Baldur’s Gate 3just celebrated its first trip around the sun this past weekend. Have you, by chance, neglected to play the rightful Game of the Year 2023 (I’m not bitter) thus far? Well, if you have a PlayStation 5 and you’ve been waiting for the right time to jump into it, Larian Studios’ masterclass in RPG design is on sale.
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I tend to buy a lot of games right as they’re coming out so I don’t partake in PlayStation’s Summer Sale that often. But Sony’s cooking with gas this year and there’s still time for you to grab some of the best games on the PS5 for cheap. I’m just trying to scroll through the list right now and keep getting caught up on things I would buy if I didn’t already have them. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the entirety of Hades developer Supergiant Games’ catalog, and plenty of other gems are on sale until August 14. But right at the top of the page is Baldur’s Gate 3, which has dropped from its usual price of $70 to a slightly less intimidating $55.99.
Larian’s Dungeons & Dragons RPG captured the hearts and minds of many an adventurer last year, and if you waited an entire trip around the sun to play it, now’s a great chance to do so on PlayStation 5. It’s got a few rough edges compared to its PC counterpart, but it’s still pretty damn incredible. Play it as your own custom character and live out your fantasy dream, smooch a bunch of complex heroes who are just trying to survive literal brainworms, and engage in some of the most complex tactical combat you’ll find on a PS5. If you haven’t jumped on it yet and you’ve got a PlayStation, now’s the time to see what all the fuss is about.
Adventures on Tap hosts tabletop gaming for charity
For the past three years, Orlando gaming enthusiasts have gathered regularly to roll dice, drink beer and raise money for local charities.
Nick Larson and Cami Wooley co-founded event company Adventures on Tap in 2021 after realizing tabletop roleplaying organizations in their area tended to emphasize profit, not community.
“We say we’re here to do good, not well,” Larson said. “The RPG [roleplaying game] space as a whole seems to be heavily monetized, and we wanted to do something different.”
The self-proclaimed “beer geeks” and “game geeks” had a vision: inclusive events where players could drink beer, play tabletop games, buy crafts from local artisans and raffle on baskets for local charities.
Today, Adventures on Tap hosts three to four events per month at a rotating roster of local spots including Oviedo Brewing, Conduit in Winter Park and Ten10 Brewing. It raises about $1,200 to $1,200 monthly for exclusively local charities. Beneficiaries have included nonprofits like Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando and Child’s Play Charity, which donates video games to pediatric hospitals.
“We never send the money out … we always make sure it’s local,” Wooley said.
Adventures on Tap specializes in “one shot” gaming sessions, or single adventures completed in a few hours, like a sold-out Dungeons & Dragons event at Conduit on Saturday, Aug. 3. But it also offers miniature painting lessons, including one happening Monday, Aug. 5, at Twelve Talons Beerworks on East South Street, and ongoing campaign meetups.
At each one-shot session, the company holds a charity raffle. Prizes range from crafts that Adventures on Tap buys from local vendors, like dice bags and homemade shirts, to tickets to Kissimmee’s Medieval Times. Proceeds go entirely to charity.
But ticket sales, which equal about $20 per player, go to internal funding — including paying the dungeon masters, or DMs, responsible for organizing each game.
“We’re one of the only D&D [Dungeons & Dragons] groups in town that pays our DMs,” Wooley said. “We don’t pay them a huge amount, but we do make sure that they’re not out for their supplies and travel and beer.”
One of the most popular draws is Dungeons & Dragons, a popular fantasy game first published in 1974. But players also have the opportunity to try out lesser-known games. Those include the Harry Potter-esque “Kids on Brooms” or sinister “Blades in the Dark” — Wooley and Larson’s respective favorites.
Larson said he also hoped to bolster another community: local breweries, which he said suffered after the pandemic. Adventures on Tap has a “symbiotic relationship” with the restaurants where it hosts events, the former service industry worker said.
“We want to put butts in seats for six hours and have them buy beer,” he said. “And we’re not going to charge the brewery anything, and the brewery is not going to charge us anything.”
Adventures on Tap holds most of its events during time spots when breweries are traditionally “absolutely empty,” like midday on Sundays.
As far as the interaction between beer drinking and gameplay, Wooley said the combination affects each player differently.
“If somebody says, ‘I want to do something,’ and they describe it and it sounds dope, One Beer Cami is more likely to be like, ‘well, let’s try and maybe think about that,’” she said. “Five Beer Cami is like, ‘yeah, that sounds awesome, let’s do it.’”
Both Larson and Wooley hold day jobs, as an engineer and software marketer, respectively. They consider Adventures on Tap a “labor of love” that they’ve enjoyed seeing grow from a small, one-event-per-month group to a company hosting three to four events per month as far north as Mount Dora and Sanford.
Larson and Wooley have tried for the last two years to register their company as a nonprofit, but without the money to pay for legal assistance, they haven’t been able to navigate the “legal rat’s nest” required to do so, Larson said.
But Larson said he still looks forward to seeing the group expand and encourages those looking for community to give it a try.
“If you have any experience whatsoever, you’re overqualified,” he said. “We’re not here to make a million dollars … we try and keep everything open, welcome and cheap.”
As mentioned, Saturday’s Dungeons & Dragons event at Conduit is sold out, but tickets are still available for its September campaign session Sept. 14 at Ten10 Brewing on Virginia Drive. There are also some spots still available for Sip and Paint at Twelve Talons at 6 p.m. Monday, Aug. 5. Tickets are available through Adventures on Tap’s website.
Microsoft shutdown the Xbox 360’s marketplace this week and nearly two decades after the console first launched it feels like the final nail in the coffin for a particular era of gaming we’ll probably never see again.
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The Xbox 360 came out a year earlier than the competition and $100 cheaper than the base PlayStation 3. It seemed to make all the right moves, using Halo, Gears of War, and Call of Duty to jump start online multiplayer into the soon-to-be dominant form of gaming, while investing it all back into indie curation, big exclusives, and marketing deal that made the console feel like the place everyone had to be.
In some ways it felt like the best of all worlds, and by the end of the generation you could pick up an Xbox 360 for just $100 and play dozens of the best games ever made. The culture was far from healthy, and some of the places making everything were a mess to work for. But it was also a fun time, and a weird one. Here’s what we’ll miss about it and why the Xbox 360 still feels so special to us.
Carolyn Petit: The first E3 I ever attended was in 2005, with the Xbox 360’s launch still some months out and I have to say, the games I saw on the show floor looked amazing. It’s hilarious to me now considering I haven’t even thought about this game in probably 15 years, but at that time, the game that blew me away the most was probably GRAW. Interestingly, though, despite my initial excitement about the console being rooted in its graphical power and my lust for next-gen spectacle, now, when I think back on what made the console so special to me, it’s not really about that aspect of it at all. What about you Alyssa?
Alyssa Mercante: I’ve told mine on Kotaku.com more than once, but I had borrowed my high school sweetheart’s original Xbox to play Halo 2 when he went away to college, but not long after that Halo 3 came out, which wasn’t backwards compat. So I went out during my free period in high school (we had an open campus for seniors, you could take your car and leave if you didn’t have class), and drove to a Target where I spent my summer job savings on a 360, Halo 3, and Xbox Live.
Ethan: I have zero recollection of the Xbox 360’s launch. What was I even doing at the time? 2005. Hmm. I was going into my senior year in high school, barely playing anything except for the occasional late-stage PS2 game—Shadow of the Colossus and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai, followed eventually by Okami and Final Fantasy XII. My only real memory of the beginning of that console cycle is my brother getting a PS3 and me having almost no interest in it. It wasn’t until my girlfriend’s roommate’s boyfriend in college got me hooked on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that I finally picked up a super cheap used Xbox 360 arcade edition for like $150. That four years after the console launched but still somehow only the mid-way point.
Carolyn: Yeah, I don’t remember exactly when I finally got one myself—I certainly couldn’t afford one at launch, and my memories of the time around release have a lot to do with playing Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (lol) at GameStop kiosks.
Moises Taveras: The first time I ever played an Xbox 360 also had to do with Call of Duty: MW2. It was all the rage with the kids in my middle school, but I was largely looking from the outside in as a) a PlayStation kid since my youth and b) someone who came from a family too poor to afford more than one console. But eventually, I made friends who had 360s and I remember us all cramming onto a couch in the smallest bedroom imaginable at our friend Howard’s house and playing local multiplayer matches till we lost our voices from shouting. I learned really quickly then that the 360 was synonymous with multiplayer and socializing with folks and it made me want one so bad. Little did I know I wouldn’t get a 360 till the very end of the console generation!
Carolyn: I think part of the Xbox 360’s dominance in that era can be attributed to the fact that it offered the best online experience for folks wanting to play Call of Duty, but it also did something incredible that totally won over people like me. I’m not saying I didn’t have an amazing time playing Gears of War co-op, I absolutely did, and huge credit to Microsoft for putting out a steady stream of banger exclusives that really made Xbox Live feel essential. But for me, when I think about the Xbox 360, what still gets me excited most is Xbox Live Arcade, and particularly amazing games like Pac-Man Championship Edition. Games like this took the arcade leaderboard competition of my childhood and absolutely exploded it. Suddenly I was staying up nights pouring everything I had into beating my friends’ high scores on online leaderboards for all the world to see. Man, it was incredible.
Moises: Supergiant Games’ Bastion absolutely blew my mind as far as what I thought games could be. It being a console exclusive to the 360 through XBLA broke my heart and kept me from the portfolio of what’d become my favorite studio, and then Xbox just kept pumping out indie titles like it. Honestly, my working definition of an indie game was largely informed by this era of XBLA games.
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Kenneth Shepard: The Xbox 360 was the first console launch I was really tuned into the industry for. I was full-blown sicko mode for that thing as a kid, and was counting down the days. I was a huge Rare fan at the time and Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero were a huge deal to me. But broadly, I think I fell off video games for a bit because the system just didn’t speak to my tendencies. As Moises said, the 360 became the multiplayer system and I preferred gaming in solitude, and eventually pivoted to the PS3 in the final years of that generation. But I played the Mass Effect trilogy on the 360, so I ended up keeping an old 360 in my home longer than any other system. I had to replace the household 360 more times than probably any other system my family owned.
We got a launch window system that died by the time Halo 3 came out, so we had to replace it swiftly. Then I got my own 360 for Christmas 2009, just before the launch of Mass Effect 2. That sucker lasted over a decade. It gathered dust for large swaths of the time, but since I didn’t own an Xbox One, it was the only way for me to go back to my old Mass Effect trilogy saves until the Legendary Edition came out in 2021. So while I had mostly abandoned the system by the end of the generation, the 360 is still a defining system in my life because it gave me one of the most important video game experiences of my life. I’ll always be grateful for it, even if I think the Microsoft was a trailblazer for some of the industry’s worst modern tendencies with it.
Ethan: That was the other thing that I think tipped me in the direction of the Xbox 360 besides the price and walled multiplayer gardens. As someone coming from the PS1 and PS2, it just had more of the RPGs I was craving earlier or in better condition. I came to the original Mass Effect late but it blew my mind. I got to catch up on Star Wars: The Old Republic. It was synonymous with retro and couch-coop indie games for me like Castle Crashers and Super Meat Boy. It really did just nail a lot of the same things that the PS4 did a generation later and which ultimately helped Sony to reverse the tide.
Moises: it’s so weird to think about now given Xbox’s current situation and catalog, but the 360 was where all the games were!
Carolyn: Another thing that was a big factor for me, I have to admit, is that I was totally cheevo-pilled. The Xbox 360 brought about the advent of achievements and I got extremely excited about pulling off absurd things like beating Call of Duty campaigns on Veteran to get all the achievements. I no longer put much stock in achievements or trophies, but to this day I greatly prefer the at-a-glance number that reflects your achievements compared to all the trophies of PlayStation’s system. And on top of that, the whole interface on Xbox just felt so much more inviting to me than that on Sony. I think avatars were really smart of them to introduce in that era. I loved signing on and seeing little cartoon versions of all my good friends online, playing games of their own. In comparison to that, the whole interface of the PS3 just felt cold and impersonal to me, and that console would end up gathering dust in my entertainment center.
Ethan: The Xbox 360 home screen definitely felt a lot more inviting and hit that sweet spot of clutter to chill. The controller was also very solid. Have any of you gone back and tried to hold a PS3 DualShock? It feels like you’re being pranked. I take it none of you ever had an issue with red-ringing or other hardware failures?
Photo: Mark Davis (Getty Images)
Moises: Nope! Correct me if I’m wrong but those issues got ironed out with later iterations of the console, so by the time one of my best friends let me indefinitely borrow his 360, it was smooth sailing for me.
Carolyn: I did have to send mine back for repairs once, and for a while there at least, it felt like everyone I knew who owned one was hitting the red ring. There was a period there, at least in my circle of friends, where there was real disbelief and anger that Microsoft had sold us all a product that was so prone to failure. I think it speaks to just how fond people were overall of the console—its library, its interface, its online features—that today, when you bring it up, you’re far more likely to get fond recollections than bitter complaints. It was so good that even the considerable irritations so many of us experienced with it are now just a footnote in our memories.
Ethan: My console ended up red-ringing in like, 2012? But then I read that you can just put it in the oven and bake it at a low temperature to loosen up the glue. Has worked like a charm ever since.
Carolyn: Wow, I never knew that!
Ethan: I think one of the reasons people look back so fondly on the Xbox 360 is that, in retrospect, it felt like the last time you could contain the entirety of what was going on, coming out, and being talked about in your head at any given time. It was still very intimate and physical, with midnight launches and stacks of controllers in the split-screen coop session. There was spectacle with E3 but also the feeling you alone were discovering these incredible hidden treasures on Xbox Live Arcade, which was like a return to finding the internet for the first time again.
Carolyn: I agree. And they just had so many games that became sensations for a time, from Braid to Geometry Wars. The curation was exceptional, and it was an era in which it still felt like the whole culture, or much of it at least, could still come together for a few weeks around some exciting new downloadable game.
Moises: Yeah. By comparison, when the PS4 really started to pivot to those smaller more intimate games early in its lifetime, it wasn’t that those games were lesser, but it did feel like they were being more haphazardly thrown on the platform to fill gaps between big exclusives. Meanwhile XBLA had these clearly thought out rollouts and events that made a big deal of Arcade titles. Also everything was less shitty. Xbox Live Gold was the original multiplayer subscription, and the only one for quite some time, but it at least seemed to provide value with great deals and a platform that produced rock solid multiplayer hits. It also wasn’t as expensive as anything is nowadays.
Carolyn: Before we wrap things up here, I think we can’t talk about what an amazing console the 360 was without saying a little more about its games. Are there any games y’all want to shout out as particular favorites that really helped make that library great or were emblematic of what the console was doing? When I think about the 360, I think about how the grittiness of Gears of War coexisted harmoniously alongside the whimsy of Viva Pinata, and I’ll never forget the dozens of hours my friends and I spent driving around doing challenges together in Burnout Paradise. It really did feel, more than a lot of other consoles, like it offered something for everyone, and like the people behind it thought deeply about how to bring people together to share in the experiences it offered.
And even though some of its games were also on PlayStation, at least everyone in my friend group, won over by the cheevos and online features of Xbox, always bought multiplatform games there, which perpetuated the console’s dominance in that generation. It’s a little wild to think how this generation it feels somewhat the opposite for me, like most people I know play most multiplatform games on PlayStation. Wild how the tables have turned. But yeah, any other 360 shoutouts?
Moises: I cannot separate the 360 from the stunning role it did in promoting so many smaller studios to the mainstream. I already invoked Bastion from Supergiant Games, but I can’t not shoutout Limbo and Playdead, which has now delivered two absolutely singular game experiences in a row. Oh and Shadow Complex does still own.
Ethan: Limbo was incredible. While the indie darling backlash was fair and warranted, it was really an incredible run of curation there for several years. The Dishwasher games were great, and really spoke to that sense of Newgrounds 2.0 animating the grungy vibe of XBLA. It’s also wild how much Microsoft tried to court Japanese RPG fans with Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. For me personally, Dungeon Defenders is still an all-time great. One of the last times I was able to rope friends into playing something for hours with me on a couch.
I was trying to think of my top five favorite 360 games, exclusive or no, and couldn’t stop listing stuff. The end of that console generation was so strong, on both 360 and PS3, maybe there’s hope that the Series X/S and PS5 pick up in their final years. But with massive budgets, long development times, and so much risk-averse consolidation, I’m not hopeful.
Carolyn: Whether it picks up to some degree or not, I think it’s safe to say that there will never be an era quite like that exemplified by the 360 again. The console was just perfectly poised to take advantage of a given moment in gaming culture and technology, employing exciting new ideas like achievements to build a sense of both community and friendly competition around games in ways that its library and online service leveraged brilliantly. Also, Sneak King was great.
Ethan: Any parting thoughts since you vanished, Alyssa?
Alyssa: LMAO. The time my 360 red ringed right before I went up for senior year of college. The day before. And I went out and bought another because not having one wasn’t an option. That or the time my mother heard me cursing out misogynists in Italian?
Ethan: Was it on the $3 phone bank operator Xbox 360 headset?
Above all else,Zenless Zone Zero is beautiful to look at. HoYoverse’s latest action RPG gacha title, following 2020’s Genshin Impactand last year’s Honkai: Star Rail, has a lot much going for it, with a beautifully detailed world, characters, and animations. Underneath that style there is even some substance, but the game may not be able to best HoYoverse’s other successful titles in the long run.
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Smart features that lessen the gacha grind make ZZZ perhaps the most player-friendly title in HoYoverse’s growing library, but it lacks a good hook that will keep the player coming back for more. In the dozen or so hours I’ve spent with ZZZ it takes shape as a promising melting pot of useful features and gorgeous design that I’m worried won’t garner the same avid fan base as its siblings.
Damn, Zenless Zone Zero has style!
In Zenless Zone Zero you take on the role of a Proxy, a person who guides agents (the characters you control in combat) through dangerous pocket dimensions called Hollows. These Hollows have valuable resources, so the residents of New Eridu (where the game is set), are always in want of a good Proxy to guide them in hopes of turning a profit. At the start of ZZZ,you help a trio of agents escape the Hollows and fall into a rabbit hole of intrigue and mystery that only gets deeper the more you play.
Image: HoYoverse
Immediately upon starting, New Eridu and its inhabitants stand out visually, thanks to the game’s incredible urban punk aesthetic that blends the futuristic and nostalgic. The protagonist duo Belle and Wise (per HoYoverse’ tradition since Genshin Impact, you get to pick to play as a female or male main character) are another great example of ZZZ’s wonderful design. Belle has a simple gray and orange color palette only contrasted by the dark blue of her stylish short hair. She’s wearing a fashionable ensemble with geometric patterning that alternates between her main colors while also sporting a walkman-like device on her hip. It’s a fit that would be right at home in the most fashionable neighborhoods of New York City.
That high-quality design extends to the rest of the game’s cast, each of whom is stylish and could very well be your new favorite character, which is the ideal for a game that asks you to pay real-world money to get the characters you want. I especially love the variety ZZZ offers, which includes non-human characters, like a bear named Ben Bigger, a first for aHoYoverse game. Similarly, New Eridu is a shining city filled with a love of the real world’s past. The central neighborhood you explore while not actively on missions (we’ll get to those) is littered with stores dedicated to physical media (what a concept). Belle and Wise run a video rental store that you get to manage while they aren’t doing their less-than-legal activities guiding people through the Hollows.
ZZZ’s core gameplay loop is centered around the Hollows. You can accept missions that send your party of three into the dangerous dungeons to fight and gain loot. Some missions progress the story, some are side activities, and some are combat-focused challenges to test your skill. In contrast to the open-world of Genshin Impact or the more expansive space traveling escapades of Honkai: Star Rail the world of ZZZ feels small. That extends to missions, which you begin not by traveling a long distance to a location, but by launching into them from a simple menu. It reminds me most of HoYoverse’s Honkai Impact 3rd, but that’s not where the similarities end. ZZZ’s entire combat system feels most like HI3.
Image: HoYoverse
Even when it works, I kind of wish I was playing something else
In ZZZ, you control one member of your party at a time in real time combat against hordes of enemies. Each character has a basic, special, and ultimate attack, with the latter two charging up as you perform basic attacks. This alone is fairly simple and probably will feel familiar to anyone who has played HI3 or Genshin Impact. However, ZZZ’s special sauce is it sassist attacks. Before an enemy attacks, a short sparkle signals to switch characters. If timed perfectly, you dodge the incoming attack and can in turn do some big damage. With this system, combat encounters take on a certain flow that can feel exceptionally good when you string together assist attack after assist attack, unleashing ultimates and decimating the enemy in no time.
HoYoverse constantly iterates from one title to the next, and ZZZ’s combat is clearly the result of some great iteration on Genshin Impact, which to this day has a pretty boring combat loop. Combat shines even brighter thanks to some of the best animations I’ve seen HoYoverse put to screen. When compared to Genshin Impact, it’s a wonderful improvement, however it can’t reach the same heights as this year’s HoYoverse competitor, Wuthering Waves. WuWa still feels much more engaged than ZZZ, as even in the latters’ most challenging fights the combat loop can lean towards button-mashing without the need for much thought.
Naturally, ZZZ’s combat loop is in service of gaining in-game resources by which you can unlock and upgrade new characters and weapons. Thankfully, that gacha grind isn’t nearly as bad as something like Genshin Impact or Honkai: Star Rail. Everything feels more easily accessible to the player through the limited collection of activities. You can probably get your favorite character with a lot less work than it would take in other HoYoverse games due to ZZZ’s approach, which shows the developer is clearly attempting to make quality of life improvements to its games (and something I desperately hopes makes its way back to Genshin Impact and HSR). Combined with the smaller world and simple mission design, ZZZ is HoYoverse’s most approachable and player-friendly title. Yet it still hasn’t gotten its hooks into me.
HoYoverse
Ironically I think the reason for that is because ZZZ sands maybe one too many edges off the HoYoverse formula. While combat is the most impressive it’s ever been in a HoYoverse title, it feels too easy, which makes moment-to-moment gameplay unengaging. The characters and world are gorgeously designed, but the story itself isn’t very enticing as of yet. The stories of Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail are what keep me coming back, but even with ZZZ’s a lower barrier to entry I find its narrative to be easy to bounce off of. To be fair, the game is in its first week and has barely gotten started on the narrative front, so things could get better, but right now, it’s not gripping me. More than anything, while playing ZZZ I find myself wishing its improved features could just be put in the HoYoverse games I’d rather be playing.
As much as I love many things in Zenless Zone Zero, I can’t quite place it in the HoYoverse portfolio. Alongside Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Honkai Impact 3rd, Zenless Zone Zero feels like it has the biggest hurdles in the way of its success. Genshin is already an established hit with an avid fan base thanks to a sprawling open-world matched by an equally sprawling story. Honkai: Star Rail has become popular in its own right after only being released a year ago on the strength of its tight turn-based combat and enthralling space opera adventure. Then there’s Honkai Impact 3rd, which despite releasing back in 2016, still has loyal fans. This all stretches the potential player base for ZZZ even thinner. I hope it does find its audience, however, as there is a lot to love.
Zenless Zone Zero is now available on Android, iOS, PC, and PlayStation 5.
In 2002 a group of friends in Italy started developing an action-platformer with RPG elements for Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance handheld. Then 22 years passed and now, in 2024, Kien is finally launching on GBA, ending one of the longest delays in video game history.
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Over the decades, there have been numerous games with protracted development cycles and delayed releases. One of the most famous is Duke Nukem Forever, which was first announced in 1997 but didn’t end up shipping until 2011, nearly 15 years later. But Kien took even longer to finally arrive.
As reported by The Guardianand Patricia Hernandez (former EIC of Kotaku), Kien was developed by a small group of friends in Italy back in 2002. None of them had experience making games. But for the next two years, the pals worked extremely hard to develop Kien, taking very few breaks and crunching a lot. After a few years of development, the game was finished and ready to be published. However, the high costs of shipping the game on Game Boy carts and the risk that Kien might not be successful led to no publisher wanting to release the game.
GameTrailers / Incube8
Eventually, only one member of the original development team remained: game designer Fabio Belsanti. Despite believing in the unpublished game, he moved on with his life, founded a new development company, and began creating educational games for kids and teens. Through it all, though, Belsanti never gave up hope for Kien. When he noticed recently that retro games and consoles were popular again, he decided to return to Kien and give it another chance.
“I believe we are in a phase similar to [the revival of] vinyl or cassettes for music,” Belsanti told The Guardian, “a return to previous, more primitive forms of the medium driven by nostalgia from the generations who lived those eras, and curiosity by those who came after such technology.”
Belsanti teamed up with Incube8, a publisher focused on releasing and supporting new games for classic consoles, like the GBA. Incube8 was a perfect fit for Kien and in June it finally launched, 22 years after development had started on the action-platformer.
“On a romantic level, the thought of releasing the game on its original console is simply magical,” said Belsanti. “To see Kien come to life on the very platform it was designed for is a dream come true.”
Kien is out now. You can pick up a physical version of the game for Game Boy Advance or buy a digital version that you can play on an emulator.
Some games make my heart bubble up with joy. They remind me of thumbing through tiny, beautiful booklets and tag-teaming tough bosses with friends. Not everyone’s childhood was easy, simple, or happy, but all of us have moments in our lives we look back fondly on and games that briefly bring them back to us. Panzer Paladin is one of those for me, and the retro action platformer is finally getting a second chance on PlayStation and Xbox.
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It was made by Tribute Games, the indie team behind 2022 GOTY contender Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. Before that, they were best known for the puzzle RPG Wizorb and the run-and-gun side-scroller Mercenary Kings. All of the studio’s projects have showcased top-tier pixel-art and a flare for turning the fundamentals of old genre classics into homages that looked great and felt novel. Following 2017’s Flint Hook, described early on as “Spider-Man with a gun,” Tribute released Panzer Paladin, a 2D platformer where you pilot a mech and collect giant medieval weapons.
It’s structured like Mega Man with a stage select screen and boss fights at the end of each level. It borrows from Blaster Master in that you can exit your mech to navigate parts of the levels as tiny pilot with a grappling hook. It plays like Zelda II, Nintendo’s one-off side-scrolling experiment that threw Link into tense 2D duels against armored knights. What Panzer Paladin has that those games don’t is a sophisticated breakable weapon system where you collect swords, spears, axes and other deadly tools as you play, even crafting your own and sharing them online with other players.
There’s plenty of spike pits but no Castlevania-style knockback hitting you into them, and every level has optional checkpoints. The combat is crunchy, the levels are imaginative, and the art is oozing with love, respect, and appreciation for the 8-bit era. But the boss fights are tough, and there are definitely some controller-throwing platforming sections. The warm fuzzy feeling you get from the retro nostalgia does not stop Panzer Paladin from being, all things considered, a pretty hardcore throwback.
Gif: Tribute Games / Kotaku
Its development also followed a now uncommon trajectory. Announced in early 2019, Panzer Paladin was made in just over a year and came out in the summer of 2020, months into an unprecedented pandemic nobody saw coming. It launched exclusively on PC and Switch, with a free content update in the fall that added a leaderboard and challenge levels. At the time, Tribute said there were no plans to bring the game to PlayStation or Xbox, leaving retro enthusiasts on those platforms out of luck.
With Shredder’s Revenge done and its DLC out last year, the timing finally lined up to bring Panzer Paladin to other platforms. If porting was as easy as copying and pasting some code, it might have happened a lot sooner, but Tribute works with a proprietary game engine and had to bring on outside programming help, as well as navigate a byzantine platform certification process that included making sure server support for the game’s user-generated content—its player-crafted weapons—didn’t break on PlayStation or Xbox.
“You go through certification and you get bug reports for some things and there’s always the temptation to go, ‘Oh, we could correct this in a specific way, or we could add a feature to this,” Ray, a producer who helped coordinate the process, told me in a recent video interview. “But there’s also that little voice that says we need to keep it as simple as possible, so we get through certification and we introduce less risk of something breaking because we changed something else.”
With that complete, Tribute can now focus on its next project. Will it be a one-game studio or is there room for another Panzer Paladin-sized experiment in its future? “Right now we have multiple projects in the pipeline including some ports,” publishing manager Eric Lafontaine told me (several of the studio’s older games like Wizorb aren’t on modern consoles). He added that the team is currently growing, a reassuring sign at a time when lots of other indie studios are facing extinction.
In the meantime, Panzer Paladin is ripe for re-discovery like a long-lost NES cartridge juiced up on modern tech. There’s no shortage of gorgeous looking retro games on PC and console these days, but it only takes a few minutes with Panzer Paladin to see there’s much more to it than just another incredibly GIF-able pixel art game. And one of the things I now love most about it is the way it’s brain-wormed its way into my own nostalgia for the summer of its original release. 2020 was an absolute shit year in so many ways. Playing Panzer Paladin offered brief moments of retro respite I still haven’t forgotten. And now it’s back with a Platinum Trophy on PS4.
Elden Ring’s first and only expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, features an exciting new storyline with dozens of hours of gameplay to experience—but accessing it isn’t a walk in the park, and data suggests that there are crucial steps many players haven’t yet taken. If you want to see what the challenging new DLC has to offer, you’ll have to find your way to a well-hidden section of the main game and defeat multiple optional bosses, including one of the toughest in the game: Mohg, Lord of Blood. – Billy Givens Read More
For years now, Bloodbornefans have wanted the popular PS4-exclusive RPGported to PC, hopefully with performance improvements and graphical options. And while FromSoftware’s president Hidetaka Miyazaki didn’t confirm that such a port is happening, he did say he’s not opposed to it and suggested that many people at the studio want a PC port to happen.
The Most Sought After Elden Ring Sword Has A Storied History
Released nearly a decade ago in 2017 exclusively for PlayStation 4, Bloodborne is one of FromSoftware’s (Dark Souls, Elden Ring) most popular and beloved games. Like many of its other games, Bloodborne is a tough-as-nails action RPG featuring intense boss battles and many secrets. However, unlike many of FromSoftware’s RPGs, Bloodborne has never been ported to other platforms. It remains stuck on PS4. That’s led to people asking over and over again for the Sony-owned Bloodborne to get a PC port. And it sounds like, while Miyazaki doesn’t have anything to announce, he seems into the idea of this fan-favorite RPG finally being playable on something other than a PS4.
In an interview with Miyazaki, PC Gamer asked the president if he would personally like to see Bloodborneported to PC one day.
“I know for a fact these guys want a Bloodborne PC port,” said Miyazaki in reference to FromSoftware staff sitting with him during the interview. However, he quickly added that if he says he wants a port he’ll “get in trouble” but that he’s not “opposed” to a PC version.
“Obviously, as one of the creators of Bloodborne, my personal, pure honest opinion is I’d love more players to be able to enjoy it,” said Miyazaki. “Especially as a game that is now coming of age, one of those games of the past that gets lost on older hardware—I think any game like that, it’d be nice to have an opportunity for more players to be able to experience that and relive this relic of the past. So as far as I’m concerned, that’s definitely not something I’d be opposed to.”
Of course, while it’s nice to hear that the president of FromSoftware wants a Bloodborne PC port, it doesn’t mean one is happening. Remember, FromSoftware doesn’t own the Bloodborne IP, Sony does. And until Sony decides to fund a port, remaster, or remake, all FromSoftware can do is vaguely go “Yeah, we want one, too!” and that’s it.
Hopefully, as we near the game’s 10th anniversary next year, Sony will realize that they have a literal goldmine on their hands and all the company has to do is post a teaser for Bloodborne on Steam and it will be flooded with pre-orders before it even shares a trailer. At the very least, we know everyone at FromSoftware is down for a port. Now we wait to see what Sony wants…
The Epic Games Store is once again handing out a very good game for free. This time around it’s Marvel’s Midnight Suns, one of the best games of 2022 and one of my favorite superhero adventures out there.
How Alan Wake 2 Builds Upon The ‘Remedy-Verse’
Marvel’s Midnight Suns, in case you missed it, is a turn-based tactical RPG that blends some light life-sim-like elements—like romance and dates—with fantastic tactical combat on par with XCOM and Fire Emblem. But, unlike those games, Midnight Suns lets you kick cars at classic Marvel villains like Venom and Sabretooth. And right now, you can kick cars at Venom for free via the Epic Games Store.
Marvel
Don’t get it twisted, though; Midnight Sunsis more than just fun gameplay and cool combat. The game also features a compelling narrative that plays out unlike anything seen in the MCU or most other superhero games. I mean, how many superhero movies or games let you spend time with Blade in a book club?
And don’t let its card-based action scare you away, as the game isn’t a deck builder or anything like that. It just uses cards to represent powers and moves you can use during each turn. However, game director Jake Solomon did express regret about using cards, suggesting that might have been the reason why the game didn’t sell as well as expected.
“I think cards were a major problem,” Solomon told VGC. “I think it was a good design solution, but I think I was naive about what people would think when they saw the mechanic was cards. Not everyone on my team was behind the idea, but they trusted me.”
Just a month into Hades 2‘s Early Access launch, the acclaimed action-RPG is already getting its second update, and it’s a major one. Patch 2 is full of dozens of buffs and bug fixes, as well one change that reduces how often final boss Chronos is “patently unfair.”
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Developer Supergiant Games wrote in the Hades 2 patch notes that all of the changes were driven by community feedback. “Among the improvements in this patch, look for many new UI icons as well as weapon-related balance changes aimed at enhancing core combat and related choices,” the team wrote. “Your feedback and volunteered gameplay data help inspire our changes, so thank you for playing!”
Top-level changes include players now encountering one additional Olympian each night as they did in Hades 1, which means more Boons for you. Ash and Psyche rewards have been improved in Oceanus and the Rift of Thessaly, and fishing points have become more predictable. Death Defiance invulnerability lasts longer now as well, and Selene’s Boon is cheaper to buy from Charon’s Shop.
On the weapon-balancing front, lots of equipment just got stronger. That includes Melinoë’s Nocturnal Arms and their abilities: Witch’s Staff, Sister Blades, Umbral Flames, Moonstone Axe, and Argent Skull. Several of their Aspects, which upgrade and enhance each weapon in different ways, were reworked too. Argent Skull now earns Glory faster when using Omega Cast and has a much more responsive Omega Special. There’s also a long list of Daedalus Hammer upgrades that have been changed or completely replaced.
Perhaps most importantly for players still working on their first successful run of the Early Access version, Chronos should be slightly easier to beat now. One of his huge AOE attacks will no longer hit Melinoë when she’s seemingly in a safe zone, along with other “various fixes and adjustments.”
Infernal Cerberus received minor adjustments, while Polyphemus’s Mutant Sheep attack was made weaker. Eris’ grenade attacks should be less chaotic and the Hippo self-destruct is less likely to randomly kill you. But my favorite patch note of all is the following: “While brooding over the family portrait in the Crossroads, you may now snap out of it sooner.”
Here are all the latest Hades 2 patch notes:
Hades 2 Early Access Patch 2 Notes
General Gameplay
You now can encounter up to one additional Olympian each night (as in the previous game)
You now are likely to find one more Boon or other major reward while in ErebusIncreased invulnerability duration after your Death Defiance effects activate
Improved rewards of Ash and Psyche can now be found in Oceanus and the Rift of Thessaly
You now can press-and-hold to harvest repeatedly from Crescent Pick Outcroppings
Toula should now stay closer to you in Encounters, especially in the Fields of Mourning
Nemesis no longer offers Death Defiance items if you do not need to refill the effect
Reduced Gold cost of Selene’s Boon when available in Charon’s Shop
Minor adjustments to the order in which Olympians may first appear early on
Normalized chances of finding Fishing Points in various regions
Nocturnal Arms & Abilities
Witch’s Staff: Special knocks foes away, but is slightly slower; Omega Special is faster
Sister Blades: Special staggers standard foes longer; Attack visual FX better match the hitbox
Umbral Flames: Attacks are stronger and faster; Omega Attack channels faster and uses less magick; Special gives a speed boost, but has reduced damage; Omega Special can be channeled while moving
Moonstone Axe: reworked Special provides a lingering barrier; Omega Attack channels slightly faster; Omega Special channels faster
Argent Skull: Omega Attack channels faster and hits a larger area
Aspects of the Nocturnal Arms
Witch’s Staff (Circe): adjusted activation and duration of Serenity effect; Serenity now adds Omega bonus damage that scales with this Aspect’s rank
Witch’s Staff (Momus): reworked; each of your Omega Moves automatically fires several times in succession from where you use them
Sister Blades (Artemis): you will Block again if the effect recharges while you are channeling; Block now takes priority over Dodge and similar effects
Umbral Flames (Eos): reworked; Omega Attack now fires a slow shot that occasionally creates damage blasts and also copies your Specials
Moonstone Axe (Melinoë): reworked; now adds Power and Max Life
Dark Side: slightly increased Magick-spend requirement
Foes & Encounters
Chronos: various fixes and adjustments; there should be fewer cases where he’s patently unfair
Infernal Cerberus: minor adjustments to some attack patterns in the first phase
Eris: grenade attacks no longer wildly bounce around
Polyphemus: reduced effectiveness of
Goldwrath: reduced accuracy and tracking of beam attack
Queen Lamia: slightly increased Armor; increased speed; other minor changes
Reed-Stalker: increased projectile speed and target distance; reduced rotation speed
Mourner: slightly increased rotation speed; slightly increased speed while attacking
Lamia: slightly increased life and Elite armor
Dire Shambler: reduced tracking speed between attacks
Hippo: self-destruct area should more closely match the visuals
Level Design & Environments
Burning Oil Slicks in the will extinguish after Encounters, though may be reignited
Adjusted Oil Slicks in some locations in the
Minor fixes to several locations
Fated List of Minor Prophecies
Clearing Original Sins no longer requires choosing the very rare Barren curse from
Chaos Trials
Trial of Heartache: reduced difficulty and adjusted based on Aspect changes
Trial of Haste: reduced difficulty and adjusted based on Aspect changes
Oath of the Unseen
Vow of Forsaking: no longer helps ensure you quickly get Duo and Legendary Boons
Menus & UI
Added many new UI icons for Keepsakes, Weapons, Well of Charon offerings, and more
Insight Into Offerings (Cauldron) now also lets you check each Olympian’s list of offerings in the Book of Shadows while choosing their Boons (or the equivalent with other characters)
With the prior change, adjusted default key binding for Rarify; some custom bindings have been reset
Added a warning when you are down to your last use of Death Defiance
Opening the Book of Shadows should show entries for nearby characters more reliably
Removed the Unused Grasp notification when exiting the Altar of Ashes while at a high Grasp limit
Updated Pitch-Black Stone screen to use Aspect-specific icons
Adjusted input action bar layout at the bottom of the Boon Screen and similar
Added borders to icons for Selene Hexes on the Gifts of the Moon screen
Added informational pop-up when using F10 to report bugs
Other minor changes
Art & Visual FX
Reduced some full-screen flashing or strobing, such as from time-slow effects
Music & SFX
Added SFX for when certain active abilities such as Serenity are ready to use
Updated placeholder SFX for various Keepsakes
Updated SFX for projectile collisions with Umbral Flames (Moros)
Voice & Narrative
Unique voice lines should play more reliably when certain incantations are revealed in the Cauldron
·Added voice lines when using Phase Shift (Selene) vs. (or trying to…)
More voice lines should play when confiding in Frinos in certain contexts
Miscellaneous
While brooding over the family portrait in the Crossroads, you may now snap out of it sooner
You now can fully control the game using keyboard only if you rebind Attack and Special
All timers now pause while in the presence of Charon
An Anvil of Fates will no longer be offered in if you have not found a Daedalus Hammer
In the Flashback, adjusted timing of hint for players who don’t realize they are in control
Reduced requirements for the incantation Power to Pause and Reflect to be revealed
Melinoë now respawns in the center of her magick circle near her tent (she was a bit off before…)
Improved compatibility with more types of controllers
Updated text for various upgrades and abilities
Bug Fixes
Fixed Double Up (Poseidon) sometimes doubling Mystery Boons; clarified description
Fixed Nightmare resources dropping unexpectedly in Chaos Trials
Fixed Omega moves occasionally becoming unresponsive after being chomped on by
Fixed deadliest attack of occasionally hitting when Melinoë was in a supposedly safe point
Fixed The Queen and Judgment (Arcana) appearing active while no others Arcana are active
Fixed Hearth Gain (Hestia) no longer restoring Magick if chosen as a Sacrifice Boon
Fixed certain later Oath Testaments for the Sister Blades sometimes not appearing as expected
Fixed cases where you could go out of bounds using the Argent Skull in the battle vs.
Fixed more cases of some visual effects vs. lingering between phases or after the fight
Fixed Toula unceremoniously vanishing after you vanquish Chronos
Fixed additional issues with Sun Worshiper (Apollo)
Fixed additional issues with Dark Side (Selene)
Fixed additional issues with Twilight Curse (Selene)
Fixed a visual issue where could appear to slide after snared by your Cast
Fixed Spark of Ixion (Charon) causing a to appear in
Fixed Golden Boughs sometimes not marking all available rewards in the
Fixed several narrative events that could play out of sequence
Fixed Odysseus rather rudely walking away while in conversation with Nemesis
Fixed sometimes leaping away forever
Fixed Melinoë’s voice reverting during her return sequence despite certain enchantments
Fixed incorrect portrait in the Book of Shadows
Fixed incorrect music playing in some Chaos Trials, or not playing as intended in some instances
Fixed rare cases of a looping sound playing indefinitely
Fixed a rare instance when objectives in the Training Grounds could overlap
Fixed several minor issues on the Victory Screen that shows when you prevail
Fixed additional miscellaneous issues when playing in ultrawide resolutions
Fixed a rare crash in which the effect of Winter Harvest (Demeter) could repeat forever
Fixed various other rare crashes
Fixed several text errors
Other minor fixes
It’s clear Super Giant Games is meticulously monitoring every aspect of the game ahead of its full launch on PC and console in 2025. The studio said the next update will re-balance Boons. Until then, there’s plenty for players to dig into and begin testing with Patch 2.
has largely kept its lips sealed about the Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D remake since announcing it three years ago, but the publisher has now revealed which platforms it’s coming to. When it eventually arrives, you’ll be able to play it on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC (via Steam).
Since Square Enix started using its distinctive HD-2D tech with , the company has put it to use in a string of titles, including , , the and ‘s opera scene. Based on the , the HD-2D engine is set to give Dragon Quest 3 a serious visual upgrade, nearly three decades after the original game arrived in 1988.
The new version may not be too far away either. The teaser suggested that the Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D remake “draws near,” several months after series creator Yuji Horii said he was . With Summer Game Fest and all its associated events , we could find out more details about the remake very soon.
Square Enix released the teaser on Dragon Quest Day, which marks the anniversary of the very first game in the series debuting in Japan in 1986. Horii took the opportunity to provide an minor update on the next mainline entry as well. Square Enix announced Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate back in 2021, but there’s been no sign of a release date as yet. That said, Horii wants it to live up to the legacies of key Dragon Quest creatives Akira Toriyama and Koichi Sugiyama.
“Thank you so much to everyone for the many [Dragon Quest Day] congratulations!” Horii , according to . “There has been some worry about Dragon Quest XII, but I was actually in a meeting [about it] until just a bit ago. While I can’t share any details yet, I want it to be something worthy of the posthumous work of the two [Toriyama and Sugiyama] who passed away. I’ll do my best!”
It’s the middle of May 2024 and that means we’re nearly halfway through the year. What has this year been like in video game news? Tons of layoffs (sad), lots of new games (glad), and some weird outliers, as usual. This week, we saw set photos and official shots from The Last of Us season two, dove back into the GameStop stock market, and asked the dude who nuked Phil Spencer in Fallout 76 about his motivations. Click through for all of this week’s best breaking news.
Stellar Blade, the Nier: Auotmata-ish PS5 character action game, has a bunch of chests to unlock that give you all kinds of sweet rewards, from healing items to gold to crafting resources. Many of these chests require that you input a sequence of buttons in an allotted time limit, while others need a passcode to open. There’s one in Xion, the game’s main hub world, that’s like this, demanding a passcode before unlocking. It’s called Aaron’s Locker and, truth be told, you may already have what you need to get the chest opened. – Levi Winslow Read More
On April 29, an in-development farm sim from Crytivo called Farm Folks shared a now-deleted post about breast jiggle physics on its official X/Twitter account that kickstarted a firestorm, emboldened gaming’s baddest actors, and wreaked havoc in the game’s official Discord. The team behind the studio has since apologized, but the aftermath lingers, leaving confusion and doubt about the company’s true intentions in its wake.
I spoke to the CEO of Crytivo, Alex Koshelkov, about the post, jiggle physics, bad actors, and more, to try and paint a clearer picture.
The Farm Folks breast physics controversy
The post in question, shared to Farm Folks’ more than 28,000 followers on X/Twitter and beyond, featured a paneled video of three versions of one of Farm Folks’ femme-presenting characters walking, with three different percentages displayed on each panel. The text accompanying the post read: “Alright, folks, it’s time for some serious game development talk! We’re tinkering with character physics in Farm Folks. Burning question: which version has the perfect breast jiggle physics?”
The percentages (30, 50, and 90) indicated the level of jiggle physics applied to the character. The official Farm Folks account replied to its own post, asking fans if they wanted to see “what 150% looks like.”
Screenshot: Crytivo / Kotaku
The responses were less than positive, clearly charged by the culture war currently raging in games that’s seen a fifty-something former Blizzard employee rallying people against community managers, Pokemon GO changes, a narrative design company, and the perceived censoring of Shift Up’s new action RPG Stellar Blade. Members of the Farm Folks Discord took to the chat to demand clarity about the social post, wondering if it was fueled by misogynistic attitudes in games or was just very, very tone deaf. Bad actors flooded the comments on X/Twitter, and some bled into the Discord, as well.
After being tagged, Crytivo founder Alex Koshelkov joined the conversation, writing, “Sorry guys, I was going through morning calls. Let me check what’s happening here and I’ll respond.” He went back and forth with a few people, with some questioning Koshelkov’s alleged ignorance regarding the GG2.0 movement. He apologized several times.
Screenshot: Discord / Kotaku
“I’m not pretending; I’m explaining the reasoning behind this,” Koshelkov wrote in one apology. “Our goal is not to over-sexualize our characters; it’s the opposite. The goal is to achieve realistic physics and reactions to the world. We have ragdolls, we have inverse kinematics, hair moves with wind, and so on. It just felt natural to have tasteful breast movement on the character.”
Koshlekov promised that the original post would be deleted and an apology would be shared in its wake. That apology said that the team “crossed a line” and was “inappropriate” in its portrayal of in-game jiggle physics. It was jumped on by Mark Kern, the aforementioned former Blizzard employee.
Kern posted a statement on X/Twitter saying that “you should never apologize to cancel pigs” because “they were never your customers. They don’t buy games/comics. They will ask for more and will even blast you for your apology. They want to hurt you, and an apology only emboldens them to do more. You lose sales. Your real customers hate you for caving. You leave money on the table. You have an obscure indie game and it’s hard to stand out. You literally missed your chance to get 10x the support and visibility by doing this. It’s not too late @FarmFolksGame. If you delete the apology and put the jiggle physics back in, and tell them to pound sand, you can still rocket your game to marketing success.”
His post was one of many lamenting Farm Folks’ decision to apologize for the post.
Image: Crytivo
Farm Folks CEO on backlash, boob physics, and bad actors
I didn’t expect Koshlekov to respond to my request for comment, let alone talk to me via Discord video call for over an hour about Farm Folks, his dislike of “cozy game” labels, the game’s purposefully cheeky content (which you can see in some of its oldersocialmediaposts), and American politics. (Koshlekov is originally from Turkmenistan.)
“The wording was silly,” he said when I asked about the original post, the response to which he said was “overwhelming” and “unfortunate” because “the internet is almost a one-sided court” where “no matter what we say, it doesn’t matter.”
“The original idea was—yeah we spiced it up with a joke, which was the problem—but the general idea was to make sure that we’re doing [breast physics] right…because our game is very immersive. It’s not that we’re fixated on women’s parts…our entire character body is full of technology…to me, breast movement was not controversial since it’s human biology.”
Farm Folks’ social media presence has historically been somewhat cheeky.Image: Crytivo / Farm Folks on X
Koshlekov insisted that “he wasn’t even following” the Stellar Blade discourse. “I learned more about it recently, so that’s why we really wouldn’t gaslight [and pretend we didn’t know].” He then talked at length about how Farm Folks wasn’t just a cozy game, that it has elements of immersive sims, PvP and PvE modes, and was overall “a bit more mature” than other games in the genre.
“We’re apologizing for the wording…and there’s people saying ‘you guys shouldn’t apologize, not cool, you should stand up to the crowd.’ No, we fucked up. We’re happy to apologize.”
But the bouncy boobs will stay in some capacity: “Regarding elegant, tasteful [breast physics] implementation, I still think that we’re going to do it.”
More than once in our conversation, Koshlekov referred to “both sides,” suggesting that there were bad actors involved on either end of the spectrum. I asked if he wanted Farm Folks to court the kind of players that joined the Discord in bad faith, or those who believe that boobies should be bouncing at 150% physics. This was his response, edited for brevity and clarity:
We don’t want vulgarity. Because like, it can be fun. It can be a little bit goofy, it can be meme-y, but we’re not gonna go after, like over-sexualization goofiness in the ways like Conan Exiles, where you can like modify penises and things like that. We’ve listened to our community, we heard that sometimes we talk about, like, implementing, like, that jiggle physics, right? Which, again, like, we obviously have tons of settings for any kind of physics, like the body parts, just like we can, we can do it with soft spots like the butt, we can do it with chest, shoulders. Anything’s like we’re just assigning it—it just makes it immersive.
But to answer your question—No, we don’t want to attract nasty people, we don’t want those. We will have some limits—like as much as we want to give it, but it’s so controversial—I want the player to choose how they want their character to look. Like, if you want, for example, the breast to have a little more movement or not. But like again, it’s not going to be like you scroll [the physics slider] up and then this is just like all over the place, and it’s like, goofy…We are definitely not tailoring our game for little kids…We want to spice it up for people to have action, to have fun.”
Here, he digressed into talking about GTA and the team’s plans for PvP elements before asking my opinion on the issue. I told him that I had been the subject of a harassment campaign since early March. I said that I felt not pigeonholing his game in the cozy genre was smart, before bringing it back to the discourse, and the harassment that has often followed suit.
“The issue is political…some groups of people don’t agree with this, and some groups of people have no limits,” he said. “I think we’re in the crossfire, and the question goes to if [the post] was intentional or not—like, no, not really…We’re not using any kind of gross tactics where it’s enraging our community. That’s stupid, right? I’ve been hearing a little bit about the, I don’t really know the game name, the Blade game, I’ve seen the screenshots [of protagonist Eve’s outfits and body] and they’re crazy to me…it’s not even almost fitting to the game.”
I asked how he felt about some people, Kern included, saying that Farm Folks will miss out on support from because of its apology.
“Fuck that. I don’t care what he thinks,” Koshlekov replied. “I’m apologizing for structuring it badly…if we were to rewind the times, we would skip that.” He confirmed that some of his Discord responses were formulated really quickly, and there were some language barrier issues because of the swiftness in which they were written. “But I don’t want to use that as justifications, if we fucked up with that, we fucked up that.”
“We don’t want to be a part of [the culture war]. We don’t want [Kern] to give us any recommendations, we prefer to evaluate it from what we consider human character…we want to be sincere with our fans and do good…we don’t want to get into that kind of dirt,” he said. “I see this as the biggest problem in the United States [Farm Folks’ 20-person team is based in Dallas, Texas, nine of which are women], all the people are very divided. There’s two camps and everybody’s throwing stones at each other. I’m more on the side of like, we need to—it sounds a little bit silly—but I think it’s about uniting and finding a language between each other.”
“The goal is for players to properly represent themselves in the game. We’re not aiming for over-exaggerations,” Koshlekov insisted. “The goal is to make it very elegant and very sensitive to women and their bodies…You have to be a very poor person to kind of sexualize this…like the internet is full of sex right now. There’s some crazy things that you can find, if you’re having problems with our characters, like, look for help. Maybe go and date a woman or something like that. Because this is not our goal, we don’t want to attract people that are attracted to only these body parts.”
Though Koshlekov toed the “both sides” line, he did make it clear that the goal of Farm Folks is to “be diverse.”
“I’m not afraid of that word. I know those guys can pick it up and start shaking it like crazy like monkeys in a zoo, but we are after diverse gameplay. Everybody’s welcome. Doesn’t matter what your gender or your preference is, everybody’s welcome.”
I felt more than a little bit of whiplash while talking to Koshlekov—in one breath he’d say something like “everyone is welcome” and in another he’d bemoan the existence of radicals on both sides. He told me he was talking to me with an open heart, but made a comment about the press twisting words. In our over hour-long conversation, he spoke about saving bugs in his house, how young I looked (thanks Botox), and Turkmenistan politics. But ultimately, it felt like he was open to having a discussion and against bad actors using Farm Folks as a battleground for their culture war, even if he was hesitant to make sweeping, politically charged statements.
Only time will tell.
Not long after we concluded our interview, I was told that one person who was speaking out against the boob physics post was kicked from the Farm Folks Discord, ostensibly after asking about past Kickstarter campaigns. “We’re not banning anyone if they have questions or constructive criticism,” Koshlekov said in a Discord DM.
Update 05/02/2024 at 5:30 p.m. EST: After several posts of Koshlekov’s were sent to me in which he stated that one of the above quotes misrepresented him, I reached out via Discord DM and asked what he felt was misrepresented. Below is the complete quote from our original conversation, unedited, as well as his statement.
To the politics where it’s like there’s almost no way of winning any of them right, but like I don’t really want to win any of them. In a way—If you don’t understand and if you’re being radical about it is there’s not much we can do about that but the message with the game to like the fans that would like to enjoy the game, so the goal is to properly represent themselves in the game. We’re not aiming for like over-exaggerations, we want to be delicate and elegant with this, right, so we want to have it like some immersive elements in our games, but we’re not for some goofy disrespectful things like over-exaggerating things that can offend, and as I told my team I was like even like offending or hurting like five people in our, in our community base, we have no problems apologizing for that, right like, so we will try to tailor towards everyone it’s like they call it as our weaknesses is like ‘all you guys tailored towards your fan base,’ it’s like no, it’s like we are making a game, we want to make sure that like everybody likes it, you know, it’s like, of course, there’s a little bit of people, as you mentioned on both sides, like no matter what we do, but the goal is to make it very elegant and very sensitive to to women to their bodies. And if, again, I just feel like, like, of course, it doesn’t need to be over-exaggerated, but it can potentially exist in the game. [AM: Yeah] At the same time, we have no problems, like disabling it, but I feel like that’s a little bit of loss in the way that like, again, I don’t think that there’s any kind of sexual emotions attached to them. Right? Like, it’s just like, you have to be a very, very poor person to, to kind of sexualize that was like, like, like. The internet is full of sex right now. Like, there’s some crazy things that you can find, then if you are having problem with our characters, like, I feel like that’s, like, look for help. [Both laugh] Like, I think like maybe go and go date the woman or some things like or something like that. Because it’s like, this is not our goals. Like we don’t want to attract people that, like, are attracted to only these body parts. And we wanted to make it immersive and nice and kind of, because it’s hard for me to use word ‘realistic’ because, like, people will call us like ‘your game is not realistic’. But it’s style. Stylistically realistic. [AM: Yeah] Right. And always, like we’re paying attention to little details like realism, but it’s stylized, you know, it’s like so it’s still we’re trying to do realistic, right, like, character is reacting things. So like, they’re gonna get cold, they’re going to get warm, you have to wear cold, cold, cold jackets during the winter, like snow pants and everything is like we’re paying a lot of attention. And it’s just like, this particular piece, people are just like, get very attracted to it was like, in a ways like I still want to treat it as, we clearly fucked up with the message right? Like, but like I feel like having the mechanic like that, as you said as well as like, I think it’s okay, as long as it’s like, tastefully implemented. [AM: Yeah]. Without any craziness.
Kolshekov’s statement, sent via Discord DM:
“Hi Alyssa, I strongly believe that this sentence was taken out of a context to support a specific narrative and goal. I believe it’s part of a larger context where you and I agreed that having a breast physics in the game is acceptable. The quote that you shared was my response to people that are offended by the breast movement in the game. I’m clarifying what I meant since it seems it was taken out of bigger context and I probably didn’t choose the best words to express it. I didn’t intend to hurt anyone or call names, but it’s being interpreted this way now.”
Fans of the original Dragon’s Dogma never dreamed the wonky fantasy RPG might get a sequel. Over a decade later, Capcom delivered a successor that improved on the flaws of the first without shaving off the sharp edges that earned it a cult following to begin with.
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Weeks after it launched, Dragon’s Dogma 2 hasn’t just sold well, it’s been the perfect breeding ground for fun discoveries and strange player tales. It’s also been a lightning rod for debate, despite being one of the highest rated games of 2024. Here are the ups, downs, and everything in-between since Dragon’s Dogma 2’s launched on March 22.
Fans freak out over Dragon’s Dogma 2’s microtransactions
Screenshot: Valve / Kotaku
The game’s Steam page displays all the things you can buy with real money, many of which are included in the Deluxe Edition. They include camping kits, Wakestones, Portcrystals, and other in-game items that save time and impact gameplay. Reviewers of the game point out that most of the resources are earned easily enough just by playing, but for some players the mere existence of the option to buy them feels like a corrupting influence. The paid item for changing characters’ appearances gets modded into the game on day one.
Steam reviews are a mess
While early reviews were glowing, the game gets slammed on Steam. With a less than 40 percent positive rating in its first day, PC players complain about poor optimization. Performance issues range from glacial framerates in some areas to occasional freezes and crashes. A Capcom rep tells IGN ahead of release that it’s aware of CPU issues and is looking into them.
Players discover the horrors of Dragonsplague
Dragon’s Dogma 2’s NPC companions, called Pawns, are vulnerable to a mysterious illness called Dragonsplague. If left untreated long enough, it triggers a deadly transformation that can wipe out cities. “One of the pawns nukes the entire village because of Dragonsplague and I had no inkling at all that they had caught it,” one player reports. “No voice lines, no comments of staying away from them, no glowing red eyes. My save is now just fucked because of this mechanic.”
One of the surest ways to spot the illness is if Pawns start acting rudely. Players listen carefully for any signs of bad manners, while some kill their companions before ever sleeping over at an Inn. The easiest way to do that is throwing Pawns into the bodies of water inhabited by Brine, misty creatures that kill everything they touch. As a result, players start hurling NPCs off cliffs en masse.
A Pawn pyramid scheme creates free money
Screenshot: Valve / Kotaku
Dragon’s Dogma 2’s economy is all over the place, with things like Ox cart rides between cities being relatively cheap, while haircuts cost hundreds, and rooms at Inns can cost thousands. Fortunately, players figure out an exploit for quick cash involving sending Pawns out on quests online for things like killing monsters.
By setting the quest rewards for 10,000, other players can hire the Pawn and collect the bounty. While the first player has to pay it out to send the Pawn on the quest in the first place, an endless number of other players can rent the Pawn to snag the reward. The result is that Dragon’s Dogma 2’s Rift dimension becomes flooded with free Pawn money.
Dragon’s Dogma 2’s first patch adds do-overs
One of the weirdest things about Capcom’s RPG ends up being the fact that there’s only one save file that constantly gets updated. Players can’t even start their game over from the beginning until Dragon’s Dogma 2’s first patch on March 29. The update also adds more graphics options for console, makes it easier to get a house earlier in the game, and changes the number of Art of Metamorphosises that can be purchased from 2 to 99.
Capcom takes pity on unwanted Pawns
A player by the name of MrFoxer on the Dragon’s Dogma subreddit notes that Capcom appears to be manufacturing artificial players to rent out Pawns if nobody real is doing it. “You can tell whether an actual player rented your pawn by attempting to view their profile while looking at your pawn’s report,” they write. “If the option is greyed out, it’s a ‘fake player.’” Some fans are crestfallen. “Well thats nice but also kinda sad since no one wants to actually use our Pawn,” one writes. “Oof, 99% of my rents are greyed out,” writes another. “Feels bad, but never mind.”
The server-hopping companions continue to be one of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s most fascinating playgrounds. Pawns who are rented out for real start returning to their players with rotten food as fans try to devise ways to warn one another about possible Dragonsplauge afflictions. Other players prank one another by sending Pawns back with forged Ferristones as gifts.
The worst NPC in the land
Image: Capcom / FX / Kotaku
Meet Martin, the human magistrate from Vernworth that everyone hates. He’s hard to find, breaks quests, and is just an all-around sack of griffon turds. Players can kill him after finding him in Melve yelling at Ulrika for treason and they do.
A one-hit kill “Unmaking Arrow” is a godsend
Survival can be tough in Dragon’s Dogma 2. Massive mythical creatures stalk you at every turn. But none of them can stand up to the Unmaking Arrow, an item so powerful Capcom autosaves the game after you use it. At least one player managed to circumvent this save-scumming safeguard using cheat engine tools and proceeded to kill everything they came across. Regular fans debate the best vocations in the game. Many believe it’s obviously Mystic Spearhand or Magick Archer while others claim the base Thief and Sorcerer roles remain superior.
Players debate the game’s friction
Dragon’s Dogma 2 limits fast travel, doesn’t let you fully restore health unless you’re in town or have camping equipment, and severely limits the amount of junk you can carry in your inventory. The consensus is that the fantasy RPG is friction-heavy compared to other open world games like modern Assassin’s Creed titles, but less unanimous is whether that’s always a good thing or occasionally masks genuine shortcomings. Theresultingconversationisinconclusivebut enlightening.
A second major patch nerfs Dragonsplague
After untold death and destruction, the development team decides to dial back Dragon’s Dogma 2’s Pawn disease. In addition to being more noticeable, the sickness is also less frequent. The April 25 update also reduces how much NPCs banter during quests and removes old treasure chests from players’ maps, in addition to other fixes. What it doesn’t do is markedly improve performance on PC.
Capcom shareholders get an unexpected payout
Dragon’s Dogma 2sells 2.5 million copies in its first 10 days where the first game took a whole month just to sell less than half that amount. That brings the franchise’s lifetime total sales up to 10 million, pushing it well past the cult status it had previously enjoyed for years. “Dragons Dogma 2 was released in the fourth quarter and has performed favorably,” Capcom announced in a revision to its earnings forecast. It increased its projected dividend per company share by $.03. Not enough to afford a night in Bakbattahl but enough that the company also increases salaries for new graduate hires.
I love destroying things. The physical destruction of objects can be funny and cathartic. Thankfully, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth lets me indulge my desires for destruction in a limited but fun way. While in Costa del Sol, you can hop on a “wheelie,” the game’s in-world equivalent of a Segway vehicle, and smash it into restaurant tables, seats, barrels, and other property. Fun! Better still, you can earn some neat items for riding around on a wheelie, and finding ways to weave some destruction into your travels can liven up the otherwise pretty boring process of gliding around on your own personal transporter device. – Claire Jackson Read More
If you thought that Excel spreadsheets were just for mind-numbing office work, think again. A gaming hobbyist has created an Excel-based RPG game that he based on the popular post-apocalyptic game Fallout. It’s the end of the world, all over again.
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How do you turn spreadsheet software into a video game? Don’t ask me because I have less than zero idea. That said, the game’s creator, YouTuber “Dynamic Pear,” has offered a quick tutorial on how to use his weird, makeshift game that was developed via everybody’s least favorite office software.
On his website, “Pear” gives a brief description of the game’s story like so:
It is the 145th year of the second age. Life in Mercer is unrecognisable to that which came earlier – The bombs saw to that. Humanity may never fully recover…Adventure beckons once more, and you are ready to answer its call!
The YouTuber explains that his game has two components: “Mapping and Questing” and “Battling.” You can move through the various areas of the bombed-out RPG environment…
Screenshot: YouTube/Dynamic Pear
…or you can duel with the various characters you encounter along the way.
Screenshot: YouTube/Dynamic Pear
The website also offers more details about the various quirks of the gameplay and includes a link where you can download the game.
The inspiration behind this creation, Fallout, is a popular post-apocalyptic video game that takes place after a nuclear war. The first version of it was originally released in 1997 and was playable on Mac, Windows, and MS-DOS. It was originally spawned by a previous 1988 game, dubbed Wasteland. Since then, there have been four sequels and a number of spinoffs. But the big reason we’re seeing this now is that the Amazon Prime Video TV series based on the games has exploded in popularity and inspired people to head back to the experiences that started it all. In this case, someone made a new experience just for you.
Anyway, if you’re looking to make your workday slightly more interesting and you don’t have access to the Eggman Game, my suggestion would be to check out Dynamic Pear’s interesting creation. It’s probably the most fun you’ll ever have with spreadsheets.
When I started playing Fallout 76 in 2018 there were no backpacks. So I never thought about it. But when I learned from a random comment that backpacks had been added after that point and had been in the game for years, I felt stupid for never crafting one. And then I went to collect the recipe for a pack and felt even dumber. Let me help you avoid this situation.
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Yes, like many players, I’ve returned to the irradiated online wasteland ofFallout 76. I had started feeling the itch for my on-again-off-again MMO months before the Fallout show. But I resisted. However, after watching the entirety of Amazon’s excellent live-action series based on the post-apocalyptic RPG franchise, it was too hard to stop myself from re-installing Bethesda’s online version of Fallout. As is often the case, I spent a chunk of my time in Fallout 76 trying to figure out more ways to carry all the random junk needed to build structures and craft items in the game.
My annoying quest to get a backpack
During a random perusal of the Fallout 76 subreddit, I discovered that backpacks had been added to the game in a past update. And they let you carry more stuff. I was intrigued! I also felt like a dummy. A moment later, I did a quick Google search and found a Reddit post and a couple of guides explaining how to get a backpack. Seemed simple enough. So I booted up Fallout 76 and headed to the Morgantown Airport.
According to Reddit, the blueprint for crafting the useful pack was upstairs in the airport in an area you visit in the early hours of Fallout 76. I had been here years ago, but never came back since making my original character. During the 2019 Wild Appalachia update, Bethesda added the backpack blueprint in this early game area. Makes sense, as many new players will stumble upon it.
However, for players who have been journeying through the game for years already, you could easily miss it as you’d have no need to return to the airport. So back I went. I fought my way through the enemies inside and found the chest upstairs and discovered… no blueprint.
Screenshot: Bethesda
Why the backpack isn’t in the Morgantown Airport
At that moment I had a thought, the same one that I have many times in Fallout 76: “Hmmm, did I do something wrong or is the game just broken?”
So I booted up Fallout 76 again, joined a new world, quickly fought my way up through the airport and…no backpack in the chest. Again. This time I checked the web for anyone else experiencing this bug and many others were complaining that, yes, the backpack wasn’t in the airport.
Turns out Bethesda actually moved where the blueprint spawns to a different area a few months ago, a spot that new players will encounter even earlier in their opening hours of Fallout 76.
I felt dumber than ever. But now, let me help you get a backpack—which is very useful—and help you avoid this silly series of events.
How to unlock and craft the backpack in Fallout 76
To get a backpack now (in April 2024) you need to head to the Overseer’s Camp located south of Fallout 76 near the Wayward bar. It’s near a river just north of Green County Lodge and is located in a chest marked as the Overseer’s cache.
Screenshot: Bethesda / Fallout Wiki / Kotaku
Loot the plans and then check your inventory—you should be able to activate or “learn” the recipe. At that point, assuming you have the materials, you can now craft a backpack at an armor bench. You’ll need one piece of cloth, one piece of leather and a piece of steel. As you level up you can craft better versions of the pack that hold even more weight.
If you are a new player who started playing in the last few weeks, you likely already picked up the plans for the backpack after visiting the Overseer’s Camp.
If you can’t craft a pack, check the “Notes” section of your inventory and make sure you’ve activated the backpack plan. Just keep in mind you can’t use a backpack while wearing power armor in Fallout 76.
If you loved the Fallout TV series and want to dive into a game that’s like it, but not too like it, we curated a list for you. We’ve also got some hidden Nintendo Switch secrets to make the most of the handheld console, lingering Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth help, and yeah, we’re back into Destiny 2. Read on for the major tips of the week.
Image: EA / Dice, Crunchyroll, Bethesda Softworks, Arrowhead Game Studios / Sony, Blizzard, Atlus, Screenshot: Fox News / Kotaku, Toei Animation / Konami, Ordz Games / Kotaku
Another week’s in the books for 2024, and there were some interesting updates in the world of games, anime, and more. Battlefield 2042 is no more, no one knows what’s next for Helldivers 2, Scrabble is woke, and Hatsune Miku fans are mad. Let’s get into it.
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