It hasn’t been a great month for Adidas, but if the German sportswear giant can be counted on one thing these days (or over the last 20 years), it’s finding ways to squeeze some cash out of licensed sneaker deals. Next up: The Simpsons.
Earlier this month we got our first look at a Simpsons x Superstar collab, which sees nearly the entire surface of the shoe coated in blue fuzz to approximate Marge’s hair. It looks exactly like a pair of old Cookie Monster sneakers I once bought for my (then) two-year-old:
Image: Adidas
Another shoe in the lineup, one leaked earlier today and this time a Stan Smith, features Homer instead. While initially seeming a lot less involved than the Marge shoe—maybe there’s a balding joke here, I don’t know—flipping the shoe around reveals this one has some fuzz too, but only on the heel:
20% off bundled bamboo bedding The brand’s proprietary CleanBamboo is a soft, breathable fabric; their signature sateen is cool to the touch.
Like the meme itself, this is something you can chuckle at when you see it on the internet, but spending money to wear it on your feet? Hrmmmmmm.
Not that Adidas will care. While the company’s Yeezy collaboration has turned to ash, and had been worth big money at its peak, Adidas’ bread and butter in the sneaker business (like Nike’s), isn’t in high profile, limited releases but in two other places: for the most part, it’s the everyday roster of venerable classics (the Superstar, the Stan Smith, slides, etc) and to a lesser extent it’s tie-ins like this.
We’ve seen this a lot over the last few years, as the company has released sneakers based on everything from Game of Thrones to Pokémon to South Park to a previous Simpsons release, and while many of these come have come across looking a bit naff, some (Pokémon especially) have been great!
There’s no word on a release date or price for either of these.
These days it’s rare to see an online game without built-in live-service monetization, let alone one that’s getting rid of that stuff. But that’s exactly what the Subnautica devs behind Moonbreaker are doing. Recently launched in Early Access on Steam, the tabletop RPG is throwing out both its premium paid currency and its loot boxes, and refunding players who have already bought in. Whether the game will remain monetization-free after its full release is a different question.
“Early Access is a time for us to experiment and improve the game, and the monetization in its current form was affecting that goal,” Unknown Worlds Entertainment, the studio behind Moonbreaker, posted on its blog yesterday (via RPS). “So we’re removing it to focus on making the best game that we can, before we leave Early Access.”
Revealed during Gamescom 2022, director Charlie Cleveland described Moonbreaker as a “digital miniatures game” inspired by Guardians of the Galaxy and Firefly. Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson (best known for the Mistborn series) was brought on to write, and the D&D-inspired strategy combat looked like an intriguing mashup of Hearthstone and XCOM. Lofty comparisons aside, players have largely been receptive to the game’s mechanics and lore while slamming the microtransactions.
Moonbreaker is priced at $30, with a “founder’s pack” that raises it to $50. While this includes enough booster boxes for players to unlock most of the game’s units, PvE matches were previously locked behind premium currency, meaning players have to pay or grind to play solo. And as a miniatures game, much of the fantasy revolves around cosmetically customizing units, which also costs money. Most of the negative reviews on the Steam page all cited the free-to-play monetization of a paid game as their biggest issue.
Pulsars, the game’s paid currency, will now disappear, as well as the paid booster boxes. Players’ purchases will be refunded, and all units will automatically unlock at the start of each new season. “In celebration of this business model change, I’m gonna be purchasing the base game for some friends tomorrow,” one player wrote on Discord following the announcement. “Thanks so much for listening to community feedback and being willing to make big (potentially scary) changes so early on in development.”
20% off bundled bamboo bedding The brand’s proprietary CleanBamboo is a soft, breathable fabric; their signature sateen is cool to the touch.
That’s exactly what Early Access is for, and it’s good to see Moonbreaker not only backing off the free-to-play monetization, but also refunding players. That might change in the future, with some players suspecting Unknown Worlds might make the game free-to-play by launch and bring back some form of live-service microtransactions. In the meantime at least, players can enjoy the evolving TTRPG without all the other bullshit. It might even help Moonbreaker win back some of the players who bailed shortly after Early Access began.
Rieko Kodama, one of the most important developers in the history of both Sega and the wider role-playing genre, has died at the age of 59.
As IGN report, she actually passed away back in May, but her death was not announced publicly by the company at the time. Fans recently discovered a tribute to Kodama in the credits section of the Mega Drive Mini 2, however, prompting Sega producer Yosuke Oskunari to confirm the sad news.
Her contributions to Sega’s catalogue of classic titles and series was immense. Beginning with the company in 1984, she would work on everything from design to pixel art, and spent the her early career on series like Alex Kidd and Fantasy Zone.
She was then the principal artist on the original Phantasy Star, and would keep working on the series through its sequels, rising to the role of director by the fourth game.
Her other notable works include Dreamcast classic Skies of Arcadia, which she again led development on, while she also contributed as an artist to games like the first two Sonic titles and Altered Beast.
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Kodama may be best remembered, though, for her pioneering work as a prominent woman in games development, for which she has been labelled “The First Lady of RPGs” (and indeed was awarded the Pioneer Award at GDC 2018), and leaves behind a legacy of characters and games that were designed for everyone, not just traditionally male audiences.
“I usually don’t think to make games strictly for a female audience, myself, but I think my RPGs attract a larger female audience”, she once said in an interview. “Violent, war-themed titles seem to attract an overwhelmingly male audience. I think if companies want to get more girls to play their games, they should keep this in mind.
I’m sorry, player, I’m afraid I can’t let you play this game.Image: Blizzard / Kotaku
Right now there’s a Halloween event running for Overwatch 2, but a fair amount of players are facing a different kind of terror: A previously known server error with the code “LC-208” appears to be disproportiantely hitting players after the most recent update.
While server and connection errors often happen for online games, “Overwatch 2 Console Error LC-208” is currently plaguing a large number of players on console, preventing them from connecting to servers and playing the game. Blizzard has its own steps for working around this issue, as it’s been around since the launch of the game, though not in such numbers. Until Blizzard issues a broader statement or additional fix, players have been discovering quirky, unexplainable ways to fix it, involving signing in on PC first or loading into the game’s firing range and quitting before hitting matchmaking, though these aren’t necessarily bullet-proof prescriptions.
Kotaku has reached out to Blizzard for comment but didn’t hear back prior to publication.
Since yesterday’s Halloween update, search results on Twitter, Reddit, and even Overwatch 2’s own forums have started turning up countless reports of players not being able to enter the game. The problem, given the error code’s info, seems to hit console players only. Anecdotally it seems to be hitting PS4 and PS5 players the most, though many Xbox players are reportedly facing the error as well.
A main thread for the LC-208 issue in Blizzard’s official forums, with nearly 300 replies and over 2,500 views, starts with “LC-208’d after the Halloween event update. Never had an issue with this before. Can’t get into the game.” “I tried everything to fix the Login Error LC-208” Twitter user Phish (no, not the band) says. “I have signed out of my battle net account, restarted my [router], restarted my game, used a different wireless connection, tried using ethernet, and redownloaded the game and I am still getting LC-208.”
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They’re not alone, as countless tweets and Reddit threads read similarly. Some have found non-optimal workarounds. Twitter user hatsune niiku reports bypassing the LC-208 error on console by entering the game’s firing range on PC, closing the game, and then logging in on console. “Worked for me just now,” they say.
Sadly, not everyone has a gaming PC at the ready to try this out, nor is it an actual fix for the problem. Blizzard recommends the following steps for solving LC-208 error. Hopefully it will work out for you:
If your console account is linked with your Battle.net account, you need to have a BattleTag. If you have a BattleTag but your accounts are not linked, follow the connection steps linked below to resolve the error.
Note: If your Battle.net account is connected to your console account, disconnecting it and reconnecting can resolve the error.
1. Check your network configuration to find any issues with your firewall, router, or port settings.
2. Reset your network devices to make sure your router hasn’t become flooded with data.
3. If you’re using a wireless connection, optimize your internet connection to rule out a connection issue.
4. Run your console’s built-in connection test (Playstation 4) (Xbox One) (Nintendo Switch).
5. Use your console’s internet browser to run a Looking Glass test. This will help determine if the problem is between your console and our servers.
It’s very easy to look back on the last 25 years of The Simpsons and write it off as being rubbish because, well, for the most part it has been exactly that. But sometimes, like the sun shining through for an hour between passing storms, it can still get its shit together, and the upcoming tribute to Death Note looks like one of those rare occasions.
It’s part of the show’s next Treehouse of Horror Halloween compilation, and will give The Simpsons a full anime makeover for one of the episode’s instalments. You can see it in action in this short video below, which introduces Lisa as the recipient of the Death Note (or, as it’s called here, the Death Tome):
Some screenshots have also been released, giving us a good look at anime Homer and Marge as well:
Smart light it up Can display up to 57 colors at one time, have an incredible range of combinations, can react to your music, be shaped as you like using the segments, and work with most voice assistants.
Image: The Simpsons
Image: The Simpsons
If your first thought was “wow, that looks a lot better than I was expecting”, you are not alone! But there’s a very good reason this looks so authentic to the source material: this segment has been animated by Korean studio DR Movie, who have a long history of helping out behind the scenes on various American and Japanese properties, ranging from The Animatrix to Justice League to, most importantly in this case, the Death Note anime series itself.
The episode will air on October 30, and will be the second of three segments. The other two will be a Babadook homage starring Marge and a Westworld parody. Which is weird, given The Simpsons has already done a Westworld thing, one that lasted an entire episode and is one of the series’ all-time greats, but I guess 1994 was long enough ago (and the modern HBO series so different) that they feel like they can do it all over again and newer viewers won’t even notice.
Marvel Snap is a very good card game that recently left early access and is now playable on Android, iOS, and Steam. However, unlike basically every other digital card game, Snap doesn’t include a mulligan option at the start of the match, letting you ditch some or all of your cards for new cards. But as Ben Brode of developer Second Dinner explained on Twitter, while the lack of a mulligan was a problem with early playtesters, the developers fixed it by making just one tiny change to a single card.
Released last week after a few months in early access, Marvel Snap is a free-to-play card game created by former Hearthstone director Ben Brode and his new game studio, Second Dinner. It’s quickly become one of the most popular mobile games going, and a favorite among some of Kotaku’s staff. I’ve been playing it on and off since the beta and think it might be my favorite digital card game in years thanks to its focus on quick matches, random elements, and small decks. However, as part of this stripped-down approach to a card game, Brode and his team decided early on to not include mulligans. And making that work required one tiny tweak to Quicksilver.
On Twitter, Brode explained that what makes card games fun is variance. However, Second Dinner also wanted Marvel Snap decks to be small, as deckbuilding is often one of the biggest obstacles for new players. And the smaller the decks, the less variance they’ll have. So in order to keep players from just throwing away cards to get precisely what they needed—and to let folks bluff using the snap mechanic—Second Dinner ditched mulligans.
As you might expect, cutting out such a popular and traditional part of card games caused some issues. According to Brode, whenever people played early builds of Snap, they mostly complained about the lack of mulligans.
Smart light it up Can display up to 57 colors at one time, have an incredible range of combinations, can react to your music, be shaped as you like using the segments, and work with most voice assistants.
“We knew that once players understood how the Cube worked and how you could bail out at any time for only a small loss of Cubes, the impact of bad luck would be lessened,” wrote Brode. “And also, missing a one or two drop in Snap is really different than in other card games. There’s no ‘tempo’ in Snap. You don’t ‘lose board control’ by not playing a card early. It might not be the best, but you’re certainly not doomed.”
Even though Brode and the team were confident players wouldn’t miss the mulligan once they understood the game, the amount of early feedback concerning not being able to play anything on turn one and not having a chance to swap cards was hard to ignore. But instead of completely reworking the game, the team made a single change. It placed Quicksilver into the deck players start the game with. The card only uses one energy, and also has an ability that always places it in your hand at the start of a match.
“Immediately [after this tweak] the mulligan feedback dried up,” explained Brode. “Who needs to mulligan when you always draw your 1-drop? Eventually, many players decide to swap Quicksilver for a different card, but at that point you’re making the choice to risk a bad opening hand.”
Brode finished up the thread explaining that developers often have to decide if problems are system-wide or just an issue with some content. In other words, does a problem necessitate you reworking the entire game system, or can it be solved with a smaller tweak, like forcing a useful one-energy card into players’ first deck?
In this case, a tiny change to Quicksilver solved the problem without fundamentally changing up Marvel Snap. That’s a good thing, because I’m happy with how the game plays today, and don’t miss mulligans at all!
It’s time for more Overwatch 2 Twitch drops! This time it’s in celebration of the spooky season. Twitch viewers will have a chance at earning two cosmetics starting October 25, plus a couple others later in November. As with all Twitch drops, you’ll need to link your Battle.net account to your Twitch account, plus a few other important details. So let’s go over it.
When are the Overwatch 2 Halloween Twitch Drops?
According to Blizzard’s blog covering the details, the Halloween-themed Overwatch 2 Twitch drops start on October 25 at 2 p.m. ET through to November 6 at 2 p.m.
After the candy corn season is behind us, another Twitch drop with cosmetics for Reinhardt and Brigitte will start on November 15 at 2 p.m. ET through to November 30 at 2 p.m.
How to get Werewolf Winston Legendary Skin
As is customary with Twitch drops, you’ll need to log some hours watching Overwatch 2. But it doesn’t need to be all at once or the same channel. You’re free to check out different channels at different times to earn progress toward your drops.
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To start, you’ll need to watch two hours of Overwatch 2 on Twitch for the Werewolf spray. Then, watch an additional four hours (six total) for the Werewolf Winston Legendary skin. You can watch any channel in the Overwatch 2 category on Twitch.
Past experience has told us it pays to be sure a streamer is offering drops. Any channel in the game’s category should qualify, but double-check the title of the stream as many streamers include “Twitch drops” or “drops enabled” (or similar language) to indicate their channel is participating. There may also be a bot in the streamer’s chat indicating that drops are enabled. Or, you could always ask in the chat.
You must link your Battle.net and Twitch accounts. Even if you’ve done it before and have participated in previous Twitch drops, you don’t want to log half-a-dozen hours of Overwatch viewing for nothing. Visit the connections page on your Battle.net account and follow the link to connect your Twitch account. Follow all the instructions on Twitch’s side and you’ll be set.
If you’ve done it right, it should look something like this (with your Twitch avatar and username):
Screenshot: Blizzard / Kotaku
Watching Twitch on game consoles and smart TV apps DO NOT count. You must watch Twitch on a computer’s web browser or the Android/iOS Twitch app to get your drops!
I watched everything. Where’s my stuff?
In-game rewards from Twitch drops don’t appear in your game automatically. Once you’ve cleared the necessary watch-time, head on over to the Drops Inventory menu on Twitch to claim your reward(s). Claimed drops will expire after 14 days if your Battle.net account isn’t linked. Claimed items can also take up to 24 hours to appear in your game, so practice a little bit of patience.
How do I enable drops on my stream?
If you stream and want to make sure viewers can participate, a couple of clicks will enable drops on your channel. To make sure your stream will deal out Overwatch 2 Twitch drops, head on over to your “Creator Dashboard.” Under “Viewer Rewards” you’ll see “Drops.” On that page, you’ll click the slider next to “Enable Drops” so it has a purple check mark and you’re good to go!
Screenshot: Twitch / Kotaku
How to claim Reinhardt and Brigitte Twitch Drops
After November 6, you’ll have another opportunity to earn some Twitch Drop-exclusive cosmetics. This time, you can grab the Reinhardt Mug Souvenir after watching two-hours worth of Overwatch 2 on Twitch. Following that, you can earn the Brigitte Kitten Weapon Charm after three additional (five total) hours.
Image: Blizzard
As mentioned above, these drops will be available from November 15 at 12 p.m. ET through to November 30 at 2 p.m.
How do I get my teammates to play support?
I hear you loud and clear. Sadly, I’ve no screenshots or time slots to share for that problem. But if you’re new to Overwatch 2 and are looking for some basic tips to get started, check out our beginner’s guide. And if you’re looking to knock out your timed season challenges, we’ve broken those down so you can get to grinding.
So instead of making a big deal about Welcoming Everyone Back, I’ll just be extending a regular welcome back. Welcome back! And adding that, after 2021’s extensive pandemic-related measures, the 2022 show was a lot looser on the rules, resulting in a huge boost in attendance, up from 42,000 people last year to around 65,000 in 2022.
Below you’ll find video and a gallery with some of our favourite cosplay from the weekend, which took place last month in Atlanta, during which there wasn’t just a convention but also Dragon Con’s trademark, a cosplay street parade.
As usual, all photos and video are by the talented Mineralblu, and you’ll find each cosplayer’s details, including their social media handles and which character they’re cosplaying, watermarked on the image.
Also, after some complaints about loading times and sluggishness from having so many huge images on the one page, I’m testing splitting the images up into a slideshow instead. Let me know how that goes though, if the annoyance of that outweighs the load time stuff, I’ll switch back next time!
THIS IS DRAGONCON ATLANTA COMIC CON 2022 DRAGON CON BEST COSPLAY MUSIC VIDEO BEST COSTUMES ANIME CMV
Mobile game Disney Twisted Wonderland sparked controversy when it revealed a new character this weekend. The character is based on Claude Frollo from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Fans have called him racist as Frollo was extremely racist in the original Disney movie. Here’s the complicated part: Twisted Wonderland characters aren’t actually the same as their original inspirations. It’s all very messy, but we’ll get through this. I promise.
Twisted Wonderland is a gacha rhythm game where players spend gems to roll for student characters based on Disney villains such as Maleficent, Jafar, and Ursula. These students aren’t actually the villains themselves, but they take inspiration from the villains’ visual designs, movie dialogue, and narrative themes. So you get a Kingdom Hearts looking anime boy acting like a controlling jerk and yelling “OFF WITH YOUR HEAD” whenever someone displeases him. Rollo is an event character, but he’s also a dorm leader. So it’s not apparent yet whether or not players will be able to roll for him in the gacha.
According to Twisted Wonderland lore, the villains did exist at some point in the past (Frollo is portrayed as a heroic statue on the academy grounds), though they’re known for positive qualities rather than the crimes they may have committed in the movies. So there’s some narrative distance between Rollo and Frollo.
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But there’s concern among some that Frollo prejudiced in ways that are hard for some players to ignore. While the Queen of Hearts has very milquetoast lines, Claude Frollo is known for calling a Romani character a racial slur and claiming that her people are “not capable of real love.” Yikes. All Disney villains have terrible qualities. But some of their storylines approach real-life bigotries closer than others.
While one fan translator claimed Rollo’s personality is “nice” rather than genocidal, others didn’t think that his canonical personality mattered. They were concerned that Frollo was too bigoted to be used in a game where everyone is a beautiful anime boy. While the original Disney movie contextualizes the extent of Claude Frollo’s villainy, the characters in Twisted Wonderland are portrayed as soft, misunderstood, and sympathetic.
While the overall reception to the character seems positive, there are also many quote retweets expressing disgust that Twisted Wonderland players are simping for Rollo. I’m going to remind everyone that The Hunchback of Notre Dame came out in 1996. Many young people have never seen that movie, which is part of the problem. Media is recycled over time. It retains some context and loses others, so people have totally different exposure levels to Notre Dame while it’s still easy to assume that everyone has had the same experience.
In the meantime, some Twisted Wonderland players are just trying to head off the horny simps:
The role was subsequently given to Jennifer Hale—who has issued her own statements—while a Bloomberg report said PlatinumGames had originally offered to pay Taylor somewhere between $3,000 and $4,000 per four-hour session for at least five recording sessions, for a total of at least $15,000. It’s then said that when Taylor instead asked for a “six-figure sum” to voice the character, negotiations broke down.
It has come to my attention that some people are calling me a liar and golddigger. I feel the need to defend myself and my reputation in the industry.
As I posted on part three of my video thread. I explained that their first offer was too low. That offer was 10,000 dollars total. Remember, this is 450 million dollar franchise, (not counting merchandise.) I then wrote in Japanese to Hideki Kamiya, asking for what I was worth. I thought that as a creative, he would understand. He replied saying how much he valued my contribution to the game and how much the fans wanted me to voice the game. I was then offered an extra 5,0000! [Note: it appears this is a typo, and that Taylor means 5,000]
So, I declined to voice the game. I then heard nothing from them for 11 months. They then offered me a flat fee to voice some lines for 4,000 dollars. Any other lies, such as 4,000 for 5 sessions are total fabrications.
There were not “extensive negotiations.” I’ve also been informed of ridiculous fictions, such as I asked for 250,000 dollars. I am a team player. I was just asking for a fair, living wage in line with the value that I bring to this game.
I was paid a shockingly low total of £3000 total for the first game. A little more for the second. I wanted to voice her. I have drummed up interest in this game ever since I started on Twitter in 2011.
Overwatch 2has two ways to stand in line as you wait to be let into a game: open queue, which lets you maintain a loose team composition, like one that has two DPS and three tanks; and defined role queue, which brand-new players need to unlock by completing five open-queue games. It seems open-queue players are finding themselves stuck in messy matches with no support, and disgruntled role-queue players, particularly those playing DPS or tank, are sitting through long queue times waiting for healers to float down on a ray of sunshine.
“The players can start by not taking out their life problems on support characters,” a Blizzard forum user wrote. “Maybe then more people would be willing to try the role.”
“There are plenty of people who want to play support (I’m one of them),” said another commenter in the Blizzard forum. “But whether or not it’s currently viable to play support in pub matches with the game’s current climate is, I think, the real issue.”
We’re feeling it too. “In my experience with Overwatch 2—as someone who mostly plays support for the XP boost and fast matchmaking—I’ve experienced Winstons and Reapers zooming past me and the other support player, only to wind up dead moments later, putting the entire team in a bad spot,” Kotaku staffer Zack Zwiezen wrote recently.
Some players hope that adding new support heroes, including Kiriko—Overwatch 2’s new ninja healer, who currently lives beneath the game’s fresh battle pass for most people—will help even out support queue times. More likely, players will keep finding things to be annoyed about, and developer Activision Blizzard will keep union busting.
Earlier this month, the wiki-hosting company Fandom scooped up several games sites, including Giant Bomb and GameSpot, in an acquisition worth $50 million. And that exorbitant price of the sale, coupled with what the website calls “questionable staffing decisions” at the company, has led the Zelda Wiki to break free from “corporate consolidation” and claim its independence from Fandom.
Opened in 2005 and independent up until its transfer over to Gamepedia hosting in 2017, the Zelda Wiki is one of the biggest fan-run games wikis around. With thousands of entries from games across the entire franchise, you could spend days or weeks scrolling through the digital encyclopedia and probably still not finish it in its entirety. It’s my go-to resource when looking up information on a specific enemy or weapon in Nintendo’s popular franchise, and it hosts 11,199 articles. However, now you’re gonna have to visit a brand-new website if you have bookmarked and/or frequented the old Zelda Wiki.
Staff at the website announced on Twitter this week that, “after many months of preparation,” the website is now totally independent from Fandom or any other entity.
“For over a decade, from its creation in 2005 to its transfer to Gamepedia in 2017, the Zelda Wiki was a fully independent site,” the wiki’s EIC wrote. “Even after the transfer, and Gamepedia’s subsequent acquisition by Fandom, Inc., the site sought to continue its mission of curating an editorially independent, high-quality wiki operated by fans. However, we have come to believe that these ideals are incompatible with Fandom.”
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There was a reason for such a scathing statement. Citing Fandom’s “recent buyouts and questionable staffing decisions,” the Zelda Wiki staff said it wants to “keep the internet free from corporate consolidation” and “hegemonic control.” As such, the team moved the wiki to a new home, though the Fandom one is still up and running.
Responses to the news have been overwhelmingly positive online. Multiple folks have called this a big win for the Zelda Wiki, while others are looking forward to fewer ads and a better layout on the site. Even the Twitter account for the Fallout Wiki, one of the few publicly feuding with Fandom over intrusive videos and ads on the site, congratulated the Zelda Wiki team for breaking from the company. Generally, there’s some public wariness about Fandom’s growing influence over fan-led Wikis that have provided useful free resources to the community about big franchises. As such, there are now even resources shared for alternatives to Fandom Wikis, and some encouragement in the comments from this announcement to get more Wikis to do the same. While independent Wikis do exist, over the years Fandom has become the more dominant website when people Google for certain topics.
In Discord messages with Kotaku, community staff member ModdedInkling said the old Fandom wiki will “continue to be updated” by a few volunteers that have chosen to remain there. Just about everyone else, however, will move to the website’s new domain. ModdedInkling also explained what this independence means for the staff.
“Being ‘editorially independent’ means having full creative control over the wiki’s content under its own policies as opposed to Fandom’s policies,” ModdedInkling said. “This also includes the wiki’s overall appearance (user interface, templates, etc.), which has been one of the main subjects discussed by many independent wikis splitting away from Fandom. Another topic of interest involves avoiding mandated censorship. Certain wikis also have content that involves socio-politics and ethics that are often restricted by Fandom, but are deemed relevant by the community.”
ModdedInkling extrapolated on the nature of Fandom’s alleged censorship. He said that while nothing has been blocked on the Zelda Wikia (to his knowledge, anyway), there have been some alterations made to entries post-publication on other wikis.
“Basically, Fandom’s policies may invoke a level of censorship on certain sensitive topics, even if it is relevant towards a work of fiction, if it is deemed to go against their policy,” ModdedInkling said. “Sometimes it may involve altering one’s information as well even if it is less accurate. This can happen through a variety of topics, such as discussions involving the retroactive change of a character’s traits, even if it was historically inaccurate to change it.”
ModdedInkling brought up one instance where Fandom’s policies got in the way of making what they consider accurate information available. On Wookieepedia, the digital encyclopedia for Star Wars, there were allegedly complications around changing the name of someone who later came out as trans.
“There was debate involving the naming conventions of someone identifying later as trans,” ModdedInkling said. “The mandate was to retroactively change any of the names displayed for the person or character, even though that was not how they were referred to at the time. I don’t remember if it was a real-life person or a fictional character. It did not cause them to fork, but it was one concern that NIWA had in potential examples involving character pronouns like Vivian from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Sheik from Ocarina of Time, or Vilia from Breath of the Wild.”
ModdedInkling clarified the example to Kotaku, saying it isn’t representative of his or the rest of the Zelda Wiki team’s beliefs. He noted the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance, a network of other wikis for Nintendo games, has a goal to “handle sensitive topics with care to prevent any sort of misrepresentation.” This, he noted, aligns with the Zelda Wiki teams’ ideals.
Kotaku has reached out to Fandom for comment.
The Zelda Wiki is just the most recent digital encyclopedia to split from its parent company and the third to break away from Fandom specifically in recent memory. Earlier this year, the team behind the Terraria Wiki announced on Steam that it’ll host a new site separate from Fandom. Meanwhile, the Runescape Wiki went indie years ago in response to corporate mandates forcing autoplaying videos in posts. The Zelda Wiki can now be found in the NIWA database, which includes other independent, volunteer-run websites like Bulbapedia (the digital encyclopedia dedicated to all things Pokémon) and SmashWiki.
Update, 10/21/22, 6:30 p.m. ET: Added a clarifying statement from ModdedInkling.
The story behind the casting of the lead voice acting role for the third game in the Bayonetta series has been a complete mess, involving allegations of terrible pay, conflicting accounts and Non-Disclosure Agreements. In an attempt to put the whole thing to bed the developers of the title, PlatinumGames, have tonight issued a statement.
We at Platinum Games offer our sincerest appreciation to everyone who has contributed to creating the Bayonetta series over the years, as well as the community that has served as its foundation.
We give our full support to Jennifer Hale as the new Bayonetta, and align with everything in her statement.
We ask people to please refrain from any further comments that would disrespect Jennifer or any of the other contributors to the series.
The statement they’re referring to, from current voice actor Jennifer Hale, reads:
With regard to Bayonetta 3,
As a longtime member of the voice acting community, I support every actor’s right to be paid well and have advocated consistently for this for years.
Anyone who knows me, or has followed my career, will know that I have great respect for my peers, and that I am an advocate for all members of the community.
I am under an NDA and am not at liberty to speak regarding this situation. My reputation speaks for itself.
I sincerely ask that everyone keep in mind that this game has been created by an entire team of hard-working, dedicated people and I hope everyone will keep an open mind about what they’ve created.
Finally, I hope that everyone involved may resolve their differences in an amicable and respectful way.
“Fat cats cream off the top and leave us the crumbs,” she said, before noting that her inability to get a living wage from the industry has led her to suffer depression and anxiety. As she tells it, after being lowballed, she wrote to Hideki Kamiya, executive director on the game, to plead her case. She claims that he acknowledged her importance to the role and how much it would mean to fans. But the offer still apparently ended up being $4,000.
“I worried that I was going to be on the streets,” she said of the larger inability to be paid a living wage. “That terrified me so much that once I was suicidal. I am not afraid of the non-disclosure agreement. I can’t even afford to run a car. What are they going to do, take my clothes? Good luck to them.”
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Mixed reality The Meta Quest Pro centers on working, creating, and collaborating in a virtual space.
Hale, who has replaced Taylor, issued her own statement (the one above), while a story on Bloombergthen cast doubt on some of Taylor’s initial pay claims. Both women have subsequently been the target of online abuse, prompting Platinum’s plea in tonight’s statement.
Venturing off the path of the main quest in Cyberpunk can feel a little…perhaps ludonarrative dissonant? Sure, V’s got a lot on their plate, but there’s a whole city out there filled with quests and objectives. Not all are made equally though. If you want to experience one of the best side diversions this dystopian futurescape has to offer, however, it’s time to get reacquainted with an AI taxi service you met in Act One. Turns out they’ve got a bit of a staff problem; good thing you’re in need of eddies and have time to spare.
Act Two opens with such a heavy narrative premise that it’s easy to get immersed in the main story. Who has time for fetch quests when the clock is ticking on impending doom? This is especially the case when much of the game can feel like a GTA-wannabe at worst. But the quest chain that follows “Tune Up” is filled with such personality and offers such a classic sci-fi AI premise that you shouldn’t miss it. In fact, it should be top of your list of quests to grab once you wrap up “The Heist” main job.
You need to be in Act Two to access this quest. Act Two follows the trying events of “The Heist” main job, so we’re gonna be in spoiler territory here. Also, as a content warning, this quest does deal with themes of self harm and suicide. Make sure you have an Intelligence score of at least 10 in order to access all outcomes at the quest’s conclusion.) It’s worth pausing the main storyline for this one.
It all starts with the “Tune Up” side job, which will take you a little by surprise before you’ll be on your way to hunt down individual objectives scattered around the city. You have two choices for how you want to tackle this quest: Either knock all of the seven objectives out one-by-one, or, dip in and out of them as you progress through the main story or other quests. Some of the shootouts can get a little rough if you’re not leveled up appropriately, specifically the one that takes place in Pacifica.
Let’s dig in.
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Mixed reality The Meta Quest Pro centers on working, creating, and collaborating in a virtual space.
How to start the Delamain side quest
Your choom is dead, a cigarette-smoking rebellious rockstar is stuck in your head, and a stolen piece of hardware from Arosaka is slowly overriding your consciousness. Isn’t the future grand? Act Two arrives after one hell of a turn of events and all you might care about after waking up is where the hell your car is.
Lucky you: If you check your journal or map, you’ll come across the “Tune Up” side job, where the first objective is to retrieve your vehicle from your apartment’s parking garage.
After the very impolite car smashes into you and wrecks your ride, you’ll be wheel-less for a spell. Don’t worry, you can either grab one of the purchasable vehicles as a temporary replacement (yes, you’ll get your wheels back).
Alternatively, if you’re looking for a free set of wheels and don’t mind a quick trip out to the desert, you can score a Colby CX410 Butte for literally free at the following location:
Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
It’s not the fastest car by any means, and the acceleration is rather slow, but what do you want for nothing?
Finish up the remainder of “Human Nature’s” tasks and you’ll be able to access the “Tune Up” side job. This one will take you down to Delamain HQ, where you’ll understand a bit about what just happened.
After chatting with Delamain a bit, you’ll come to find out that a number of his cars have gone rogue. It’ll be up to you to track them down.
Finding the rogue Delamain car locations (and how to drive in first-person without crashing)
Time for a seven-step fetch quest! Don’t close the browser, trust me, this one’s worth it. For the best experience, however, I really recommend driving in first-person mode. To avoid smashing into things left and right while driving in first-person perspective, make sure your map is on and use it as a kind of peripheral vision.
Once Delamain gives you the rundown of what’s going on, you’ll have access to the seven-step “Epistrophy” side job. You can go to each location as you wish, knocking them out one-by-one, or choosing to grab them when they seem appropriate. If you want to leave this quest as something you’ll return to on and off, you don’t need to worry about tracking it too often. Delamain will call you whenever you are near the vicinity of one of the rogue vehicles. It will take a little while to find some of them depending on their location. Stay within the highlighted area in your minimapuntil you find the car and stick close to them once you’ve found their location. They can be found in the following places:
Wellsprings
Northside
North Oak
Rancho Coronado
Badlands
The Glen
Coastview
Some of the more notable parts of this quest include the Rancho Coronado, Wellsprings, and North Oak locations. In North Oak, you’ll need to drive the rogue cab back yourself, except this AI is particularly nervous about the city. Keep the car under 50 to not spook him too much.
Rancho Coronado will have you engage in some amusing property damage to satisfy an AI who’s very upset about some pink flamingos. Meanwhile, the AI in Wellsprings has a bit of an attitude. It might feel clunky, but I recommend sticking to first-person during the car battle here as, given the camera perspective, an impromptu 1v1 demo derby in the middle of a city is quite fun and poses a bit of a challenge.
If you’re heading to Pacifica for the Coastview location, however, come leveled up and stocked on ammo. After an amusing easter egg, you’re gonna get jumped by a bunch of gonks. I recommend staying under the bridge during this shootout, as there are two groups of hostile enemies outside of the bridge who can easily get roped into the shooting spree. Fighting one group of fools is much more manageable than taking on three.
As a note, “The Glen” location involves a conversation about depression and self harm.
Final Delamain quest: “Don’t Lose Your Mind”
Once you gather all of the rogue AI’s and send them back to Delamain HQ, you’ll have to wait a couple of days to receive a suspicious call from Delamain. This call usually triggers by visiting Corpo Plaza. Turns out, Delamain has found the source of the problem: A virus has hit the AI and you’re being called on to help.
As you’ll quickly learn, entry into Delamain HQ isn’t as straightforward as it was before. Once you find a way in around the back, you’ll move through some abandoned offices. Take the time to sift through the computer emails for a bit of dystopian backstory about what happened to the human staff. This is one of the game’s quests that earns time spent sifting through in-world documents. You’ll also need to dig through the emails for the code to the main office computer (it’s a super secure one too: 1 2 3 4). If you have an Intelligence of 8, you won’t need the password.
Once you get access to the garage, you’ll have to deal with some hostile drones and an electrified floor. The drones don’t put up too much of a fight, but the floor will kill you fast. (The Inductor Immune System implant will make you immune to the electricity).
Take the door to your left when you enter the garage and see Johnny. You’ll need to hop on to the car that’s being raised and lowered and parkour your way over to an open vent. You’ll then have to navigate through some narrow corridors behind the cars to make it to the control room and Delamain’s core. Once inside, things get interesting.
Johnny will appear and will instantly give you a piece of his mind about what you ought to do. You’ll have three options: Restore Delamain and kill the rogue AI offshoots, merge the AI offshoots with Delamain (requires an Intelligence score of 10), or pull out a gun and destroy the core, liberating the AI offshoots but killing Delamain.
Do the AI offshoots have a right to live? Are they just an error that needs to be corrected? Should (or can) they peacefully coexist with the primary consciousness that gave birth to them? SPOILERS FOLLOW:
Johnny will appear to encourage you to destroy the core or merge all of the AIs into one. He isn’t without a point, implying that Delamain is hardly living a free life as both a taxi driver and dispatcher. Delamain admits early on in the quest that he maintains a control room strictly for the need to mirror humans, saying that such a space is an “infrastructure” he inherited, much like the visualized face he speaks through. Narratively, this is an opportunity for V to decide whether or not he’ll continue simply serving humans by sending out and driving taxis.
You are free to reset the core to purge the errant AI offshoots, which identify as Delamain’s children and seem to be fragments of his own personality. If you do this, Johnny won’t be happy and will call you out. If you lack the Intelligence score to merge the AIs, your only option then is to pull out a weapon and destroy the core.
If you have a high enough Intelligence score (10), you can access what is arguably the “good ending” for the Delamain quest guide. Once all AI personalities are merged, Delamain will express the need to leave Night City to go on to a better place. Regardless of which ending you choose, however, you will get a taxi cab of your own to drive.
Though merging the AIs seems to be the best way to go, none of these seem to scream “good/bad ending.” Instead, you’ll be left with a nice riddle about the nature of consciousness and what it means to be free. What’s more cyberpunk than that?
Delamain’s quest is easily one of Cyberpunk 2077’s most memorable sidequests. There’s some great gameplay, a ton of great dialog and narration, and it will have you traveling to different areas of the city. It’s easily the first side job to pick up once you’re out of the first Act.
We post galleries from major cosplay shows all the time, and they’re always excellent, but for the recent New York Comic-Con one photographer wanted to do things a little differently.
Wanting to try something beyond just taking nice photos, veteran photographer Andrew Boyle (disclaimer: I wrote the foreword for his book) thought that for this year’s show he’d try and make the cosplayer “the sole focus” of his work.
“After my cosplay photo book ‘Heroes & Villains’ came out in 2017, I thought I’d relax it up a bit with the subject matter, but it kept pulling me back; the effort, the enthusiasm and the sense of community amongst the costumed fans”, Boyle tells Kotaku. “I shoot in a uniform style inspired by the portraits of Richard Avedon, so that the sole focus is the subject without background distraction.”
“I also work in collage pieces and motion I wanted to integrate a unique hand made feel for each selected subject. For some, I used cut out pieces that referred to the character, others were repetition of shapes, or color blocking with paper and textures. It was a way to differentiate from other cosplay photography, all of which has it’s own approach, and take a different feel to celebrate all the effort and energy the NYCC crowd brings. Plus I love reading the reactions people have to seeing themselves portrayed in such a way.”
The result is this heavily-stylised gallery which, by removing the usual convention background, really lets each cosplayer, their outfit and their performance shine.
Silent Hill fans can finally—finally!—rejoice. Konami has confirmed that, after accidentally leaking some details earlier today, the beloved survival horror game Silent Hill 2 will make a return as a timed PlayStation exclusive, alongside a bevy of other Silent Hill projects currently in the works. You can watch the stream via the embed below.
The stream opened with that iconic shot of Silent Hill 2 protagonist James Sunderland staring into the mirror, wondering if his wife Mary is waiting for him. James then walks through the foggy streets of a town before we see a cinematic montage of familiar sights impressively rendered in modern graphics. The trailer was short but confirmed two things: Silent Hill 2 is available to wishlist on PS5 right now, and it will absolutely be locked on PlayStation (and PC) for 12 months after launch.
Konami
Konami also talked a bit more about the other projects in development right now. We saw a glimpse of Silent Hill Towerfall, developed by Observation and Stories Untold creators No Code. Details are scarce on this project, but if you’re familiar with No Code’s work, then you can expect some “deep psychological horror,” according to the studio’s creative director John McKellen.
Another project Konami showed off was Return to Silent Hill, the upcoming film directed by Christophe Gans (the writer-director of 2006’s Silent Hill) which “tells the story of a young man” coming back to the town only to find nightmares.
There was some chat about Silent Hill merch like shirts and statues, before Konami jumped to a third project, an apparent “whole new experience.” Titled Silent Hill Ascension, the project is a “live, real-time interactive series” that sounds akin to Until Dawn. You can change outcomes, be part of the scenes, and shape the Silent Hill canon. But if you fuck up, you fuck up because there is, apparently, no reset button. It’s due in 2023.
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Screencap from the Silent Hill f trailer.Screenshot: Konami / Kotaku
The livestream wrapped with one final announcement of a completely new Silent Hill game, titled Silent Hill f. Serene footage showed a young girl exploring a foggy town; slowly, invasive tendrils make them themselves known, followed by very colorful, all-consuming fungal growths. The brief trailer ends on a shot of the girl’s now-infested corpse, just as its face sloughs off. Silent Hill f is developed by Neobards Entertainment, with story by Ryukishi07, creature and character design by kera, and produced by former Nintendo developer Motoi Okamoto.
This remake of Silent Hill 2 has been rumored for a hot minute now. Back in May 2022, screenshots purporting to be related to the franchise started making the rounds online, with Layers of Fear developer Bloober Team attached to the project. Bloober Team announced a month later a totally separate horror game within the Layers of Fear universe that appears to be a reboot of sorts. However, Bloober Team is now leading development on Silent Hill 2 Remake, with Konami serving as the game’s publisher.
While Silent Hill 2 Remake may be a PlayStation exclusive for 12 months after it launches, the game will also be available on PC. Sorry, Xbox folks.
Silent Hill 2 first came out in 2001 for the PlayStation 2. It put the new console’s horsepower to good use, rendering notoriously thick, rolling fog that cranked the atmosphere to previously unknown heights. The plot had protagonist James Sunderland visiting the doomed town after receiving a letter from his previously deceased wife, Mary. As you can imagine, following the trail leads nowhere good, and we gradually learn that Sunderland is a very, very broken man.
Various sequels followed over the years, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, but Silent Hill 2 went down as a particular fan favorite for its fantastic atmosphere, terrifying situations, and psychological depth. It also served as the first appearance of the now-beloved antagonist Pyramid Head.
After years of very little new or exciting Silent Hill content, it looks like fans finally be feasting like it’s 2001 all over again.
In this case it hasn’t worked; the NLRB’s ruling today clears the path for the workers to vote on forming a union, disagreeing (in a detailed breakdown explaining each of the studio’s departments, how their work differs and how underpaid testers are) with Activision’s claims that “we believe every employee in Albany who works on Diablo should have a direct say in this decision”.
The ruling concludes:
Based on the above, I conclude that the employees in the petitioned-for unit share a community of interest. I have also considered the similarities that exist among the developers and compared this to the testers. Developers are organized in separate departments, but departments that ultimately report to the head of the Diablo franchise. Developers have a diverse set of skills, training, and duties, but use these skills in a complementary manner in a production process that includes significant amount of contact and a high degree of functional integration. Compensation varies, but many terms and conditions of employment do have overlap among the developers.
Comparing the developers’ community of interest to that of the testers I find that the distinct interests of the testers outweigh the similarities that exist with the developers. As noted, the testers participate in the same game development process that includes significant contact and functional integration. However, testers are separately organized in their own department and their supervisory hierarchy is entirely separate from the Diablo franchise. Testers also have a specific set of skills and duties different from the developers. Finally, testers are paid significantly less than developers. Moreover, the evidence of interchange between testers and developers is extremely limited. For these reasons I find any shared interests between the testers and developers do not outweigh the separate interests that make the petitioned-for unit an appropriate unit.
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The ruling instantly clears the path for an election, which will begin soon; ballots will be sent out on October 27, with votes being counted on November 18.
A current employee at the studio, though not one of the testers involved in the vote, told the Washington Post“It’s about time. Our QA testers are some of the most talented and skilled people working in our company and they are critically undervalued by corporate. I think that all games workers need a union, but QA is in especially dire need.”
Update 10:00pm ET: Lulu Cheng Meservey, Activision Blizzard’s Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Chief Communications Officer, has responded to the finding on internal communications, writing:
Hey all, quick heads up on something important. It’s a long one but wanna be thorough so thanks for bearing with me. This afternoon the NLRB (national labor relations board) determined that -20 QA (quality assurance) testers working on Diablo in Albany will be eligible to form a union and if the union wins the vote will be included in the bargaining unit.
Where the company stands on that: fully respects the NLRB process, and fully supports the employees’ right to choose how they want to be represented. Also has the view that people who work closely together should be able to make decisions like that collectively – ie, we disagree that a handful of employees should get to decide for everyone else on the future of the entire Albany-based Diablo team. We think a direct dialogue between company and employees is the most productive route.
Examples: through direct dialogue we’ve already converted contingent QA staff to full time, increased pay, increased benefits, opened up access to the bonus program, and offered more opportunities for professional advancement (which would also result in more pay).
We feel collective bargaining is comparatively slow- once agreement is in place takes over a year on average according to a Bloomberg analysis. During the long contract negotiation companies from giving any pay/bonus/benefit increases without a special arrangement with the union, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that non-union employees generally get larger pay raises than union-represented groups. That’s consistent with what we saw with Raven, where there have only been three bargaining sessions since the union was certified there almost 6 months ago, due partly to the union cancelling pre-planned bargaining sessions for a month.
I’m sharing all of that because having a streamlined process is a reason why the company prefers direct discussions – but ultimately it’s up to employees and everyone should get to vote their own preference in a fair election.
What happens next with this is that ballots will be mailed to eligible Albany-based employees on Oct. 27, need to be returned by Nov. 17, and will get counted by the NLRB on Nov. 18.
More to come as the process continues but wanted to share asap. Thanks so much for reading everyone.
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