dendro Element | Genshin Impact
Not anymore. The new “quicken” reaction allows Electro characters to cause additional damage that scales with their “Elemental Mastery” stat. This means that Fischl is now one of the most valuable characters in the game (Yes, yes, I know about taser comp), Yae Miko becomes an absolute DPS monster, and Lisa becomes viable for the first time since Genshin launched.
I’ve always hated how certain gacha characters are more “meta” than others, and that rarely changed without some kind of numbers buff. Genshin is constantly reinventing its meta by adding new ways that powers can interact with each other, and I’m absolutely living for it.
The Japan-inspired region finally earns its tragic gravitas
Last year, I wrote that the Inazuma storyline was kinda mid, and the best stories were found in the mundane sidequests. The writing felt weak, and I worried that the developers couldn’t sustain the previous narrative quality while releasing live service updates for a new region. My concerns were quickly dispelled with the new year.
HoYoverse released an underwater sub-region with some of the creepiest lore in the game so far. The quests of Enkanomiya are full-throated about how the current rulers of Teyvat are genocidal conquerors from another world. This was heavily implied if you bothered to read the 139,847,934 tomes of in-game lore. Most people (understandably) didn’t. This subregion is technically “optional,” but I don’t think it should be.
Version 2.4 “Fleeting Colors in Flight” Trailer | Genshin Impact
None of the Enkanomiya quests are mandatory. But Genshin trusts a significant portion of its players to care about these injustices, and the rewards for following the breadcrumb trails are sublime. When I ran a dozen fetch quests for faceless NPCs, I wasn’t thinking about the premium currency that I could earn. I was thinking of the Sunchildren, ancient puppet rulers who were burned alive before adulthood. How did their story end? For all the jokes that the Genshin community is primarily motivated by primogems, we’re even more obsessive about good stories.
For those who don’t have the patience to explore all of Enkanomiya, the second part of Raiden Shogun’s storyline is much easier to digest. I liked that this arc relied more heavily on emotional beats and well-paced writing rather than flashy animations. Earlier quests had fancy special effects, but they couldn’t save the main scenario from feeling rushed and poorly constructed.
The storytelling becomes more mature
2022 is when Genshin started making NPCs more important to its central storyline than ever before. We met compelling side characters in Inazuma last year, but some of the rawest lines I’ve ever heard were from random soldiers and explorers in the spring Chasm update. And the sickly heiress we meet in the main quest scenario was the real star who outshone our overpowered heroes. Genshin isn’t the first video game to say that ordinary people are the protagonists of their own lives, but HoYoverse is committed to actually showing it.
I also wanted to give a quick shoutout to the animated cutscenes, which have been improving drastically over the past year. I’m not talking about the technical improvements, but how Genshin uses more varied camera shots to create scenes that feel like movies (rather than talking heads).
Genius Invokation TCG
Genshin’s take on Gwent has become my new favorite reason to log into the game. I love this card minigame because it never feels like I’m truly backed into a corner. The mechanics are forgiving, and the rules allow me to convert useless resources into more helpful ones. So if one of my characters falls, it feels like I actually earned that L.
Best of all, there’s no gacha component in Genius Invokation. I was worried that I would have to grind matches endlessly for booster packs, but I just have to buy individual cards straight from the shop. It’s such a welcome reprieve from yelling at my screen because I flubbed my artifact rolls again.
Genshin is getting an anime
HoYoverse is partnering with the anime studio Ufotable to produce an animated series, which is the best news to come out all fall. Ufotable has produced crowd pleaser hits such as Demon Slayer and Fate, and hey also produce animation for video games such as the Tales series. Their work is sheer wizardry, and now they’ll be animating the biggest weeb game in the world.
The Genshin fandom rarely agrees on anything. So it’s nice that we can get such a massive collective W like this.
The Chinese opera revival
Chinese opera is widely considered to be a dying art, yet HoYoverse chose to include it in the main quest scenario that happened around Chinese New Year. The character Yun Jun is an opera singer, her design is based on the performers’ outfits, and she has a real opera singer as her second voice actress. After the update was released, millions of people got to experience a cultural artform that they had never seen before.
Story Teaser: The Divine Damsel of Devastation | Genshin Impact
This wasn’t just an important moment for the Chinese diaspora who have had less palatable aspects of their culture maligned. It was meaningful to all the YouTube and Twitter commenters who never knew that Chinese opera could convey such profound emotion. Yun Jin’s performance didn’t just move her own audience, but people of different nationalities around the world.
The Bad
Image: HoYoverse / Kotaku
Farming mats in Sumeru is awful
Everything is spaced so far apart, and the only multi-node resources are cooking ingredients. And good luck if you need any scarabs—the little bastards are almost impossible to see in the desert sand unless they’re scurrying away as you approach. Worst of all, none of the useful flowers can be grown in the housing system right now. So good luck—especially if you don’t have the premium 5 star Nahida to help you gather flowers from the cliffsides.
The conflicting quest backlog situation is getting ridiculous
It used to be that new players couldn’t access newer content until they finished enough of the main quest. Now older players are being hit by the unwieldy quest log too. If you accept certain sidequests too early, then you can be locked out of the main quest scenario.
I’d understand if there was some kind of chronology requirement, but the game is doing this solely to prevent an NPC from being in two places at once. This is incredibly silly, and I hope that the developers will get rid of it soon.
Game delays due to the coronavirus lockdowns
While other gaming companies had to push their release dates because of the pandemic, HoYoverse seemed to be the only studio that seemed delay-proof. That ended when Shanghai underwent severe lockdowns and food crises. Genshin experienced its first delay since its 2020 release at the end of April. The housing system was locked in maintenance mode, and Ayaka Kamisato had the longest gacha banner in the game’s history… but only by a period of two weeks. It seems that not even coronavirus lockdowns can stop HoYoverse’s developers for long.
HoYoverse announces that Genshin will not have endgame content
Oh boy. There’s never been any doubt that Genshin is a game catered towards casual players. But the combat is so well-designed that many meta-centric players latched on early, so they felt like they were being slapped in the face when the developers confirmed that the Spiral Abyss would be the only endgame for the foreseeable future.
The Spiral Abyss is a challenge dungeon in which players can clear four new levels every six weeks. It’s a DPS check where players try to kill all the enemies within a certain amount of time. Every time the Spiral Abyss refreshes, the fights also come with new conditions. But it’s still stuff that you can clear in a single evening, rather than an endless endgame mode.
Here’s why this is such a big deal: Some of the most competitive players have been spending large amounts of money to get extra abilities and weapons from the gacha. So there’s the feeling that HoYoverse owes them more challenge modes in which they can test their gameplay prowess. Right now, most of the studio’s development muscle has been focused on story-centric events and challenges that are catered towards players who don’t have a lot of characters. HoYoverse understands that appeasing the casual players is what gives F2P games their longevity. But it still sucks to see that a passionate section of the community is being thoroughly neglected.
The Ugly
Image: HoYoverse / Kotaku
Sumeru is too white
As usual, Genshin’s upcoming gacha characters leaked far ahead of their official announcements. Many people were disappointed that the Chinese RPG continued its tradition of populating the world with mostly light-skinned characters. Previous nations were based on Germany, China, and Japan, so fans expected more melanin variation from a fictional country based on North Africa, Southwest Asia, and South Asia. People also pointed out that Liyue and Inazuma were based on specific East Asian countries. It sucked that Sumeru seems to be a hodgepodge of multiple cultures and nations.
While there are dark-skinned NPCs with sympathetic backstories, the gacha characters are the “protagonists” of the game. The majority of those originating from Sumeru are light-skinned, and no canonically Black characters currently exist in the game at all. Gacha is a video game genre that sells personal attachment and sex appeal. Whether or not HoYoverse includes darker characters isn’t a matter of “wokeness” as some delightful commenters say—it’s a question of whether or not HoYoverse considers melanated skin to be desirable. So far, the answer seems to be “Sometimes, but not past a certain point.”
We knew this was coming. HoYoverse did not have a good reputation with how they portrayed darker-skinned characters even before Sumeru had been released. But a lot of players had hoped that the studio would be listening to feedback and taking the community’s feelings into account. There’s still time to fill the roster with more diverse characters, but the period of goodwill seems to have passed.
HoYoverse accused of bribing fans for votes at The Game Awards
Seasoned gacha players know that they’ll give out premium currency for almost anything. Anniversary? Here’s some gacha money. Maintenance went on too long? We have apology money. HoYoverse usually distributes some currency every time that Genshin wins an award, and the internet wasn’t happy about it. Specifically, the Sonic Frontiers fandom started to accuse HoYoverse of buying votes with in-game currency. Some even suspected the fandom of using bots to cheat in a popularity contest.
There were several reasons for this. First, Sonic Frontiers was neck-and-neck with Genshin in the polls, but it’s a single-player game that can’t use premium currency for marketing. Second, there’s the perception that the studio had already cheated by entering a game from 2020 into the running. Thirdly, it’s a common perception that most Genshin players are gambling addicts. It wasn’t just the unsubstantiated botting accusations that were ugly, but the casual ableism that gamers threw out in order to justify their hatred of Genshin. There are valid reasons to criticize companies, it’s what we do here all the time. But something has gone horribly wrong when gamers will use mental health as ammunition against a community that they know little about.
Genshin did go on to win the Player’s Vote award, and every player received enough currency for five rolls—or around $12.
A high schooler is accused of “satanism” for painting a Genshin character
Satanic panic in 2022? You read that correctly. Michigan parents bullied a teenager at a school board meeting after she painted a queer-positive mural as part of an official school contest. One of the contested images was the mask worn by the Genshin character Xiao. He’s an evil spirit hunter, so it’s more accurate to say that Xiao is the anti-Satan.
I’m not invested in defending his honor to some Republican parents, but I do think homophobia and xenophobia is shitty. Maybe worry a little more about how your kids will feel while living in a bigoted community rather than if a video game character’s mask is promoting Satanism.
Looking to the future of Genshin Impact
Sumeru’s story arc hasn’t concluded, andthere are still so many remaining questions about capital Genshin nouns such as the Scarlet King, Irminsul, and the Descenders, or where Istaroth went after saving Enkanomiya from the Dragonheirs. Every year of lore updates seems to bring up far more questions than answers, so I’ll likely be trapped in this gacha hell with the rest of the community for the entire ride.
HoYoverse usually releases a major nation every year, and our next destination is the France-based region of Fontaine. This is where the god of justice resides, but I find this a little ironic. It says in the lore that she’s not willing to challenge the divine—the rulers in Celestia who have colonized this world and caused multiple genocides against its inhabitants. How could she be just if she won’t challenge the rulers who demand the world’s fealty by force? By now, I know that HoYoverse has a good answer planned. We just need to wait an entire year to find out what it is.
While a Horizon multiplayer game felt all but inevitable, Guerrilla Games finally made the news official on Friday by way of a new job advertisement. The Sony studio behind the open world RPG series wants to take the post-apocalyptic robot combat online with an upcoming project featuring new characters and a different art-style.
“A new internal team is developing a separate Online Project set in Horizon’s universe,” Guerrilla Games wrote on Twitter. “Featuring a new cast of characters and unique stylized look, friends will be able to explore the majestic wilds of Horizon together.” So don’t expect to teaming up with Aloy and her other friends this time around.
Job listings for the new game include character, quest, and combat designers, as well as “stylized” world artists and character animators. From the descriptions, it sounds like what you’d expect from the creators of Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, but with a multiplayer twist. The references to a new art direction, meanwhile, might hint at a different set of visual tradeoffs from a studio traditionally at the forefront of visual fidelity, in order to accommodate the new cooperative gameplay.
Guerrilla also makes clear that it’s still working on a new single-player installment in the Horizon series, in addition to the PSVR2 spin-off, Horizon Call of the Mountain, and Forbidden West DLC, Burning Shores, the latter two both due out early in 2023. There are also job listings for an external project, though it’s not clear exactly what that is.
Rumors of a Horizon multiplayer project have been swirling around for a while now, including a report of a Horizon MMO being licensed out to Guild Wars publisher NCsoft. The multiplayer push comes as other major Sony first-party franchises have made the jump to online, including Ghost of Tsushima’s co-op raid update, and an upcoming multiplayer-only Last of Us spin-off.
Following its $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie, whose successful MMO shooter Destiny 2 has become one of the gold standards in live-service gaming, Sony revealed plans to release over a dozen more live-service games by 2025. If the past few years have been any indication, not all of them will succeed, and few if any will reach the levels of Apex Legends, Genshin Impact, and other recent breakout hits. With a growing majority of all gaming companies’ revenue coming from microtransactions and other “recurrent player spending,” it’s easy to see why Sony would try.
A group of seven lawmakers are sending a letter to the world’s biggest video game companies tomorrow, asking each of them what steps they’re taking to combat “harassment and extremism” in online video games.
As Axios reports, the seven Democratic representatives—including Lori Trahan (Massachusetts), Katie Porter (California) and Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon—have all co-signed a letter, which is looking to “better understand the processes you have in place to handle player reports of harassment and extremism encounters in your online games, and ask for consideration of safety measures pertaining to anti-harassment and anti-extremism”.
Unsurprisingly, the list includes companies like Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty, Overwatch), Microsoft (Xbox), Sony (PlayStation), Roblox, Take-Two Interactive (Grand Theft Auto, NBA 2K), Riot Games (League of Legends, Valorant), Epic (Fortnite) and Electronic Arts (Battlefield, FIFA & Madden).
Those are all massive international companies, most of them with thousands of employees spread out all over the world, and responsible for some of the planet’s most popular and enduring online games. To want to grill them, when so many of them are based in the US—or at least most popular in the US—is a pretty obvious move!
Hilariously, though, whoever put the list together of which companies to target has clearly just gone down a list of “most popular games”, not “biggest companies”, because among those titans of industry are Innersloth, the developers of Among Us.
Among Us may be a huge hit, but Innersloth are also a tiny team. How tiny? This tiny:
Among Us Wins Best Mobile Game at The Game Awards 2020
Innsersloth’s webiste says the studio currently has 20 employees. I don’t know how much they’re going to be able to explain when their game has you playing as a cute little astronaut, doesn’t have voice chat and only lets players communicate via a menu of pre-written lines.
But then nobody has to legally reply to the letter at all, it’s just a letter, so maybe they can just reply “sorry, think this is meant for Xbox!” and get on with their day.
As we discussed earlier this week, the Steam Deck has had one hell of a launch year. It should be no surprise, then, that Valve has its eye on the future of its new handheld, which it has officially categorized as a “multi-generational product.” The company has now revealed a bit of what it’s hoping to improve and where it’s looking to expand in the hardware game.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Verge, Steam Deck designers Lawrence Yang and Pierre-Loup Griffais talked about ambitions and concrete goals for the Steam Deck. After nearly a year out in the wild, the Deck has certainly impressed with its performance and wide selection of games. However, areas for improvement are clear: The screen is serviceable, but it’s far from that of, say, the new Nintendo Switch OLED Model. And the battery not only tends to drain quickly but, as iFixit observed in its review, it’s one of the least fixable things in an otherwise repair-friendly device. We know now that these last two points are top of mind for Valve.
Though the company didn’t reveal much of its plans for the screen’s improvement, it did share some insight into the battery, its replaceability, and how future iterations of the product are addressing areas of concern.
With a battery that’s quick to lose its juice, and the nature of such a power source being to degrade over time, poor replaceability is a disappointment. Griffais told The Verge that due to the possibility of battery expansion, “you can’t really have the battery-shaped hole [inside the Deck] be exactly the same size as the battery” and that all of the glue that holds it in place is to keep it from moving around too much.
Concern for a rattley battery was apparently an issue in development. “In some of our early prototypes,” Griffais said, “we had [the battery shifting around] and I’ll tell you, it doesn’t feel good at all when you’re just moving around and trying to use your Deck.” Yang comically added, “You don’t want a Steam Deck maraca, and you don’t want a battery possibly touching other important components and jostling them around.”
So the decision to secure the battery in place so rigidly was necessary to get the Deck in a playable, shippable, and reliably safe state. Yang revealed that Valve has “rolled in a change to the geometry of the [glue that holds the battery]” which should allow for easier removal and repairs down the line.
Valve also revealed, perhaps to the surprise and joy of a select few, that a new Steam Controller is also something the company is aspiring to make happen. The original Steam Controller was a bit of an odd bird, but its high level of customization certainly caught the attention of a dedicated, if small, fan base. Us select few who fell in love with it already knew it, but the Steam Deck has continued to demonstrate the need for more malleable and dynamic gamepads for PC gaming.
But if you’re ready to throw money at the screen for a follow-up to Valve’s owl-shaped controller, I’m sorry to say that it might take a while. “Right now, we’re focusing on the Deck,” Yang said. “[A controller is] definitely something where we’d be excited to work with a third-party or explore ourselves.”
Both professional and amateur artists alike were united yesterday in protest against ArtStation, the field’s biggest portfolio site, for its seeming inaction against a rising tide of AI-generated imagery washing up on its front page.
It was very easy to understand their frustrations. ArtStation is a deeply important place for artists, and many had been using it under the assumption its owners (Epic Games) cared about its community since…it is a community website. It is only for artists, and is a place they can not just share their work, but comment on and follow the creations of their peers. It is almost as much a social network as it is a portfolio site.
Much of that goodwill has turned to dust over the past 24 hours, however, first over the initial protest—during which many of the initial anti-AI images were removed by ArtStation moderators—and now in the aftermath, following the publication of an AI-generated imagery FAQ by the site’s team.
The FAQ, which you can read here, says much of the same stuff Epic said in their statements yesterday. However it then branches out into territory that is even more mealy-mouthed, and in one incredible paragraph says it is as important to consider the feelings of “AI research and commercialization” as those of…their own active, human userbase (emphasis mine).
How is ArtStation dealing with questions of artist permissions and AI art generators?
We believe artists should be free to decide how their art is used, and simultaneously we don’t want to become a gatekeeper with site terms that stifle AI research and commercialization when it respects artists’ choices and copyright law. So, here are our current plans:
We plan to add tags enabling artists to choose to explicitly allow or disallow the use of their art for (1) training non-commercial AI research, and (2) training commercial AI. We plan to update the ArtStation website’s Terms of Service to disallow the use of art by AI where the artist has chosen to disallow it. We don’t plan to add either of these tags by default, in which case the use of the art by AI will be governed solely by copyright law rather than restrictions in our Terms of Service.
We welcome feedback on this rapidly evolving topic.
“Well any hopes I had of ArtStation taking off as the next best platform for artists to build a community are now gone”, reads one reply to the site’s announcement tweet. “How are you worried more about not upsetting tech bros than protecting real artists work on your platform.”
“God they can just get fucked for this one”, says another, while several other replies, some from very prominent artists working in video games and film, shared screenshots of them deleting their accounts.
What effect cancellations and continued protest has against the site’s operators and owners remains to be seen, but for now, over 24 hours after the protest began, ArtStation’s front page still looks like this (many of the pics that look like they’re AI generated images are actually protest illustrations)
Hogwarts Legacy is just a couple months away and if you haven’t been paying attention, the Harry Potter spin-off isn’t messing around. The game will let players learn the series’ infamous unspeakable curses and even use them on students. A new gameplay reveal ups the ante even further though, showing off the game’s Dark Arts Battle Arena where $10 extra bucks nets you the opportunity to instantly murder goblins and wizards.
Avalanche Studios’ second gameplay showcase for Hogwarts Legacy aired earlier today, showing off flight on broomsticks and hippogriffs, as well as the game’s customization options and Room of Requirement home base. As IGN points out, however, the most eye-catching part was a trip to the Dark Arts Battle Arena where, playing as a young Hogwarts student, the developers instantly melted some rando using the Avada Kedavra curse.
The developers explain that battle arenas allow players to test out abilities early to see whether they want to invest in unlocking them. Completing combat challenges there also unlocks new outfits and other cosmetics. The Dark Arts Battle Arena is unique, however, in being exclusive to the Deluxe Edition which costs $10 extra, and allowing early access to dark arts abilities like the Avada Kedavra curse. In the gameplay demo the student is shown ripping through waves of “loyalist” goblins, presumably dark wizards, and other enemies.
Gif: Avalanche Studios / Kotaku
For those unfamiliar with the world of Harry Potter, the Avada Kedavra is one of a number of illegal curses that kill and torture. It’s also the one that Voldemort used to murder the titular character’s parents. Hogwarts Legacy takes place roughly a hundred years before the books, which might explain the seemingly blase attitude of the in-universe characters to child torture and underage battle arenas.
The jarring juxtaposition is par for the course with Hogwarts Legacy. Caught in the shadow of author J.K. Rowling’s transphobic crusade and the royalties she continues to earn from all Harry Potter adaptations, the game’s very existence is controversial. It’s also continued to be delayed. Previously expected this fall, Hogwarts Legacy is now slated to release in February. Yesterday, however, Warner Bros. announced that the Xbox One and PS4 versions wouldn’t be out until April, with the Nintendo Switch version coming even later in June.
In the meantime, the game appears poised to test players’ morale compasses in more ways than one. As my fellow writer Sisi Jiang joked earlier today, “You know the good thing about trans people presumably excluded at hogwarts is that they don’t have to experience the trauma of murdering another human for blood sport.”
