Pokémon’s profit margins probably don’t reflect it, but the franchise had a rough year in 2023. Without a new mainline role-playing game to dominate the series’ headlines, Pikachu and friends were, instead, shrouded in controversies throughout the past 12 months. Between Pokémon Go angering swaths of its community, scalpers making a public embarrassment of the franchise to people who don’t even pay attention to it, and Scarlet and Violet’s DLC underlining the problems ingrained within the Pokémon pipeline, the screws are coming loose on the hype train. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
Pokémon’s profit margins probably don’t reflect it, but the franchise had a rough year in 2023. Without a new mainline role-playing game to dominate the series’ headlines, Pikachu and friends were, instead, shrouded in controversies throughout the past 12 months. Between Pokémon Go angering swaths of its community, scalpers making a public embarrassment of the franchise to people who don’t even pay attention to it, and Scarlet and Violet’s DLC underlining the problems ingrained within the Pokémon pipeline, the screws are coming loose on the hype train. And yet, it cannot be stopped as it barrels down the tracks. Pokémon’s 2023 had its moments, but overall, it was pretty grim for a series usually so full of hope.
Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
Detective Pikachu Returns pulls off its story better than the movie
To start off with some good, Detective Pikachu Returnsfinally came to Switch and wrapped up the original 3DS game’s bewildering cliffhanger. Without a new RPG out this year, Detective Pikachu Returns was the only home console game Pokémon fans got in 2023. The adventure game is pretty simple, but maintains the original’s charm and compelling setting. The ending felt pretty definitive, but hopefully, it’s not the end of The Pokémon Company greenlighting adventure games in the Pokémon universe.
Image: The Pokémon Company
Pokémon Sleep finally wakes up
After years of teases, Pokémon Sleep, the sleeping app meant to encourage consistent sleeping habits, finally launched on mobile devices. In our review, I talked about how it feels geared toward kids who need a little motivation to get to sleep on time. Arceus knows it’s near impossible for an adult with sleep disorders and things to do in the morning to get their recommended eight hours of shuteye. But the app is the latest example of Pokémon getting into lifestyle and wellness, following Pokémon Go’s lead of gamifying daily activity while building people’s relationships with the Pokémon brand.
Photo: Kenneth Shepard
Pokémon remains a community hub
Whether you were one of the 194,000 trainers attending Pokémon Go Fest or were in attendance during the Pokémon World Championships in Yokohama this year, Pokémon remains a community-driven series that brings people together. I even attended my first Go Fest this year, and having felt walled off from that side of the community living in rural Georgia, it was an invigorating experience to be surrounded by so many people coming together for a common love.
Image: The Pokémon Company
The anime ushers in a new era
One of the biggest events of Pokémon history happened in 2023, with long-time protagonist Ash Ketchum walking into the sunset in a final episode. The episode itself didn’t end with a definitive story beat but essentially said he and his partner Pikachu would continue to go on adventures throughout the Pokémon world, but we wouldn’t get to follow them. Instead, Pokémon Horizons, which follows new heroes Liko and Roy, has usurped Ash and Pikachu’s adventures as the primary animated series. The series has been airing in Japan since April, and will finally come to English-speaking territories in February 2024. Though it remains to be seen if Liko and Roy will ascend to Ash’s status as a beloved, iconic hero in anime, Horizons has already garnered acclaim from fans for its lovingly crafted animation.
Image: The Pokémon Company / Netflix
Pokémon shows of all shapes and sizes
While Liko and Roy are headlining the anime, Pokémon has had two more TV projects in 2023 that expand beyond 2D animation. This includes PokéTsume, a live-action drama starring a young woman who sorts through her personal and professional drama by playing Pokémon (she’s just like me, FR), and Pokémon Concierge, a stop-motion animation series on Netflix that is available to stream today, December 28. The Pokémon machine primarily focuses on games, anime, and merchandise as its core pillars, so it’s been nice to see The Pokémon Company continue to expand its projects to tell new stories in this world that aren’t always tied to competitive sports.
Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
Scarlet and Violet’s DLC highlights the best and worst of the base games
While there was no new RPG in 2023, Scarlet and Violet got a two-part expansion called The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero. Between The Teal Maskand The Indigo Disk, fans got new maps to explore, Pokémon to catch, and tools to build competitive teams. While the new story beats didn’t capitalize enough on the base games’ incredible ending to my liking (with one major exception), I was still happy to run around new places with my friends in co-op and learn more about this world. Sadly, in the year since Scarlet and Violet launched, Game Freak hasn’t managed to get the games into a fully functional state, and The Teal Mask and Indigo Disk’s new open-world maps are just as (if not more) buggy and ugly than Paldea was in 2022.
Welcome to Exp. Share, Kotaku’s Pokémon column in which we dive deep to explore notable characters, urban legends, communities, and just plain weird quirks from throughout the Pokémon franchise.
Image: The Pokémon Company / Vincent Van Gogh
The Van Gogh Museum fiasco underlined deep-rooted issues in the community
Pokémon and the Van Gogh Museum had a collaboration this year that included Pokémon-themed recreations of legendary Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh’s works, as well as merchandise tied to the event and a rare Pikachu card available with purchase alongside these limited edition items. As anyone who has paid attention to Pokémon in the past seven years can tell you, scalpers have become an entrenched part of this community, as it’s nearly impossible attempting to buy any limited edition item without someone’s bot swooping in and buying it to resell it on sites like eBay. While Pokémon fans know to expect that, it’s not often that this issue becomes a public spectacle. The Van Gogh Museum’s new exhibit, however, was overrun by so many people that it looked like something out of a Black Friday sale, and rather than just being fans hoping to acquire some special merch for themselves, many of these were scalpers, looking to hoard the items and jack up the prices.
It’s not unusual for people to attempt to steal and sell Pokémon merchandise, especially cards, andt more often than not, these are just petty crimes. The Van Gogh Museum fiasco, however, was a public embarrassment for The Pokémon Company, and the museum had to cease its card distribution for the safety of its patrons and employees. But even if the card is no longer being given out at the museum, the lingering aftermath of scalpers can still be seen on overpriced eBay listings for it, as well as associated merchandise from the collaboration. The Pokémon Company issued an apology and has since offered the card through the Pokémon Center store, but has neglected to manufacture more of the merchandise.
Image: The Pokémon Company
Pokémon Go’s Remote Raid changes undermine the community it nurtured
At the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, Pokémon Go developer Niantic made it easier for players to take part in raids with Remote Raid Passes that let you play the game from anywhere. It was a huge move for the game, as it was now possible to take part in these events regardless of where you and your friends were. This was especially helpful for people who lived in rural areas where Pokémon Go was typically not well-supported, as well as disabled players who typically had trouble playing Pokémon Go due to its focus on walking to reach objectives.
In March, Niantic made Remote Raid Passes more expensive and limited how many you can use in a day, which fundamentally undermined the ways several subsets of the Pokémon Go community had been playing the game for three years. The subsequent backlash spawned a fan campaign using the hashtag #HearUsNiantic, in which players expressed how these changes affected their enjoyment of the game, with some going as far as to say the increase in price for Remote Raid Passes felt like a tax on the disabled community. Despite protests and boycotts, these restrictions remain in the game to this day.
Image: Niantic
Niantic’s struggles go beyond Pokémon Go
If the public controversy around its flagship game weren’t enough, Niantic has been the subject of a lot of bad news in 2023. In June, Kotaku reported that Niantic was shutting down its Los Angeles studio, laying off over 200 employees in the process. The company made the decision to move away from in-house development, shuttering its basketball game NBA All-World and canceling its planned Marvel game.
Two weeks later, Niantic was the subject of a lawsuit accusing it of “systemic sexual bias” against its female employees and creating a “boys club” work environment. In November, a California judge approved the lawsuit to proceed.
Image: The Pokémon Company
The death of the 3DS eShop shakes Pokémon trading
The 3DS and Wii U eShops were shut down in 2023. While this affects every game and service on those platforms, Pokémon is in a precarious position because the loss of the 3DS eShop has created a gap between Pokémon generations. Trading old Pokémon to new games has been a long-held tradition within the series. It’s taken different forms between games, but the practice has become much more streamlined with the introduction of platform-agnostic services like Pokémon Home that host Pokémon from any game that can connect to the internet. However, the 3DS has been the bridge between older generations and Home through an app called Pokémon Bank. This 3DS app is used to transfer Pokémon from 3DS games to Home, thus to Switch games like Scarlet and Violet.
Pokémon Home is still probably the best solution The Pokémon Company has launched for this problem, as it doesn’t have to rely on specific hardware to store and trade different monsters. But without Bank, some Pokémon have become difficult or even impossible to obtain and trade over to modern games. As of this writing, Bank still works for those who had it purchased and installed on their 3DS before the eShop shutdown, but the tool is no longer readily available for new players.
Image: The Pokémon Company
Competitive Pokémon has a big hacking controversy
While not every Pokémon player is embedded in the competitive scene, ranked Pokémon play is still a pillar of the RPGs millions of people play every year. However, at this year’s Pokémon World Championship tournament in Yokohama, several players were banned from competing after it was discovered they were using hacked teams that weren’t approved for competitive use at an official tournament. However, some competitors told Kotaku The Pokémon Company’s rulings on this matter have been inconsistent, which made their bans at the headlining event of the year all the more devastating. In the fallout, new data seems to reveal this kind of homebrewing of competitively viable teams is rampant within the community.
The debate about using tools like PKHeX, which allows you to create teams without finding, catching, and training the Pokémon in a game, is a complicated one. Going this route doesn’t necessarily give you a competitive edge but can be viewed as not within the spirit of the franchise. Competitive players argue that using a tool like this is just a matter of saving time, allowing users to craft a team without having to do so within the boundaries of games like Scarlet and Violet. Training Pokémon to their most powerful potential isn’t an easy feat and can take large swaths of your time, even if you have endgame resources. But the argument that you should have to train like a real Pokémon trainer to “earn” your spot in the competitive space harkens to arguments made in the games and anime themselves.
Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku
The machine must be stopped. Or at least made better
We at Kotaku launched Exp. Share, our Pokémon column, in 2023 to talk about all the wild, wonderful, weird, and woeful parts of this franchise. One of the most telling things I’ve learned in my years of covering Pokémon, especially for this column, has been that even as the series frustrates and confounds its legions of fans, those people will still show up to throw their money at it, despite their annoyance.
Issues like the supply problems that let scalpers run rampant, Pokémon Go pushing out the same community that kept it afloat, and Scarlet and Violet selling 23 million copies despite being an absolute trainwreck on a technical level only happen when The Pokémon Company is given little incentive to fix these problems. When I interviewed collectors for the Van Gogh reseller story, Grace Klich, who owns one of the Pikachu-inspired Volkswagen Beetles known as Pikabugs, pointed out that The Pokémon Company has watched systemic issues sprout up in its community over the years, but hasn’t done much to address them. Sure, the company apologized this time, but it’s not making more of what people are asking for. They made their projected profits; what does it matter if people are upset by the same supply problems they’ve always been?
This extends to pretty much every pillar of Pokémon’s business. The merch can sell out before fans can buy it because a scalper’s money clears just as easily for The Pokémon Company as that of a dedicated fan who wanted a Pikachu plush for their shelf. Pokémon COO Takato Utsunomiya said this year that the company’s annual releases may not be sustainable, as it’s affecting the quality of games like Scarlet and Violet, which are largely defined by big ideas and squandered potential. But if they sell 23 million copies despite being raked through the coals for their poor technical performance, is anything actually going to change? If The Pokémon Company knows it can count on people to show up, no matter how poor or frustrating its offerings are, can the machine ever be stopped?
Last year, Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Scarlet and Violet showed that Pokémon is growing beyond simply banking on nostalgia. But 2023 showed that all of that growth can be squandered as it inevitably gets funneled back into the bottom line. The machine is pumping out Pokémon games, cards, merchandise, and collaborations at a rate only rivaled by the late ‘90s Pokémania era. And yet, with every botched launch and misguided decision, with the ongoing lack of real change, the facade of this most hopeful franchise gets increasingly exposed for the money-making machine it is underneath.
You may not have a disembodied, talking head you can consult like Kratos does, but you do have us. This week, we’ll help you make the most out of your Stadia controllers, experience the features Starfield intends to implement in the future, and look back at all the PC gaming you enjoyed in 2023.
On the heels of The Game Awards, this week saw the launch of two expansions for fan-fave games: God of War Ragnarok and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. We also took a meaty deep dive into Analogue’s latest and greatest new retro console and did a year-three rundown on the state of the PS5.
What’s Coming Out Beyond Pokémon: The Indigo Disk | The Week In Games
From the latest and greatest to cult gems and retro classics, these are the games and consoles we’re loving—and loathing—this week.
Valhalla takes place after the events of Ragnarök, as Kratos seeks out the titular hall of heroes due to a mysterious invitation. Once inside, he finds himself faced with combat arenas built from his memories that repeat as he ascends through Valhalla. Old vistas and enemies are a decent enough framing device, and an effective way to unpack Kratos’ nearly 20 years of baggage. While the 2018 reboot used shame and fatherhood to interrogate the pornographic violence and carnage of the series’ past, Valhalla actualizes that idea without having to be tied to his relationship with his son Atreus. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
Image: Daedalic Entertainment / Flux Games / IguanaBee / Natalie Schorr / Starbreeze Studios / Supasart Meekumrai / Kotaku (Shutterstock)
We made it. After a tumultuous 11 months of really high highs (the games) and really low lows (the layoffs), we’re finally rounding out the last month of 2023. Good riddance. And to really underscore that goodbye, we here at Kotaku thought it’d be fitting to take a look back at what felt like the longest year yet to compile some of the most buggy, broken, and busted games to drop in 2023. – Levi Winslow Read More
Today the company’s launching another retro console recreation, the Analogue Duo. And this time, it’s something of a deeper cut.
Just…god, there’s so much random info you gotta know to understand this thing’s deal. So before we get into it, here’s a tl;dr: Analogue Duo is a very solid PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 replacement that looks pretty good on modern displays and controls pretty well, too. It’s also not for everyone. It may not even be for me. – Alexandra Hall Read More
The Indigo Disk picks up with new characters Kieran and Carmine returning to their Unova-based school, Blueberry Academy. The school invites you to be an exchange student, and Blueberry Academy is a Pokémon trainer’s dream facility, as it’s built around a terarium that emulates four different biomes. Students capture and study Pokémon in habitats analogous to their natural homes. It’s a decent enough framing for a reasonably sized open-world environment, while also bringing some familiar Pokémon back into the fray. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
A slick new VR headset, a “slim” console refresh, tons of flashy new accessories, and multiple exclusives, including the fastest selling PlayStation game ever, Spider-Man 2. The PlayStation 5 made big moves in 2023. So why does it feel like the console spent most of it resting on its laurels while flailing for a new direction? – Ethan Gach Read More
It’s a quiet week for major releases, but a big week for savings and DLC from some of the biggest games in the land, like God of War Ragnarok and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.
God Of War Ragnarök DLC: Spend 19 Minutes In Valhalla
Here are some of the tips and guides we found most helpful this week.
In case you still needed to do some last-minute Christmas shopping for the gamers in your life (or for yourself), Microsoft has temporarily slashed the price of its most powerful gaming console, knocking the cost down by $100. – Levi Winslow Read More
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s Indigo Disk DLC adds a handful of new monsters to catch, one of which is, as fans had theorized, an evolution to Dipplin called Hydrapple. This means one of Applin’s diverging evolutionary lines finally has a third form. But if you’ve had a Dippllin since it was introduced in The Teal Mask DLC, you might be curious why it hasn’t evolved into this new form in the time between the two expansions. That’s because Hydrapple’s evolutionary method hadn’t been added to Scarlet and Violet until now. Here’s how to evolve your candy apple dragon into its final form. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
God of War Ragnarök’s new, free DLC Valhalla is out now, and it’s a pretty great combat showcase that has the added benefit of giving Kratos some much-needed therapy. But if you’re unfamiliar with the punishing, repetitious nature of the roguelike genre or just haven’t booted up Ragnarök lately, it can knock you on your ass. Worry not, because we’re here to give you some general tips to help you face your demons. So grab your axe, blades, and spears, and let’s walk into Valhalla together. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
Alan Wake 2, Remedy’s survival horror sequel, came out in late October, but if you’re already longing for another trip through the spiral, I have good news: “The Final Draft” update has arrived, and with it a new game plus mode and new story content. Not convinced? Then just watch this trailer and try not to lose your mind at the 30-second mark. – Claire Jackson Read More
Oh hey, we’re just burning through December, aren’t we? Well if the 2024 release calendar is lookin’ rather slim to you, might I interest you in some new additions to Sony’s PlayStation Plus service? This month includes quite a few tempting offers. – Claire Jackson Read More
George Carlin famously said “a house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it.” At its core, Lego Fortnite is the same. Epic’s new collab with Lego has become an absolute phenom since it launched December 7, seeing a daily peak of around 2 million concurrent players. Like all good sandbox survival games, it’s driven by the need to gather, store, and organize piles of stuff. But not all stuff is created equal. Some stuff, like wood and granite, is readily available. Other stuff is harder to find. This guide is concerned with the latter, giving you insight on where to find the hard-to-find materials like knotroot, flexwood, and more. – Mo Mozuch Read More
Curious about Alan Wake 2 but never played the first? Well if you’re a PC gamer, I’ve got some good news: Grab a copy of Alan Wake 2 on the Epic Games Store during its holiday sale and you’ll get a free copy of the 2021 remastered version of the first game. – Claire Jackson Read More
Yeah, so that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III campaign wasn’t great. The multiplayer though? That’s a different story. And if you’re at all curious about some shooty fun between friends across some classic maps, good news: You can play the game for free from December 14 to 18. – Claire Jackson Read More
Baldur’s Gate 3 shadow-dropped on Xbox after winning Game of the Year at The Game Awards, and Larian Studios is already pushing out updates and hotfixes as the dust settles. If you’re playing the fantasy epic on your Xbox, you may be at risk of losing your saves, and Larian is warning players to update their system to avoid the issue. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
Despite The Game Awards officially capping off the end of video game news for 2023, we’ve still got stories to share, from GTA 6 controversies to the inglorious end of E3. Here’s your cheat sheet for the week’s most important stories in gaming.
What’s Coming Out Beyond Pokémon: The Indigo Disk | The Week In Games
The drama-filled saga behind one of Steam’s most-anticipated games of 2023 just took its weirdest turn yet. The Day Before maker Fntastic announced it will cease operations less than a week after accusations of swindling players with a massive bait-and-switch when it came to the true nature of its The Last of Us-looking survival game. – Ethan Gach Read More
Valve has a message to all you folks (myself included) who love huffing your Steam Deck exhaust fumes: Stop it. Please.
Have you ever taken a break from playing your Steam Deck to sample the complex fragrances emanating from its exhaust vent? If so, you aren’t alone. Since the release of the handheld PC, many owners have reported that they can’t stop sniffing the fumes that waft out of the Steam Deck during play. It’s become a bit of a meme among Steam Deck owners, with folks often posting online how much they enjoy the distinctive aroma. I’m one of those sickos, sticking my nose right above the exhaust and taking a big whiff each time I play. But someone finally asked Valve about this, and it turns out the company wants you all to knock it off. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
A Florida man is calling on Rockstar Games to pay him $2 million for showing literally one second of a character who looks like him in the reveal trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6. Lawrence Sullivan, AKA “Florida Joker,” accused the studio of stealing his likeness in his latest TikTok video. But a Red Dead Redemption 2 voice actor wasn’t having it. – Ethan Gach Read More
Remember when finding and capturing a Legendary Pokémon felt special? You would stumble upon these powerful creatures whose stories were woven into the world’s history. The Mewtwo encounter in the original Pokémon Red and Blue is an incredible endgame payoff for a story that’s unfolding in the background the whole time. When you finally find it in the Cerulean Cave during the postgame, you understand how significant it is to stand in front of this all-powerful monster. However, in the time since, the series has increasingly broken its own lore to come up with silly excuses for why these god-like entities are available to be caught in subsequent games, and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s Indigo Disk DLC seems to be the latest to continue the trend. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
‘Tis the season, once again, for Rockstar Games to drop another massive (and free) Grand Theft Auto Onlineupdate. And this time, not only has the company added a whole new chop shop business, but it’s also added drift races, new cars, and animals, too. Yes, it took a decade and three console generations, but finally, GTA Online will have animals running around its massive map. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Everything going on with failed Steam zombie shooter The Day Before continues to shock and amaze. The latest wild development is studio Fntastic’s response to the entire self-inflicted debacle: “shit happens.” – Ethan Gach Read More
Image: ESA / Kotaku / Frederic J. Brown (Getty Images)
E3, the video game conference that’s taken place annually in Los Angeles since 1995, is officially dead. After several years of struggles and rumors of its demise, its end was confirmed in The Washington Post’s exclusive interview with president and CEO of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), Stanley Pierre-Louis. – Alyssa Mercante Read More
Today, Sony and Insomniac confirmed that the PlayStation-5-exclusive open-world superhero action game, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, will receive a big, free update in “Early 2024” that will add highly requested features. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Baldur’s Gate 3’s Karlach Actor On Playing The Beloved Barbarian
There are some genuinely great games on sale right now, including newer titles like Mortal Kombat 1, Cocoon, the Dead Space remake, and Hi-Fi Rush. These are all games that are nominated for various awards this year. But, interestingly, this sales event—which ends December 11—also features discounts on games that won in Game Awards of old. So that means stuff like Control, The Witcher 3, Gris, and Grand Theft Auto V are also discounted for a limited time on Valve’s digital PC store.
If you are one of the 27 people on Earth who have yet to buy and play GTA 5, now’s as good a time as any to check it out before GTA 6 in 2025.
After remaining silent on the price of the much-anticipated new skins for all 18Street Fighter 6 launch characters, we finally know how much each alternate costume will cost, and fans of the 2D fighter aren’t too happy about the prices they’re seeing.
Hopefully Street Fighter 6’s New Open-World Won’t Mean Capcom Skimps On The Fighting
The company announced on November 21 that all 18 Street Fighter 6 characters will get a brand-new costume. Called Outfit 3, each skin was, according to Capcom, “inspired by in-game illustrations, various cultures, and pure fun.” They look dope, especially the ninja-inspired garb for my main Kimberly, but there was one question on everyone’s mind: How much would these costumes run for? Well, now that the alternate skins have dropped, the prices are exorbitant. Specifically,one outfit for one character costs you 300 Fighter Coins, the game’s premium currency you can only buy with real money. 300 Fighter Coins is nominally equivalent to $6. However, it ain’t that simple.
Street Fighter 6 skin prices are ‘outrageous’
While shelling out 300 FC for one character’s Outfit 3 skin nets you the costume and nine additional colorways, there are two problems with the monetization here: You can’t buy exactly 300 FC through microtransactions and these specific skins can only be unlocked by forking over IRL money, not through playing the game. While the second problem sucks, it’s the first problem that’s pissing folks off.
If you wanted to get just one skin for your main—in my case, Kimberly—you would need to spend $10 to get two separate FC bundles containing 250 FC each. That can easily rack up since there are 18 Outfit 3 skins you can buy in Street Fighter 6, and since Capcom isn’t offering a complete bundle or a discount for purchasing more than one skin, if you wanted to collect them all, you’d have to subtract about $100 from your bank account. This monetization is what has folks riled up across Reddit and X/Twitter.
The sentiment is the same on the Street Fighter subreddit, too. Redditor Unlucky-Chair76 said the pricing is “insane” for a $60 game, while another user claimed Capcom is “out of their minds” for charging this much for skins. Soul699 posted in the subreddit that folks should not buy the costumes because the prices are “outrageous.” Meanwhile, redditor Edgelordguydude said that though they think the pricing is fine, the real problem is the lack of a bundled discount. Ultimately, as user oneizm put it, all you can do is “vote with your wallet.”
Fan-made Pokémon are nothing new, but the community seldom rallies around one like they have Regitube (or Regifloat, depending on who you ask). The hypothetical water-type Legendary Giant originated in a TikTok shitpost and has since become a legend within the Pokémon fandom, inspiring fan art, memes, and even modded in-game renders.
The Week In Games: Pocket Monsters And Simulated Goats
For consistency’s sake, we’ll call this legendary king Regitube. The fake Pokémon’s origins started innocently enough. Back in August, The Tube Shack, a Canadian river tubing company, posted a TikTok of one of its employees creating what can perhaps best be described as a big suit of armor out of blue floating tubes. The video is silly and cute, but fans quickly pointed out that if you put the iconic dotted eyes of the Legendary Giants that debuted in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire on it, the cartoonish blue figure looks like it could be one as well. The Tube Shack ran with the joke.
The video has over 3.6 million views on TikTok, but it’s begun spreading to other platforms as well, where fan artists and modders have taken notice. Now, Pokémon fans are collectively building out this big guy’s lore, typing, moveset, and even its stats.
Welcome to Exp. Share, Kotaku’s Pokémon column in which we dive deep to explore notable characters, urban legends, communities, and just plain weird quirks from throughout the Pokémon franchise.
With all this attention comes fanart, and the Pokémon community works fast and still manages to come out with some incredible work. There are some realistic, modern-looking pieces, but some of the best art of Regitube is the stuff that harkens back to the series’ roots. The Ruby and Sapphire-style sprite below makes me think back to surfing around the Hoenn region, likely finding this big guy floating on the sea somewhere. I’ve never really had a steady water-type member for my team in Generation III’s games, so I’d catch Regitube and add him to my team, without question.
While Regitube can only exist in our hearts and fan art, the Regis have become so prominent in Pokémon memes, especially on TikTok, that it makes perfect sense for one internet inside joke to spawn another one, complete with stats and lore. And hey, at least no one’s suggested we nerf the floating king by giving him a garbage ability like the one Regigigas is cursed with.
Wish, the 62nd film released by Walt Disney Animation Studios, is a bad movie. The film is meant to celebrate the studio’s 100th anniversary, but instead, its incoherent story and reliance on millennial cliches for cheap jokes come off like it was fed into an AI generator and spat out onto the big screen. And the music, always a staple in Disney films, has some really lovely parts that are sadly weighed down by terrible lyrics.
The Most Sought After Elden Ring Sword Has A Storied History
Overall, Wish is a hot mess, but for Kingdom Hearts fans, its core premise could have significant implications for Square Enix’s Disney and Final Fantasy crossover—that is, if Tetsuya Nomura and friends decide to incorporate it into future Kingdom Hearts games.
What is Wish about?
Wish is set in the kingdom of Rosas, where King Magnifico, a sorcerer with the power to grant wishes given to him by the common folk, hoards wishes as magical orbs and refuses to grant ones he doesn’t believe will be good for the kingdom. When a citizen turns 18, they give Magnifico their wish for “safekeeping” in his study until the day he decides to grant it. While he might believe himself righteous, as protagonist Asha points out, Magnifico has created a system in which he controls the fate of everyone in Rosas, rendering the townsfolk hopeless as they wait for their wishes to be granted. As the film progresses, the king’s true nature as an egomaniacal bastard becomes apparent and Asha leads a rebellion against his tyranny.
But what does this have to do with Kingdom Hearts? As Asha learns more about the wishes in Magnifico’s clutches, it becomes clear that some of these wishes have to do with events that lead into various Disney movies. One Rosas civilian wants to fly, wears a green tunic, and is named Peter like Peter Pan. Valentino, Asha’s pet goat who gains the ability to speak because of magical shenanigans, wishes for a place where all mammals live equally, referencing the idyllic vision of 2016’s Zootopia. Asha herself becomes a Fairy Godmother and dons a cloak similar to the character from Cinderella.
Disney
There are other references, like Asha’s group of friends all dressing and acting similarly to the seven dwarves from Snow White. And when Magnifico is defeated, he’s trapped in a mirror, basically becoming the Magic Mirror from the same movie. There’s even a split-second frame in which his face is outlined to look like the mask that inhabits the mirror in the 1937 film.
What does Wish mean for Kingdom Hearts’ Disney universe?
All of this (and the 90 minutes of other Disney movie references) is part of the purpose of Wish—to celebrate Disney’s history—but there’s a larger implication here: Rosas is the center of a connected Disney universe. According to co-directors Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn, as well as co-writer Jennifer Lee, Wish isn’t hardwired as a multiverse launch pad, but it does imply characters like Peter Pan, places like Zootopia, and songs like “When You Wish Upon A Star” are the dreams of the citizens of Rosas. Prior to this, Disney has featured the occasional crossover detail before, like Frozen featuring characters from Tangled in a crowd shot, which Disney has mostly acknowledged as cute nods. But Wish makes an entire plot point out of Disney’s most beloved characters and worlds having an inception within its kingdom.
This raises questions as to how that world would function in a potential Kingdom Hearts’ crossover. Will Kingdom Hearts play with the abstract ideas Wish hints at? In Square Enix’s RPG series, protagonist Sora and his friends Donald and Goofy travel to various Disney worlds on a spaceship. But before these worlds were separated, they originated from Scala ad Caelum, which featured heavily in Kingdom Hearts Union χ and in the final section of Kingdom Hearts III.
Image: Square Enix / Kingdom Hearts wiki
Incorporating Wish and Rosas into Kingdom Hearts’ world would require a great deal of retconning, as Square Enix has already been building out its own connected lore for 20 years. It’s unclear if it will even have to reckon with it anytime soon given Kingdom Hearts IV has been in development concurrently alongside the movie, and Disney began work on Wish in 2018, a year before Kingdom Hearts III launched. While we don’t know what Disney worlds will appear in the next game, we can reasonably assume Disney and Square have been talking about Kingdom Hearts IV while Wish was in production.
Kingdom Hearts has released plenty of prequels and midquels in between its numbered entries that help recontextualize story beats or fill in gaps, but Scala ad Caelum’s place as the root of Kingdom Hearts’ Disney crossover is pretty well-established. So it might just be easier for Square Enix to ignore Rosas and Wish’s Disney cinematic universe entirely. However, the series is no stranger to tweaking characters, worlds, and relationships to fit its own narrative. On top of weaving the existence of the shadow-like enemy Heartless into Disney movie plots, Kingdom Hearts has continued to fold new movies into its storytelling.
The first game made the Seven Princesses of Heart (which included Alice, Snow White, Jasmine, Belle, Cinderella, and Aurora) into a unified, magical force that affected the entire known Kingdom Hearts universe. Kingdom Hearts III made sure to add newcomers Rapunzel, Anna, and Elsa as part of the New Seven Hearts meant to take up the mantle. So Rosas could realistically be molded to fit the needs of a new story arc—perhaps it could be the origin point of the new worlds Sora will explore in Kingdom Hearts IV, further explaining the expanding lore without stepping on the toes of the story the series told before.
Image: Disney
Wish attempts what Kingdom Hearts pulled off over 20 years ago
Kingdom Hearts’ interconnected Disney universe was a pretty novel idea back in 2002 when the first game was released. But nowadays, crossovers are so common they’re having diminishing returns. Take a look at recent Marvel Cinematic Universe box office numbers and you’ll see people are less infatuated with the concept of everything they watch and play weaving into one another. A shared Disney universe is a core theme in newer games like Disney Dreamlight Valleyand Disney Mirrorverse, but Kingdom Hearts is one of the few examples where those worlds feel cleverly woven into each other, rather than thrown together in a disconnected pocket dimension. Now that Wish is at least toying with the idea of Rosas as the source of characters and ideas seen in previous Disney films, Kingdom Hearts is in an interesting position. It has to either reckon with one of the movies it may feature eating its lunch—albeit with its hands instead of a perfectly good fork and knife and just generally making a mess of the table—or find a way to wiggle out of the bind it’s put the series in.
I do wonder if, given Wish’s middling reception and box office performance, Square Enix might opt not to touch the movie or its characters at all, as it would complicate things in ways that are probably not worth the trouble. But Kingdom Hearts has put some mid-ass Disney movies in its games in one way or another, so who knows? Yes, I’m looking at you, Chicken Little. In the meantime, let’s hope whatever Disney is cooking for 2024 doesn’t read like it was written by ChatGPT.
From mergers to memes, the landscape of interactive entertainment is always in motion. Here’s your cheat sheet for the week’s most important stories in gaming.
Following some intense controversy surrounding her new snack brand, popular Twitch streamer Pokimane has apologized for an insensitive comment she made to a “rude chatter” during a November 18 livestream. Read More
When you think of Nintendo, you tend to think of family-friendly gaming. You think of Link and Mario and sunshine and smiley stars. The word “adult” doesn’t likely come up when you ponder games on Switch, but that’s seemingly about to change. The company is adding a new 18+ app to its subscription service, Nintendo Switch Online, although only in Japan. Read More
As Cyberpunk 2077 approaches its third anniversary, the beleaguered blockbuster is getting a send-0ff to immortalize its unlikely turnaround. CD Projekt Red announced an Ultimate Edition for the sci-fi RPG on November 21 that includes this year’s Phantom Liberty expansion and the massive 2.0 overhaul patch. There will even be a physical copy for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S owners. Read More
A lawsuit filed last year accused Sony of using its walled-garden video game platform to charge players too much in the PlayStation Store. The London Tribunal has now allowed that lawsuit to move forward, against the PS5 maker’s objections, which could result in payments to players in the UK of up to $7.9 billion if it is ultimately successful. Read More
Buying super special “collector’s editions” of video games can be like heading into treacherous waters. These often-expensive boxes full of goodies (and also a video game) tend to sell out pretty quickly, and then you’re more likely to find them for double the price on reseller sites like eBay or Facebook’s marketplace. But if you’re eyeing the Baldur’s Gate 3 Deluxe Edition set to ship next year, Larian Studios is telling fans not to worry about it selling out, because the team isn’t making it a limited item. Read More
Slow news day? You betcha. But look, it’s Thanksgiving, and there’s a good chance people are cooking and eating just about anything they can find right now. Please, if we can save just one person from trying to cook their Steam Deck, then it will have been worth it. Read More
The white wolf is coming to Destiny 2 by way of some new cosmetics. Bungie teased a crossover with CD Projekt Red’s beloved RPG The Witcher 3 that will add three new armor sets to make players look like protagonist Geralt of Rivia, at least if they’re willing to shell out $20 or more for a single set. The new skins look great, but also arrive at Destiny 2’s lowest point in years. Read More
To avoid what many consider aggressive monetization, Mortal Kombat 1 players are doing everything they can to avoid buying cosmetics in NetherRealms’ latest 2D fighter. The latest exploit involves them utilizing a console date change hack to acquire once-free character skins that are now only available if you buy them. Read More
Just in time for the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Blizzard is letting you playDiablo IV for free for one full week on Steam right now. That’s a pretty sweet deal among a crop of other pretty sweet deals that Valve is offering as part of the PC gaming store’s massive annual Autumn Sale.
Blizzard tweeted on November 21 that the action-RPG has a free trial going on until November 28. If you head toDiablo IV’s Steam page right now, you can get the demon-slaying, loot-hunting game for the low until the end of the week.
“Give thanks and drag your friends to Hell,” Blizzard said. “Play Diablo IV for free on Steam, from now until November 28th at [10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET].”
This free Steam trial coincides nicely with a gold and XP bonus Blizzard is also running in Diablo IV. Dubbed Mother’s Blessing Week, folks playing the game will earn 35 percent more gold and experience points until November 27. This bonus applies to everyone, including people running amok in the Eternal and Seasonal realms, as well as players across all four World Tiers (Diablo IV’s interpretation of difficulty setting). Blizzard really wants this game to take over your Thanksgiving holiday, it seems.
Diablo IV—out now on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox—is running its second season of content, the Season of Blood. The new update, which brought the game to Steam on October 17, adds gameplay changes (like revamping inventory management) and story content while promising an easier grind so folks can level up faster. It’s the first of many seasonal drops, which will be interspersed between yearly paid expansions. The first DLC, Vessel of Hatred, arrives next year, bringing with it a new class to play and a new region to explore.
I liked Crash Team Rumble. I even said as much on this very website when the brawler MOBA launched back in June. But man, seeing them add Spyro, Crash’s flying, fire-breathing, OG PlayStation platformer contemporary to the roster just makes me wish we had a new Spyro the Dragon game.
The Week In Games: What’s Coming Out Beyond Super Mario RPG
Spyro is set to join Crash, Catbat, and many of the bandicoot’s other friends and foes in Crash Team Rumble when its third season, titled All Fired Up, launches on December 7. The purple dragon joins Ripto (one of the series’ villains, who was strangely added before the hero himself in the second season) as a guest character, alongside Elora, the guiding fawn companion from the original trilogy. Not much is known about how Spyro will play, but it’s curious that Crash Team Rumble has been adding Spyro crossover characters, music, and cosmetics two seasons in a row, huh?
My hope is that this is more than just lip service and that publisher Activision is actually planning to make a substantive Spyro announcement in the near future. Back in September, rumors of a fourth mainline Spyro game circulated on sites like Reddit, but the specifics of the alleged leak, such as an October reveal and Spyro Reignited Trilogy remake artist Nicholas Kole being attached to the project, were debunked. As fun as Crash Team Rumble is, it’s not the Crash Bandicoot or Spyro game I want, and I know that sentiment rings true for a lot of fans.
Even if Crash Team Rumble isn’t what fans are looking for, Activision has been investing pretty heavily into Crash Bandicoot since it had a soft reboot with the Crash N. Sane Trilogy in 2017. That collection remade Naughty Dog’s first three Crash games for modern systems, then Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled followed in 2019. Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, a brand-new platformer, launched in 2020, and was a really solid, challenging spin on the original formula.
Spyro the Dragon, meanwhile, has been getting scraps in this wave of OG PlayStation platformer love. The Reignited Trilogy brought his original three Insomniac-made games to modern systems with a new coat of paint in 2018, but it’s been 15 years since the last brand-new Spyro game. The little purple guy has pretty much been relegated to a crossover cameo here and there in Crash Bandicoot games.
I grew up on these games, and even if the mascot platformer has mostly gone out of vogue, I would still play a Spyro or Sly Cooper game in 2023. But while companies love to throw little references and crossovers into current games, that rarely leads to a new game. Spyro has been showing up in Crash’s adventures for years now, and with each passing year that he doesn’t get his own comeback game, these crossovers feel more and more like a carrot on a stick, leading nowhere.
I’ll still probably boot up Crash Team Rumble to play Spyro, though. So guess I should put on my clown makeup.
Why The Hot New Redfall Gameplay Trailer Left Us Feeling Cold
As pointed out by VGC, Modern Warfare III is sitting at a middling 50 out of 100 on review aggregate site Metacritic, putting it a whopping 23 points below the average review score of 2021’s Call of Duty: Vanguard, which previously held the worst-reviewed title with a 73. Metacritic is based on average critic scores, and MWIII has 33 reviews as of this writing—given that the game is just a few days old , more reviews are likely. But the user score is an abysmal 1.5 on a scale from 1 to 10—some of which may be from review-bombing, as player reviews are likely dropping a 0 or 1 score to voice their grievances, but overall, the sentiment around Modern Warfare III is an all-time low for the series.
Kotaku doesn’t score games in our reviews, but we do have Modern Warfare III campaign impressions, in which Claire Jackson called it “at best a net neutral experience that feels rushed, and a boring waste of charismatic characters at worst.” All of this comes after reports that Modern Warfare III’s development was rushed to get the game out in 2023 after alleged mixed messaging from management about the scope of the project.
If you’re at all confused about what’s going on with Call of Duty’s Modern Warfare subseries because you thought Modern Warfare 3 came out a decade ago, check out this handy explainer.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III’s single-player campaign was panned by critics when it released early on November 2. Reviewers hit it with low scores and said it felt short, rushed, and incomplete. Now Bloomberg reports that the game was rushed out in half the time of a normal Call of Duty sequel, with devs working nights and weekends to meet Activision’s annualized sales goals.
Why The Hot New Redfall Gameplay Trailer Left Us Feeling Cold
According to Bloomberg, the game was originally pitched to Sledgehammer developers as an expansion to Modern Warfare II that would focus on missions based in Mexico instead of the series’ normal globetrotting set-pieces. In the summer of 2022, however, Activision executives apparently rebooted the project as a full-fledged sequel about the Modern Warfare II villain Vladimir Makarov. The company needed to fill the gap left by an apparent delay of Treyarch’s next Call of Duty game, and reportedly decided against simply taking a year off from the blockbuster’s annual release schedule.
A spokesperson for Activision denied this, however. Sledgehammer Games studio head Aaron Halon told Bloomberg in an interview that the developers who thought Modern Warfare III had originally been planned as an expansion were simply confused because it was a “new type of direct sequel,” despite the PlayStation 5 version of the game appearing as DLC on the trophies menu and asking some players to insert the Modern Warfare II disc.
But more than a dozen current and former Call of Duty developerstold Bloomberg that Halon’s take “conflicted” with what they were initially told. Some of them also seemingly worked nights and weekends to try and get Modern Warfare III out on time, despite the game only having half the development time of a normal Call of Duty sequel. “They felt betrayed by the company because they were promised they wouldn’t have to go through another shortened timeline after the release of their previous game, Call of Duty: Vanguard, which was made under a similarly constrained development cycle,” Bloomberg reports.
Call of Duty has made billions for Activision, but the series has a long and increasingly-well-documented track record of burning out its developers. One of the big questions facing the franchise now that Microsoft owns it (after recently closing its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard) is whether it will continue the seemingly unsustainable development cycles or let the blockbuster take a year off for the first time in decades.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is out November 10 and almost everything about it is unnecessarily confusing to figure out, from when it goes live to what it includes. Even the name is a labyrinth to untangle. Here’s when you can get started unraveling its violent mess of content and file installations for yourself.
Take A Tour Through Halo Infinite’s Newest Arena Maps
When do Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer and Zombies go live?
Image: Activision
Modern Wafare 3‘s multiplayer releases on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4 beginning on November 9 at 6:00 a.m. ET for those who live in New Zealand. If you’re on Xbox, you can set your region to that in the settings menu and begin playing. According to the Activision blog, everyone else will have to wait until the game is officially live in their region:
On PC, the game will go live everywhere at the same time. That’s midnight on the East Coast or 9:00 p.m. PST on the West Coast, whether you’re playing on Steam or Battle.net.
What does Modern Warfare 3 include?
Believe it or not, Modern Warfare 3 includes the brief single-player campaign, multiplayer mode, Zombies, and seasonal content.Everything is now downloaded through the Call of Duty HQ launcher and Modern Warfare 2 items carry over to it and into Modern Warfare 3‘s multiplayer.
Multiplayer will include the following modes: Domination, Ground War, Hardpoint, Kill Confirmed, Team Deathmatch. It will also bring back 16 Modern Warfare 2 maps from the original 2009 game. Zombies, meanwhile, won’t be round-based. Instead, it will be a PvEopen-world mode with up to eight teams of three players each.
At launch, Modern Warfare 3 will have a pre-season pass that lets you earn unlocks up through military rank level 55. The game’s full first season 1 won’t go live until sometime in December. When it does, the game will get three additional maps and cross over with Warzone 2.
If you fired up your Xbox today, you might’ve seen something you didn’t expect: A darn full-screen advertisement for the latest Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare III. Though Microsoft has done this before with exclusives like Starfield, it’s already rubbing some gamers the wrong way.
Why The Hot New Redfall Gameplay Trailer Left Us Feeling Cold
Though 2023’s Modern Warfare III isn’t technically coming out in full form until November 10, those who want to get in on the campaign can do so right now by pre-ordering any edition of the game. So while that early access period might be enticing for those eager to follow the story of Task Force 141, it’s far from a universal desire, making the full-screen Call of Duty ad on Xbox’s start screen feel intrusive. The Modern Warfare III marketing blitz comes just weeks after Microsoft wrapped its acquisition of CoD’s publisher, Activision Blizzard.
Screenshot: Activision / Kotaku
“Fight against the ultimate threat. Play the Campaign now,” the ad starts. Players are then given three options: “Buy Now,” “Get the Vault Edition Upgrade,” and “Exit.” While it’s not uncommon to see ads on consoles, a full-screen one that greets you the second you fire up your box is unusually aggressive.
“Don’t hit me with ads that take my whole screen when I paid $500 [for] your machine,” reads one post on X (formerly Twitter).
“This really is my push factor in building a proper PC,” reads one Reddit comment in reference to the ad. Though, as many were quick to respond, Windows (also owned by Microsoft) is far, far, far from an ad-free experience. Even after configuring much of the OS’s tendency to harass you with ads for Game Pass or Microsoft 365, it’s not uncommon to see other ads or unwanted pop-ups appear. The year of the Linux desktop can’t come soon enough.
It’s frustrating when a machine you spend hundreds of dollars on doesn’t feel like it’s totally under your control. But who knows, maybe a decade from now, people will get nostalgic over the CoD ad from 2023 that greeted them upon starting up their Xbox.
Happy Halloween! Ubisoft Netherlands invites you to celebrate the spooky festivities with AI-generated Assassin’s Creed art. Terrifying indeed!
How Alan Wake 2 Builds Upon The ‘Remedy-Verse’
People first began to notice some of Ubisoft’s social media channels posting what appeared to be AI-generated versions of Assassin’s Creed art last night. A smoothed over, off-brand Ezio emerged on the French publisher’s X (formerly known as Twitter) account for Latin America. “In other amazing industry news here’s an official Ubisoft account with 300K followers posting AI art,” tweeted Forbes contributor Paul Tassi. The publisher’s post was mocked for making Ezio look like a Fortnite character and for one character in the background wielding gun grips like knives. The tweet was deleted soon after.
Not to be outdone, however, the Ubisoft Netherlands account followed up with its own AI-looking Ezio art complete with Jack-o’-lanterns. “Which Ubisoft game is perfect for this horrible evening?” the account asked in Dutch. Clearly the one the Assassin’s Creed maker was playing with fans’ hearts.
Ubisoft recently revealed that over 1,000 people have left the company in the last year as part of its “cost reduction” program. Some of those departures were voluntary, but others included layoffs across customer support, marketing, and other departments in Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere. “Ubisoft literally conducting layoffs this year and last month, and they’re posting AI art,” tweeted film concept artist Reid Southen. “Unbelievable. What the hell is the game industry doing right now.”
Still, over 19,000 people continue to work at Ubisoft, including many devoted just to the Assassin’s Creed franchise and all of its sequels, spin-offs, and other incarnations currently in the pipeline. Surely one of them could have made some art for the social media accounts. Or the company could have just used one of its many existing Ezio images. Anything would have been preferable to posting ugly AI-generated crap as thousands are laid off across the video game industry this year.
Fans have had to become increasingly vigilant in 2023 about companies trying to pass off AI-generated images in their marketing, as DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and other AI text-to-image models make it easier than ever to cobble together fake art. Amazon did it to promote its upcoming Fallout TV show. It sure seemed like Niantic did it to promote upcoming content in Pokémon Go. Legendary Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki calling AI art tools “an insult to life itself” back in 2016 has never felt so prophetic.
Ubisoft has announced plans to shut down online services for nearly a dozen video games, including Assassin’s Creed 2 and Splinter Cell: Conviction. The games will lose online functionally on January 25, 2024.
How Alan Wake 2 Builds Upon The ‘Remedy-Verse’
As we’ve seen over the last year, plenty of video game publishers and developers have already pulled online services and shutdown servers for a plethora of games across all platforms. The reasons vary, from low player counts to expiring licenses, but the reality is the same: More games become harder or impossible to play once the plug has been pulled. Now we can add even more titles to the growing list of “Dead Games.” This time around it’s Ubisoft announcing more shutdowns.
In a new post on Ubisoft’s support site, the publisher confirmed plans for “decommissioning” online services for 10 “older” games. Ubisoft further added that shutting down servers for old games is a choice it doesn’t make “lightly,” however it also added that it is “a necessity as the technology behind these services becomes outdated.”
Kotaku has contacted Ubisoft about the shutdowns.
Here is the full list of games losing online service on January 25, 2024, as well as which platforms are affected:
Assassin’s Creed II — Xbox 360
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood — Mac
Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD — PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Assassin’s Creed Revelations— PC
Ghost Recon Future Soldier— PC
Heroes of Might and Magic VI — PC
NCIS — PC
Splinter Cell: Conviction — Xbox 360
R.U.S.E. — PC
Trials Evolution— PC
According to a chart from Ubisoft, once online features are shut off for these 10 games, users will no longer be able to play online multiplier, link accounts, or collect Ubisoft Connect rewards for the affected titles.
Mortal Kombat 1, NetherRealm’s newest entry in its three-decades-old fighting game series, continues its predecessors’ tradition of pulling gut-yanking, brain-pounding final moves, or Fatalities, to the delight of its gore connoisseur fans. But some of those fans are frustrated. MK1’s recent patch introduces seasonal Fatalities—cool, but you have to pay for them.
The Week In Games: What’s Coming Out Beyond Mortal Kombat 1
Is no body horror sacred? October 23 patch notes indicate NetherRealm issued a ton of gameplay and performance changes to its $70 game, like improved AI and more balanced combat, but it hid the less desirable details about the premium Halloween Finisher among them. It won’t actually make it to the game’s Premium Store until later this week, publisher Warner Bros. Games said on Twitter, but it seems likely that it’s the same themed Fatality Mortal Kombat leakers revealed in September.
Leaked footage shows that, during the Fatality move, you slam a grimacing jack-o’-lantern over your opponent’s face and wait for bugs to slink out. Your enemy then doubles over and you pop their head off with a powerful kick, observing as it flies through space and slams into a front porch decorated for Halloween. The doorbell rings like you’re trick-or-treating, and blood waterfalls around the cracked pumpkin skull. “FATALITY,” the screen announces in vampire red.
Update 10/27/2023 8:24 p.m. ET: The “Happy Halloween” fatality is now up for sale in Mortal Kombat 1‘s Premium Store. It’s price? A whopping $12 USD. Original story continues after the tweet.
It looks like a fun move, and it’s October-ready, but fans stopped feeling as excited about it when they realized they’d have to pay extra for it.
“Pretty bad new precedent set by the devs charging for Fatalities now, and if people pay for it then it will only get worse,” one Reddit user said. “Next they might start charging $0.10 every time we call out our [support fighter] Kameo.”
“Why the hell did I pay for a [$110] Premium Edition […] yet NR has the cheek to try to force more paid content already?” a Twitter user responded to WB Games. “Greedy business practices before quality.”
NetherRealm apparently hasn’t learned from its 2019 game MK11, which gained notoriety among fans for what Kotaku writer Mike Fahey called its “oppressive” grind, which encouraged players to spend thousands of dollars on in-game currency to avoid suffering through tedious amounts of gameplay to unlock rewards. MK1 is also offering a free Halloween Variant, a purplish, cobwebbed middle school dance, to the Cage Mansion Arena, but it doesn’t take the sting out of giving more money to a game you thought you already paid for.
![Mortal Kombat 1’s New Microtransactions Are Scarier Than Its Fatalities [Update]](https://reportwire.org/wp-content/uploads/https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fill,h_675,pg_1,q_80,w_1200/4d698e896ca7380fdd055c9cf6d222c3.jpg)