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
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
It’s been 15 years since the last proper game in the Mana series, and that one wasn’t even any good. The Final Fantasy action-RPG spin-off’s legacy has been marked by more downs than ups, but the peaks still burn so brightly in fans’ memories that it’s hard to believe the franchise won’t one day make good on its earlier promise. Visions of Mana is being pitched as exactly that. I hope it doesn’t let us down.
6 Things To Know Before Starting Persona 5 Tactica
Officially revealed during last night’s Game Awards ceremony, I initially mistook Visions of Mana for a Dragon Quest game. The trailer looked very pretty without being overly busy, and showed open environments and real-time combat that found a nice balance between barren PS2-era 3D zones and modern arenas bursting with too much detail. Not quite a big-budget blockbuster or a bold retro HD-2D reimagining, it seems to be charting a humble new beginning for the verdant fantasy franchise.
Mana series illustrator Airi Yoshioka’s designs sported glow-ups befitting the current PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S console generations, while snippets of a score by returning composers Hiroki Kikuta, Tsuyoshi Sekito and Ryo Yamazaki sounded promising. The action, meanwhile, centered on the massive Mana tree and a handful of fights bookended by familiar Rabites and a Mantis Ant boss.
Visions of Mana will come to PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, and PC sometime in 2024, at a time when Square Enix has been dipping into the back catalog more than usual. We recently got Star Ocean: The Divine Force and Valkyrie Elysium, fine games that were nice for longtime fans but didn’t exactly set the world on fire. Will the return of Mana be any different?
The series began as Final Fantasy Adventure on the Game Boy in 1991 before getting its own title and a breakout hit on SNES called Secret of Mana. The top-down action-adventure was like The Legend of Zelda with an RPG twist, including a leveling system, weapon combos, and a varied magic system. Instead of traveling alone you were accompanied by two AI companions, and like Final Fantasy there was an overworld map you could eventually traverse via a flying dragon.
The pixel art was gorgeous. The music was beautiful. To this day it has some of the best scored environments of any RPG. And despite a clumsily localized script, the dungeons, destinations, and pacing made it an unforgettable journey. The series continued with a Japan-only sequel (Trials of Mana), an experimental PS1 game (Legend of Mana), and a fantastic Game Boy Advance remake of the first game (Sword of Mana). Then things quickly unraveled.
Screenshot: Square Enix
The 2006 DS game Children of Mana was a randomly generated dungeon crawler that felt unimaginative and repetitive, and 2007 PS2 game Dawn of Mana took the series into 3D with a clumsy targeting system and character progression that reset after every chapter. A 2007 real-time strategy game for the DS called Heroes of Mana was overly simplistic and bland. The series’ identity fell apart outside of its unique art-style, pretty music, and familiar monster designs.
To rebuild, Square Enix returned to basics by remastering and porting the original games. In recent years fans were blessed with the Adventures of Mana remake, Collections of Mana ports, a Secret of Mana remake, a Trials of Mana remake, and the HD remaster of Legend of Mana. The series’ highlights have been assembled and modernized on every platform. The only thing missing was a new Mana game to rival the ones from 20 years ago.
“The development team have been working hard to ensure that Visions ofMana remains faithful to the series that players know and love while also offering fans and newcomers a fresh new experience with an all-new story, characters, and gameplay mechanics,” Mana series producer Masaru Oyamada said alongside the game’s announcement. It’s a promising start. But Mana fans have been burned plenty of times before. Please don’t let this be one of them.
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.
If I told you there was a Pokémon card going for $50, you’d wonder why I was bothering you. In a world where such things regularly change hands in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, such a figure is a shrug. But sorry, I should have been clearer: it’s a birthday card. A brand new one. Mass-produced. It’s a $50 birthday card.
The Week In Games: Pocket Monsters And Simulated Goats
Now, The Pokémon Company has been overcharging for greetings cards plenty, and I’ve previously triple-checked to see how many cards you get in a $15 or $20 pack, only to be flummoxed that the total really is one. But $50?! What’s the point of having access to an internationally famous, widely-read, top-tier gaming site when all the staff are on holiday if you can’t use it to complain about that?
The card prices are—I hesitate to use the word “justified”—by always including a Pokémon pin, too. The site’s tiny metal badges also go for wallet-punching figures, rarely less than ten dollars, and sometimes as much as $25. (This is something that bemuses me, given similarly sized pins are routinely included in triple-pack blisters as “freebies”.) So when you’re paying $9.99 for a “Happy New Year” card, you’re really paying for the Pikachu pin that pokes through the hole in the front.
But this latest $50 birthday card? It’s…it’s functionally identical to the one linked above, with the same size pin, the same Pokémon on the pin, the same sort of cut-out design, and as far as I can tell, it’s not printed on paper-thin diamond.
Image: The Pokémon Center
At first I gallantly assumed the description of “Pikachu Birthday Balloons Pokémon Pin & Greeting Card” meant it was going to also come with an amazing Pikachu balloon, and possibly a large bar of gold bullion. But it seems the only balloons included are those drawn on the cardboard, and the only sign of gold is the color of the lettering.
And no matter how many times I re-read the page, it still doesn’t say, “Pack of 20″ anywhere, no matter how much all of reality says it should.
I realize the trap I fall in if I say, “How can they justify a fifty dollar price for a folded in half piece of cardboard,” given the money I’ve spent on unfolded pieces of cardboard from the same company. But still.
We have of course reached out the Pokémon to check this isn’t a matter of a typo, because then wouldn’t everyone look silly? In the meantime, you can comment below complaining what a slow news day it must be, and how everything’s such a rip-off in this day and age that we shouldn’t be surprised.
Gamers are a passionate bunch, and we’re no exception. These are the week’s most interesting perspectives on the wild, wonderful, and sometimes weird world of video game news.
6 Things To Know Before Starting Persona 5 Tactica
This is Lars Wingefors, the CEO of Embracer, a Swedish holding company that owns multiple video game publishers, dozens of studios, and employs over 16,500 people. Or at least it used to. Embracer has been laying off hundreds, canceling projects, and closing studios as it reckons with deals that fell through, ambitious bets on big games, and an unprecedented acquisition spree that saw the investor group hoover up everything it could, from the studio behind Deus Ex to the license for The Lord of the Rings. One company to rule them all. That seemed to be the extent of the strategy. Read More
I love Persona 5, but over the years, Atlus’ stylish, supposedly socially-conscious RPG hasn’t loved me. Queer Persona fans know the series to be fraught, and even the most passionate among us treat it like the fun uncle who claims to love everyone and still says something extremely out of pocket each holiday. I figured Persona 5 Tactica, the tactical spin-off launching on November 17, would follow all the previous games and find some way to throw a jab at queer people for no reason. But after years of feeling like one of my favorite series has been trying to push me out, Tactica opened the door for me, if only for a moment. Read More
It’s been nearly a decade since GamerGate, the misogynistic game industry tantrum that harassed women under the guise of demanding journalistic ethics—yet 2023 has felt like we’re not that far past it at all. Read More
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. Read More
This story is part of our new Future of Gaming series, a three-site look at gaming’s most pioneering technologies, players, and makers.
The Top 10 Most-Played Games On Steam Deck: August 2023 Edition
Video game fashion is often uninspired, Hot Topic-adjacent fare: T-shirts with a game logo ironed on the front, or zip-up sweatshirts with a garish all-over print of an animated character. It’s rare to see a piece of merch that feels like it’s pulled from a game-world (like the Disco Elysium jacket) or one that’s subtle enough you could wear it out to dinner without anyone knowing you’re repping your favorite RPG.
When I first saw “The Lands Between,” the Elden Ring-inspired collection from luxury streetwear brand ARK/8, I felt like I was looking at the future of game-related fashion. Nothing is so high-concept that it’s unwearable (the line is still firmly rooted in a streetwear aesthetic) but the entire collection could easily be worn by someone strutting through SoHo, or captured and posted on Instagram by Watching New York and no one would know it references a video game.
A lush, blood-red faux-fur coat that looks like the lion draped over Godfrey’s shoulder, an oversized, menswear-inspired crisp white button-down with Queen Marika stretched across the back, a few elegantly distressed crewnecks—all if it is so chic and so effortlessly cool that I can’t help but get excited looking at everything.
I was so curious about the person behind the designs that I reached out via email to ARK/8’s creative director, Dimitri van Eetvelde, to learn what inspires him and what he thinks is the future of gaming fashion.
Image: ARK/8
Finding fashion inspiration in Elden Ring
First, van Eetvelde made one thing very clear: ARK/8 isn’t a video game merch company, it’s a “fashion brand with gaming and pop culture as its DNA.” He likened it to how “skate is part of the DNA of brands like Supreme or Vans.” For him, too many pieces of game-related clothing are “very safe” items like “printed basics or pieces that are more suited for cosplay and gaming conventions.”
“The problem is that most of the licensed companies don’t care about gaming, it’s just a business decision. They sell the same T-shirt, whether it’s Jack Daniels or Iron Maiden or Assassin’s Creed,” he said. Van Eetvelde understands this approach, because he’s done it before—his first fashion company, Level Up Wear, was a printed tee and outerwear line started back in 2007, which focused on printing branded content on high-quality t-shirts. For him, Level Up Wear “was the inception of the concept of gaming and quality together,” though he soon reached a creative limit, and wanted to find a way to further explore high-quality garments and game-inspired designs. That’s when ARK/8 was born, fully materializing in 2019 after several iterations (including, briefly, as Italian-made high-end jewelry).
Image: ARK/8
The Lands Between collection marries high-end fashion with gaming, but not reductively—though items like the Boss Door t-shirt or the Queen Marika button-down clearly feature more obvious game references, there’s a sense of evocation at play here, as well. “We wanted to create a collection that didn’t feel like a repeat of the gaming merch template focusing on key characters or iconography, or using heavily illustrated prints,” van Eetvelde said. “Elden Ring was going to be approached not from a traditional asset/graphic perspective, but from a texture, world immersion angle.”
Brilliantly, the design team leaned into “exploration and content discovery” which van Eetvelde noted is a key part of Elden Ring gameplay. From there, two visual themes emerged: maps and the Tarnished aesthetic. “The map is so beautifully made,” van Eetvelde said, “The challenge was a technical one at that point, as getting it to look vibrant and detailed on different fabrics took a few tries.” The resulting “Our Lands Between Bomber Jacket,” however, is pretty wild—a “seemingly infinite print” of the in-game map, swirling colors across the model’s torso. The Tarnished aesthetic shows in the distressed but robust crewnecks, which van Eetvelde suggested mimic how players start out their Elden Ring experiences. “You start at the bottom in the game, your clothes are ragged. It’s rough, like in most FromSoftware experiences, but there’s also that robustness, that persistence of getting up and dusting yourself off, death after death.”
The future of video game fashion
With individual items ranging from $145 to $2500, it’s a gorgeous—albeit pricey—collection that elevates game-related fashion, and according to its chief designer, The Lands Between is just the beginning for ARK/8. The Elden Ring collection is the brand’s “guinea pig,” according to van Eetvelde—he gave me a sneak peek at a cool, splashy Overwatch drop coming soon that features a D.Va bodysuit I simply must have and a very cool Genji-inspired zip-up.
Image: ARK/8
“ARK/8’s mission is to establish a platform to elevate the conversation around gaming and the incredible art, music and narratives that underpin these amazing entertainment creations,” van Eetvelde said. “There’s a constant to it, it’s not just a one-off like most collabs. Fashion is a way to express our passion and show gaming in a new light.”
During our chat, he cited a few other examples of the somewhat dissonant worlds of fashion and gaming meeting and making something incredible. “I liked the Han Kjobenhavn X Diablo IV runway pieces for example, as they did push the envelope. I think the LOEWE X GHIBLI one was also really good because Jonathan Anderson really has a passion for Ghibli movies and it reflects on the whole collection. It’s brimming with details and complex executions. I want to see more of that.”
For game developers and fashion brands, ARK/8’s ethos can and should be mined for future collaborations. I want to see more high-concept runway pieces, more elevated streetwear looks, and less gaudy, ironed-on 1-Up mushrooms and zip-up sweatshirts meant to look like Samus’ power suit. Video games are visual marvels, brimming with color and creativity—lets make more clothes and accessories that speak to that.
I love Persona 5, but over the years, Atlus’ stylish, supposedly socially-conscious RPG hasn’t loved me. Queer Persona fans know the series to be fraught, and even the most passionate among us treat it like the fun uncle who claims to love everyone and still says something extremely out of pocket each holiday. I figured Persona 5 Tactica, the tactical spin-off launching on November 17, would follow all the previous games and find some way to throw a jab at queer people for no reason. But after years of feeling like one of my favorite series has been trying to push me out, Tactica opened the door for me, if only for a moment.
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We aren’t going to get into any big, overarching story spoilers as I explain how, but a brief scene in Tactica’s first chapter does require a little table-setting. If you want absolutely no context, maybe minimize this tab and come back when you’ve finished the first chapter.
Persona 5 Tactica opens with the Phantom Thieves, the teenage superhero vigilantes heading back into the supernatural world called the Metaverse. This time they’re facing Marie, a tyrant bride who has repurposed an entire town to hold her dream wedding. There’s no need to get into the why and who here, as it’s a spoiler, but this serves to set up the scene we’re here to talk about. It’s called “The Ideal Marriage,” and you can find it in the Talk menu in Café Leblanc after you find out Marie’s plot.
The Phantom Thieves discuss Marie’s plan in their home base, and the conversation moves on to the team’s own ideas of “dream weddings.” Ann excitedly talks about how she can’t wait to wear a white wedding dress, and it’s all very cute. Eventually, Ryuji turns to our mostly silent protagonist, Joker, and playfully asks which of the Phantom Thieves he would marry.
I went through a few stages of subverted expectations here, so hold my hand, Phantom Thief, and let me walk you through. When Ryuji asked the question, I fully expected my options to be limited exclusively to the women in the room, as that would reflect the original Persona 5’s extremely limited view of romance. These spin-off games don’t import your P5 save, so games like Persona 5 Strikers find ways to ask you who your paramour in the first game was so you can experience a little continuity.
But much to my surprise, Tactica allowed for everyone in the room to be an option, including Ryuji, who I have headcanoned as my Joker’s unrequited crush since first playing Persona 5 in 2017. Even still, my trepidation wasn’t gone, as any time a dialogue option gave me a chance to suggest how my Joker felt a door was instantly slammed in my face. Persona games haven’t just denied characters’ possible queerness at every chance, they’re often eager to turn any gesture toward it into a mean-spirited joke.
I braced myself as I chose Ryuji, ready for Tactica to hit me with the metaphorical backhand in the form of my would-be boyfriend jolting away in the opposite direction…but it never came.
Screenshot: Atlus / Kotaku
Instead, what I got was a really sweet scene of Ryuji in a stylish white tux, saying he couldn’t believe the person of his dreams had been right by his side the whole time. It was a reference to one of the best interactions between Ryuji and Joker in OG Persona 5, one often pointed to by fans as a moment that implies some level of romantic trust between the two. But here in Tactica he also acknowledged sparks had been flying between the two since they met at the beginning of Persona 5, and I thought to myself it was about damn time he wisened up to this.
As Joker stops pondering his dream wedding it’s back to reality, where he and Ryuji aren’t dating, despite those sparks. The scene then ended, and before a wave of excitement hit me, my first feeling was a sense of relief.
Persona 5‘s homophobia problem
Persona 5 has always positioned itself as a story about standing up against oppressive forces in the name of standing up for the little guy crushed under their boots. The Phantom Thieves use their supernatural powers to fight crooks as small-time as an abusive high school coach and climb up until they reach a major politician. The game tackles power imbalances, class issues, and corrupt law enforcement, but queer identity has always been its blind spot. Even as it stumbles in advocating for victims of abuse by putting those same people through the same violence after the fact, at least Persona 5 does, at some point in its 100+ hours, take a stance.
But when it comes to how identity is a marginalizing factor, Persona 5 has always been willing to shun, or even point and laugh at queer people. Men, especially. Playing the original Persona 5 as a gay man was an incredibly disheartening experience as it both refused to let me go down a romantic path with any of my male friends, and also bombarded me with assumptions of who Joker, and by extension, myself, was in its dialogue.
Image: Atlus / CloverWorks
On top of this, Persona 5’s treatment of its sole canonical gay men, two harassers assaulting Ryuji in the middle of a crowded street, remains one of the lowest points in the series. The English localization team stepped in for the definitive Persona 5 Royal version by making these characters enthusiastic drag queens eager to show Ryuji the ropes rather than predators, but even that can’t make Persona 5 an inclusive game when it’s entirely uninterested in telling a story about queer characters, even if the player is trying to push it in that direction. Sure, you can tell a random shadow in a buried battle menu that you like men, but in terms of living as a gay teen in supernatural Tokyo? Persona 5 won’t let you.
It’s frustrating because I’d argue the social link arcs between Joker and Ryuji or Joker and his rival Goro Akechi still enjoy the most romantic tension in the game, far more than most of the women the player can pursue. But really, it didn’t come as a surprise that Persona 5 was dismissive of queer identity, because Persona almost always is.
Persona 3 has weird transphobic jokes that I’m curious to see handled in Persona 3 Reload. Persona 4 nearly has interesting conversations about queer identity with party members Kanji Tatsumi and Naoto Shirogane initially being presented as possibly working through male attraction and gender fluidity respectively, only for the game to handwave those conversations, fall back on the status quo, and engage in some casual queerphobia along the way. Shoutout to Persona 2, which had a gay romantic interest in 1999. I wish your successors followed suit, but maybe they can moving forward?
Screenshot: Atlus / Kotaku
Persona 5 Tactica doesn’t make good on the series excluding queer people, and it definitely doesn’t fix that it made us the butt of the joke for almost 20 years. But it does hint that maybe the future’s looking brighter for queer Persona fans in the future. Now, even if the love stories that should’ve been there aren’t, those of us who spent years playing as Joker pining for Ryuji or Yusuke (apologies to the Akechi lovers but he isn’t here, R.I.P. to you) have something in hand to beat the headcanon allegations.
I didn’t flirt with any of the women in any of these games because I was truly committed to the self-insert bit. Now I finally have at least one scene in this whole series that acknowledges that my Joker wants to smooch his golden retriever best friend. This leaves me a little more hopeful that whoever I play as in Persona 6 might get a boyfriend of his own.P
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth isn’t out until early next year, but ahead of the game’s launch it’s been rated and reviewed by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). Turns out the Teen-rated RPG will contain a “bodacious beach bod.” The question is: Who’s rocking that body?
Three Things We Learned From The Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Demo
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, coming exclusively to PS5 on February 29, 2024, picks up after the events of 2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake and is the next entry in Square Enix’s three-part Final Fantasy VII remake project. We’ve already seen a few trailers for the upcoming RPG, but we’ve learned a bit more about Rebirth thanks to a newly posted rating description on the ESRB’s official website.
The ESRB’s rating description explains that some women in the game are “designed with revealing outfits” including “deep cleavage.” The ESRB also states that Rebirth contains “suggestive dialogue” and close-up shots of characters’ bodies. It points to one example where the camera pans to someone, presumably wearing a revealing outfit, who then says: “Just admit it. You’re obviously captivated by my bodacious beach bod.”
Now, the way the ESRB describes this makes it impossible to say who has (or thinks they have) a bodacious beach bod. So who, among the cast of FF7 characters, seems the most likely to say they have a bodacious beach bod? Place your bets now!
Other secrets revealed by the ESRB
The ESRB’s rating description of Rebirth also confirms that at least one character will be “impaled” by a sword in slow motion. Famously, and beware spoilers for a game released in the ‘90s, Aerith was killed by sword-wielding Sephiroth in the original game. You could describe what happens in that original sequence as “slow motion,” too. It seems the new remake sequel will do the same. The question is, who gets stabbed this time around?
In October, Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi promised a “big surprise” during that famous, iconic death. But he didn’t elaborate beyond that tease. Does he mean that someone else will get stabbed in slow motion? Perhaps nobody gets stabbed and Sephiroth just misses and runs away embarrassed. Or would it be really surprising to stab Aerith and trick everyone into thinking you wouldn’t do that this time around? Maybe someone just has a vision of a slow-mo stab. I’m not sure, really.
Oh and finally, the ESRB confirms that some characters get drunk and slur their speech and you’ll hear people say shit, asshole, and prick. I can’t wait!
Here’s the full ESRB description for FF7 Rebirth, coming February 2024 to PS5.
This is an action role-playing game in which players follow the story of a mercenary (Cloud Strife) on a quest to save the planet from evil. Players explore fantasy landscapes, perform missions, and battle monsters and soldiers in frenetic melee combat. Characters use swords, staffs, guns, and magic spells to fight monsters and human soldiers; combat is highlighted by impact sounds, cries of pain, and explosions. Cutscenes depict further instances of violence, sometimes with splatters/pools of blood: characters impaled or slashed by swords, sometimes with slow-motion effects; an assassin throwing a spinning blade at a targeted figure; characters shot by soldiers.
Some female characters are designed with revealing outfits (e.g., deep cleavage); suggestive dialogue sometimes accompanies camera panning/close-ups of characters’ bodies/outfits (e.g., “Just admit it. You’re obviously captivated by my bodacious beach bod.”). The game contains some alcohol content: as Cloud, players can drink a version of moonshine while at a bar; cutscenes sometimes feature drunk characters slurring their speech. A handful of scenes depict characters smoking cigars or out of hookahs. The words “sh*t,” “a*shole,” and “pr*ck” appear in the game.
Despite what the creative team at Square Enix would have us think, Destiny and Fate probably still have a major role to play in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and beyond. Even though SOLDIER Zack Fair seems to have escaped death and joined the rest of the cast in a new timeline, the most likely outcome is a totally different—but equally tragic—twist of fate.
Three Things We Learned From The Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Demo
Spoilers for the original game and FF7 Remake follow.
In the original Final Fantasy VII timeline, Cloud and Zack are wounded by Sephiroth following what’s known as “The Nibelheim Incident,” five years before the events of the main game. The mad scientist Hojo kidnaps and experiments on them for four years, enhancing Cloud’s strength but scrambling his brain. After Zack breaks them out, they travel around for about a year until Shinra catches up to them on the outskirts of Midgar. Originally, Zack dies fighting Shinra troopers, but because the party defeats the Whisper Harbinger at the end of FF7 Remake, events in the past, present and future are altered.
Remake’s ending cutscene shows that Zack survives the battle and helps Cloud make his way toward Midgar. It’s plausible these events happen in an alternate timeline distinct from the new continuity. However, it’s totally possible that when the party entered the Singularity at the end of Remake and destroyed the Whispers, they didn’t return to their original world. Instead, they were taken somewhere different: a timeline created by the destruction of the Whispers in which Zack is alive.
Producer Yoshinori Kitase has confirmed already that Zack plays a bigger role in FF7 Rebirth than the original game.
“Within the original Final Fantasy 7, Zack Fair doesn’t appear as much,” Kitase told IGN in a September 2023 interview. “As for Rebirth, there will be a new episode with Zack that will contain even more of him than the Remake. I’m not able to say much more than this as I would like for players to play and experience this with it in their own hands.”
Image: Square Enix
How is all of this going to shake out exactly? Well, Rebirth Creative Director Tetsuya Nomura confirmed on the official PlayStation blog in September 2023 that the second part of the trilogy ends at the Forgotten Capital, which is where Sephiroth kills Aerith while she’s trying to the White Materia to summon Holy.
“The future — even if it has been written — can be changed,” Aerith says in the June 2022 First Look Trailer for Rebirth. The original timeline has already been “written,” so to speak, which is why the Whispers strove to preserve this specific future. In other words, events can and should play out as they originally did except for in instances where characters make different choices.
The Whispers may not be around anymore to ensure that everything goes exactly according to plan, but it’s all but certain that Aerith will still try to summon Holy herself and be threatened by Sephiroth. Assuming everybody exists in the same continuity, what will Zack be doing while Cloud and friends pursue Sephiroth? In all likelihood, after arriving at the Sector 5 Church in the post-credits scene of the Remake Intergrade INTERmission chapter starring Yuffie, he’ll try to track Aerith down.
A fittingly tragic culmination of all this could be for Zack to finally catch up to Aerith at the end of the game in the Forgotten Capital just in time to push her out of the way and take the hit himself. The Whispers may not be around to ensure that Zack dies, but his continued existence in the timeline presents all sorts of cosmic continuity issues. This could be the perfect tragic ending to Rebirth that inspires Aerith and Cloud to continue their mission to stop Sephiroth in a way that thematically echoes the original without getting too convoluted. In this fashion, Aerith could successfully summon Holy to stop Meteor earlier than in the original, but who knows what kind of repercussions all of this would have.
Is it fair for him to make the ultimate Zackrifice? Probably not, but something about it feels fitting nevertheless.
At the start of the 1980s, video games were mostly relegated to coin-gobbling arcade machines, but their surging popularity prompted a Time Magazine cover story in January 1982 with a cringeworthy warning: “GRONK! FLASH! ZAP! Video Games are Blitzing the World!”
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If this sounds like Big Boomer Energy, that’s because Baby Boomers were between 20 and 40 years old at the time and represented the dominant group of consumers. Media panic about gaming addiction depicted arcades as depraved places for lowlifes. Meanwhile, an oversaturation of at-home consoles and a parade of middling games led the entire American game industry to crash in 1983.
Nintendo pretty much single-handedly saved gaming with the NES (see on Amazon) back in 1985, and pop culture has never the same. Originally released in Japan as the Famicom (“Family Computer”), the NES is a redesign specifically tailored to western markets. Instead of a video game console, it was branded as an “Entertainment System” with a “Control Deck” that used “Game Paks.”
A risky bet
“It started with a phone call in 1981,” NES creator Masayuki Uemura told author and reporter Matt Alt in 2019, “President Yamauchi told me to make a video game system, one that could play games on cartridges. He always liked to call me after he’d had a few drinks, so I didn’t think much of it. I just said, ‘Sure thing, boss,’ and hung up. It wasn’t until the next morning when he came up to me, sober, and said, ‘That thing we talked about—you’re on it?’ that it hit me: He was serious.”
Uemura, who had originally been poached from Sharp to develop light-gun technology for toys at Nintendo, then spent six months deconstructing and reverse-engineering rival consoles like the Atari 2600 and Magnavox to study the circuitry. The 8-bit Famicom he designed proved more powerful than its competitors, and the toy-like color scheme was hand-picked by a scarf that Nintendo President Yamauchi liked (the same red and white Mario wears on the cover of Super Mario Bros.). It helps that in 1984, Japanese legislators modified an act regulating entry to places like bars and casinos to include arcades out of concern that it impacted “public morals.” Younger Japanese had to resort to home consoles instead, so the Famicom came at the perfect time for it to boom.
Famicom games on display at Tokyo used game store Super Potato.Photo: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg (Getty Images)
To capitalize on the American market, however, required a totally different approach—one that would pay off big-time.
In a lecture at New York University in 2015, Uemura said the front-loading design of the NES was inspired by VCRs, a booming form of at-home entertainment in America at the time. The Game Pak cartridges are 5.25 x 4.75 x 0.75 inches, with a considerable amount of heft to them, and the simple, boxy grey design is nothing short of iconic. They slide into the front of the system, and then the user has to press the cartridge down so its brass-plated nickel connectors hit the cartridge slot’s connector pins. Frequent use actually wears down the pins, which can lead to a flawed connection.
For years, gamers propagated the myth that blowing in the Game Paks to clear out dust would solve this problem, which instead exacerbated it due to the moisture in their breath. Still, sliding the paks in, pressing them down, pressing them again, pulling them out, blowing in them, and repeating the process felt like a game unto itself.
The console’s most memorable and successful accessories was the NES Zapper, a light gun that launched alongside the console in America. “America loves guns,” Uemura said when talking about how Nintendo marketed the NES in the west. Most of us had the Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt dual cartridge and delighted in blasting ducks while that gleeful dog retrieved their bodies. For your typical millennial gamer, the Nintendo Entertainment System served as the primary gateway into a lifelong hobby that never let up. I have fond memories playing The Legend of Zelda with my grandmother. She would’ve loved Tears of the Kingdom.
The origin of the classics
Take one look at Nintendo’s biggest releases in the last couple years, and you can trace many of them all back to the NES: Super Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Fire Emblem.
By 1990, Nintendo had seized more than 90 percent of the U.S. video game market, thanks in no small part to a rigid third-party licensing agreement that still serves as a major industry precedent. Game developers that wanted to publish games for the NES had to agree to an exclusive licensing deal that restricted them from porting games to other consoles. Nintendo also directly approved each game to ensure a certain standard of quality.
Konami, Capcom, Taito, and Namco all participated in this and remain prominent developers even today. Castlevania fan? Thank Nintendo and the NES for that. Even Square and Enix saw great success putting Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest on the NES. Now, 20 years after the companies merged into Square Enix, both franchises are still going strong.
Photo: Reddit
Despite all its success and rapid sales over a few short years, the NES doesn’t even break the top 10 best-selling video game consoles of all time at roughly 62 million units to date — even the widely panned PlayStation Portable sold more over time — but Nintendo’s breakthrough home console remains arguably one of the most important pieces of tech ever created.
“When console games were popularized and presented to everyone, it felt like we were all exploring a new frontier of dreams together,” Masayuki Uemura told Used Games magazine in 2000. “Although some people may occasionally have wasted their money on a bad game here or there, both creators and players were obsessed with games then. I believe there’s still wonder to be found in that older generation of games.”
He was right. The NES Classic Edition — a dedicated emulator featuring 30 NES classics — rolled out from late 2016 into 2017 with many of the 2.3 million units selling out immediately. The 2018 relaunch saw similar demand.
The lasting legacy of the NES, however, lies with the Nintendo Switch which has sold more than 129 million units to date. With patents for what could be the successor to the Nintendo Switch, now’s as good a time as any to remember and appreciate what the Nintendo Entertainment System did for gaming 38 years ago.
Good parenting is a lot like being a solid player two. You want to be supportive, curious, and competent. You’re there to have a good time, and understand going with the flow is key to harmony. This can be a challenge with kids and video games when you’re actually, literally, player two, especially if you’re a gamer and struggle to turn off those killer instincts. Enter Super Mario Bros. Wonder (see on Amazon). It is without question the year’s best family game (and in the running for GOTY) but it can be a challenge for any parent to share the sticks, regardless of skill level.
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And let’s take a moment to acknowledge the mercurial nature of young children. You’re not playing a game with a like-minded adult who shares your sense of purpose or your temperament. One minute you’re co-opping with a volatile, rage-quitting narcissist then a condescending, proficient genius the next. Whether this is your first time playing Mario in years or you’re a lifelong devotee, these tips are designed to help you facilitate a fun session for everyone. And for parents of little ones, we’ve got some extra tips for you, too.
Mario Wonder Tips for Kids of All Ages
Don’t Be Too Goal Oriented
You can’t help being an adult. It’s hard work, and conditions you to approach life a certain way. No judgment: Being a productive, task-oriented person is what our entire education system is based on. Once you’ve gone through school and spent a few years working you have a compulsion to get shit done the right way. Kids are different.
If you’re playing alongside them and find yourself saying you’re “supposed” to do something—i.e. “you’re supposed to get those big purple coins!”—switch gears. SMBW is a great playground, so slow down and have fun. Seeing the game through a child’s eyes will give you a new appreciation for its incredible level design.
Replay Fun Courses
Sometimes a level is just a lot of fun and you can’t wait to do it again. So don’t! If your kid thinks the Hoppos are hysterical, then play the Hoppo level as long as they want. If they’re really good at the Parachute Hat Badge Challenge, let them do it again and again. The difficulty curve in SMBW will sneak up on you and can hit kids pretty hard. Nothing takes the fun out of a night of gaming faster than running into a level no one can beat. So avoid frustration at all costs. You can always come back and play more once the kids go to bed. There’s multiple save files for a reason.
Pro Controllers Are A Wise Investment
While it’s admirable that the Switch comes with two built-in controllers, using a single Joy-Con to play games means having to touch the smallest buttons known to man. This is especially true for parents who aren’t gaming much, or who spend their time on PC or other consoles with keyboards or adult-sized controllers. If this sounds like you, then consider investing in a Switch Pro Controller (like this one) to make life easier. Odds are you’ll like it so much, you’ll end up getting more than one.
Screenshot: Nintendo
Mario Wonder Tips for Younger Kids
Let Them Have The Stupid Crown
On paper, the mechanic of having the player who gets the best score earn a little crown to wear seems cute and harmless. A silly little thing that has no bearing on the game and is essentially meaningless. Unless you are a small child. Then, suddenly and without warning, the crown will become the most important thing in your life. You will wail and despair if someone else has the crown, even if they get it by accident. So, parents, a word of warning. Let your kid get the crown. If you’re navigating siblings you may need to institute some hard rules on sharing, or wear the crown yourself in a “if you can’t play nicely you can’t play at all” situation. In the meantime let’s pray Nintendo lets us disable this feature in a future update.
Yoshi and Nabbit Don’t Get Power-ups
One of the things that sets Nintendo apart from Sony and Microsoft is their dedication to family-friendly gaming. This comes through in a lot of places in SMBW, but the addition of the Yoshis and Nabbit is probably the biggest accommodation they’ve made in franchise history. These characters can’t take damage, so young players (or adults) can still go through levels without feeling like they’re failing over and over.
The caveat is that these characters can’t use power-ups. This could be very upsetting for young players (or adults) who wanted to see Elephant Yoshi. This may not be a dealbreaker but probably something you want to mention before starting a level together.
Mario Teaches Reading
Who says games aren’t educational? Sure, Mario may be miles away from Ms. Rachel, but don’t fool yourself into thinking SMBW is pure brain candy. There’s plenty of dialogue and text to read, full of the common sight words kids are learning in elementary school. You can also apply the same techniques that make for effective reading at home. Ask about character motivation, the sequence of events, or make connections to their lives. Your kid may never have had Boswer steal their castle, but they’ve probably experienced someone being bad at sharing.
Image: Capcom / Remedy / Devolver Digital / Kotaku
It’s nearly Halloween, so it’s once again time for Valve to throw a big ol’ spooky-themed Steam sale. And this year there are plenty of great deals on new and old games, most of which are scary and perfect to play on Halloween night. Also…
Horror Game You’ve Never Heard Of Is Scientifically The Scariest Ever
BOO! Did I scare you? Probably not. Let me try again. *Clears throat* We live in a rapidly declining civilization that is being destroyed by powerful corporations and dangerously disruptive technology that will, quicker than most people realize, make it nearly impossible for folks to earn a living and live a comfortable life. Scared? Well, I can’t stop all of that but I can help you save a few bucks for the future with some of the best deals currently available via Steam’s “Scream: The Revenge” Sale.
Check out our list below for some highlights, and don’t wait too long to grab some of these creepy classics, as the Halloween sale ends November 2.
7 Days To Die $6 – ($25)
Alan Wake – $3.75 ($15)
Batman Arkham Knight – $4 ($20)
The Callisto Protocol – $24 ($60)
Cult of the Lamb – $15 ($25)
Darkest Dungeon – $5 ($25)
Days Gone – $17 ($50)
Dead By Daylight – $8 ($20)
Dead Space remake – $36 ($60)
Dredge – $19 ($25)
Project Zomboid – $14 ($20)
Resident Evil 2 – $10 ($40)
Resident Evil 3 – $10 ($40)
Resident Evil 7 $8 ($20)
Resident Evil 4 & Separate Ways DLC – $40 ($60)
Resident Evil Village – $16 ($40)
Strange Brigade – $2.50 ($50)
The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series $12.50 ($50)
Weird West – $10 ($40)
The Quarry – $15 ($60)
And good luck to everybody with the robot AI overlords and the fall of humanity and all that. Perhaps share in the comments below any good deals you find on Steam during this Halloween sale to help distract us from the doom and gloom of the future.
Games routinely cycle in and out of Game Pass every month, but the Xbox subscription service is about to lose some really good ones. You have less than a week left to try Persona 5 Royal, Signalis, and Gunfire Reborn. Here’s why you should give them a try before they’re gone.
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Leaving Game Pass on October 31, you have approximately zero chance of actually completing Persona 5 Royal by then if you haven’t already started it. But there’s still plenty of time to discover why so many other players have fallen in love with the demonic high school RPG sim. Signalis is much shorter and the perfect spooky Resident Evil-like puzzle adventure to play in the leadup to Halloween. Gunfire Reborn is sort of the opposite: a furry roguelike loot shooter about meditating to the flow of arena combat. Taken together, they serve up the perfect little weekend gaming buffet (and each one is available on console, PC, and over the cloud).
Persona 5 Royal
Screenshot: Atlus
The Persona series has always been great, but Persona 5 takes the turn-based RPG to a whole other level. A hyper-stylish presentation and jazz-infused playfulness makes it easier than ever to get through some of its more grueling and grindy parts. One moment you’re taking pop quizzes in class or helping friends after class, the next you’re chaining together demon-fueled combos against evil adults in surreal dungeons. Imagine being a kid all over again but with demons and the freedom to min-max your relationships and personal growth.
“Persona 5 offers the fantasy of a perfect teenage life,” Kirk Hamilton wrote in Kotaku’s original review. “With a little help from the Internet and a willingness to reload your saves, you could live this year in the ‘best’ possible way.” The Royal edition takes that same fantasy and ratchets it up even more with additional confidants, a longer school year, and tons of other tweaks like a grappling hook for dungeons. Famously, Persona 5 takes about 100 hours to beat. Consider its last few days on Game Pass as an expanded demo to decide whether you’re ready to take the full plunge.
Signalis
Screenshot: rose-engine
One of my personal top ten games of 2022, Signalis sort of came out of nowhere. Made by developer rose-engine, it’s eerie, haunting, and beautiful. You play as a mysterious person uncovering what happened in a weird facility full of little puzzles blocking your path and disturbing revelations lurking around every corner. If you’ve played the original Resident Evil games, its top-down view and low-poly horror atmosphere will feel instantly familiar and unsettling.
But punctuating the exploration and gameplay are anime cutscenes that hint at the larger story without ever letting you feel completely certain of what’s going on. There’s also gun combat that is surprisingly crunchy and requires you to be extremely mindful of not wasting ammunition. The music is incredible, too. As one Steam user wrote, “This game has done irreversible damage to my soul (it’s a masterpiece).” You can also finish it in under 10 hours.
Gunfire Reborn
Screenshot: Duoyi Games
Imagine if Borderlands and Enter the Gungeon had a baby and you get pretty close to Gunfire Reborn. The roguelike shooter is simple enough: run through dungeons, kill lots of stuff, unlock new characters and upgrades for future playthroughs. The key to Gunfire Reborn is that everything from the guns to simply throwing a grenade and watching it blow stuff up looks pretty and feels incredibly satisfying. Don’t let the fact that you’re playing as cute little colorful animals fool you: this is a first-person shooter fan’s shooter.
Every time you kill enemies you get coins you can use to purchase new weapons for your loadout. Your evolving arsenal changes how you approach each new encounter and the calculus everytime you can swap out a new ability or upgrade. Even when you’re feeling at the top of your game, Gunfire Reborn has a way of throwing something at you to knock you back down again. Thankfully, starting over again is half the fun.
Even once these three games are gone from Game Pass, you can still buy them outright for 20 percent off if you’re a current subscriber. But there will always be new stuff to play as well. Dead Space was just added today and Personal 5 Tactica, the strategy spin-off, arrives on November 17. You probably won’t beat Persona 5 by then either, but it’s plenty of time to figure out why all of the game’s characters are wearing Eyes Wide Shut masks.
Pay no mind to the horrifying mascots in the background. Screenshot: Sega / Kotaku
During today’s Xbox Partner Preview, a showcase for Microsoft’s upcoming third-party games, we got a new look at Sega’s next Yakuza adventure. No, not Gaiden, the other one: Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Instead of showing off dual protagonists Ichiban Kasuga and Kiryu Kazuma kicking all kinds of street punk ass across Hawaii, today’s trailer pumped the brakes and gave us a peek at its madcap new Animal Crossing-inspired game mode.
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Infinite Wealth’s new Happy Resort Dondoko Island mode will have you managing your own island resort. Like Nintendo’s cozy 2020 life simulator Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you can go fishing on the beach, customize the island’s buildings and furniture, and have Ichiban craft special DIY projects. The similarities between Dondoko Island and AC:NH don’t end there. DonDonki Island will also let you forge friendships with the island getaway’s many outlandishly dressed tourists while you manage the island’s influx of funds and infrastructure just like Animal Crossing’s Tom Nook.
Dondoko Island may provide Ichiban and company some much-needed reprieve from the melodrama of his crime-riddled life, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have to sock a couple of uninvited guests along the way—this is a Yakuza game after all. Along with making sure everyone is having a good time on the island, you’ll also have to defend it from intruders.
This isn’t the first time the Yakuza series has turned a Nintendo game like AC:NH into its own game mode. In fact, Yakuza: Like a Dragon had Mario Kart-esque and Pokémon-inspired stints in the form of Dragon Kart Racing and Sujimon, respectively. Aside from providing players with a fun alternative to punching fools, these minigames were also a great way to earn a bunch of cash to purchase health items and upgrades for the main campaign’s challenging boss fights.
Screenshot: Sega / Kotaku
But not everything is about the money. Sometimes you just need to sit back, grab a guitar, and sing karaoke in front of a roaring bonfire. Catch a vibe, if you will. I can already see myself ignoring Infinite Wealth’s main quest to sink countless hours into perfecting my island fortress. Speaking as a longtime Yakuza enjoyer, January can’t come soon enough.
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth launches on January 26 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Windows.
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 gathers some of the best games ever made and puts them all on modern platforms in one convenient package. Unfortunately, a laundry list of weird caveats and shortcomings at launch make the new anthology hard to celebrate. Why is one of the best franchises in gaming history not pulling out all the stops?
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Out October 24 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and Windows PC, Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 has been stalked by controversy for months now, with questions about subpar performance on Nintendo Switch and a lack of bells and whistles on “next-gen” platforms like PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. The anthology features five main games—Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater—and includes the oddball Snake’s Revenge and the NES and Famicom ports of Metal Gear as bonuses.But now that it’s finally here, it’s hard not to be disappointed by how publisher Konami has gone about assembling it.
First up is the lack of a visual upgrade on new platforms, or parity with the original versions on Switch. As shared prior to release, Metal Gear Solid still only plays at 30fps across all versions (it was never remastered for 2011’s Metal Gear Solid HD Collection by Bluepoint Games). The Switch version of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 are also locked at 30fps (MGS2 originally ran at 60fps on PlayStation 2). All three games max out at 1080p as well, with no 4K resolution options for the stronger hardware versions.
Even without any big improvements, Konami notes that the launch versions still suffer from various bugs and performance issues it plans to patch sometime in the future. A full list of the shortcomings was provided to IGN. “Across Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, and 3, bug fixes are also planned, specifically on MGS2,” the site noted. “Konami warned the game may significantly slow down in certain cutscenes, which sounds worrying. A patch to reduce processing load is planned.” Visual options like CRT scanlines and the ability to switch between windowed and full-screen mode in the options menu in the two MSX games are also MIA at the moment.
There’s also the laggy pause button. Konami added the option to pause during cutscenes, a long-requested feature for the story-heavy stealth series. Footage from copies of the game that leaked early, however, showed that it can take up to 10 seconds for the game to register the pause after the button’s pressed, taking some of the shine off the new option. It’s still unclear if that’s intentional or will be patched down the road.
The Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 is, perhaps less surprisingly, encountering issues on PC as well. Initial Steam reviews are very mixed, with players complaining about unintuitive keybindings, poor UI, and a lack of aspect ratio options. “Take this with a grain of salt, the game literally just launched, but damn the video settings, button mapping, and poor UI/UX for the collection is pretty sour,” wrote one player. “I am sure it will improve over time, but yikes.”
Most galling for me personally are the games altogether missing from the physical Switch version of the collection. In North America at least, only Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, and Snake’s Revenge are actually on the game card. The three Metal Gear Solid games, which are the main ones advertised on the front of the box, must be downloaded separately. As someone who treats their Switch like a physical repository for retro remasters and re-issues, it’s frustrating to have to rely on an internet connection and a temporary online storefront to have access to all-time classics. It sounds like the Japanese physical release at least also includes the first Metal Gear Solid on the game card.
Many of the initial reviews for Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 have noted these shortcomings while still pointing out that at the end of the day these games still play great and remain some of the most profound meditations on geopolitics, war, and the military industrial complex the medium has ever produced. “I think it’s great that such a huge swathe of Metal Gear history is now readily available and easily playable on modern systems,” writes The Verge’s Jon Porter. “But there’s also a part of me that thinks Konami missed an opportunity to give Metal Gear Solid in particular a fresh coat of paint and update it for a modern audience.”
The video game industry is generally so bad at preserving its past I wish it would go all out when it decides to finally take the opportunity to repackage old games and sell them again. If that means charging more so be it. I’d gladly pay $100 for the definitive edition of all of these games. Maybe we’ll eventually get that one day. In the meantime I hope Konami’s planned post-launch updates give the collection some of the additional love it deserves.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the highly anticipated 2D platformer, is finally out on Nintendo Switch. But before you get too ahead of yourself turning Mario and company into giant elephants and whatnot, you should mess around with some gameplay settings first—especially the one that controls the Talking Flowers.
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Earlier this week, in another edition of Nintendo’s ongoing web series, Ask the Developer, we learned that Wonder was originally going to have a live commentary feature like what you’d find in a sports game. It was scrapped, but found new life through the game’s Talking Flowers characters who shout at Mario and crew whenever they walk by. Although the Talking Flowers are a cute addition to the game and make solo playthroughs a little less lonely, your mileage with them may vary. Some people think the Talking Flowers, who talk all the time, are pretty annoying, if you can believe that. Here’s how you can turn the Talking Flowers voices off.
First, go to settings and scroll down to “Talking Flower Dialogue.” There you can switch it to “Voice off / Text on.” Super simple. There’s also a fun third option where you can change the language of the Talking Flowers if you want a different flavor of Flower Power commentary. Kotaku’s John Walker is partial to their Dutch language setting.
Folks online are pretty delighted that Nintendo gave them the option to let them speak in a separate language from their Switch’s system language but to mute the Talking Flowers entirely.
“Fantastic news. As soon as I saw that they talk to you automatically when you run by them, I was a little worried,”u/klaxhax replied in a thread about the setting option on the r/Nintendo Switch subreddit. “It gave me flashbacks to the GBA Mario re-releases with all those dreadful voice clips…”
“And with that one change, this game is a contender for GOTY,” u/Red_Speed replied in the same thread.
The novelty of the Talking Flowers’ motor mouths has a high likelihood of wearing thin, so knowing how to turn them off or switch up their language may prove useful for Wonder players—whether it’s for their first, second, or third playthrough.
Persona 3 Reload, a full-fledged remake of Atlus Games’ beloved 2006 role-playing game Persona 3, is set to release on February 2, 2024, for Xbox, PlayStation, and Windows. So take a deep breath and relax, you’ve still got a bit of time to play through October’s busy fall releases before hunkering down for an RPG-filled winter.
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The remake is far from being the definitive version of Persona 3, given its lack of Persona 3 Portable and Persona 3 FES content, which means no appearance from fan-favorite female protagonist Kotone Shiomi. However, its various pre-order versions (and the bonus items that come with them) might soften the blow for longtime fans. Here’s a guide for what each pre-order version of Persona 3 Reload will get you.
What You Get: Pre-orders of any version of Persona 3 Reload will get you the base game, as well as six Persona 4 Golden background music tracks as bonus DLC. The bonus DLC will let you listen to “Reach Out to The Truth,” “Time to Make History,” “I’ll Face Myself,” “A New World Fool,” “Fog,” and “Period” in P3R. So if you just wanna jam to some P4G tunes and don’t wanna pay a little extra for something extra, this is the version of P3R for you.
Persona 3 Reload Digital Deluxe Edition
Atlus
Price: $80
What You Get:P3R’s digital deluxe edition will get you the base game, six bonus P4G tracks, the game’s 64-page digital artbook, and its 60-song soundtrack of newly arranged and all-new songs by the Atlus sound team.
Persona 3 Reload Digital Premium Edition
Atlus
Price: $100
What You Get:P3R’s Digital Premium Edition includes the base game, P4G’s bonus tracks, the digital artbook and soundtrack, as well as all of Reload’s DLC on launch.Here’s a description of P3R’s DLC pack:
Persona 5 Reload Phantom Thieves Costume Set
P5R Shujin Academy Costume Set
P5R Persona Set 1
P5R Persona Set 2
P4G Yasogami High Costume Set
P4G Persona Set
Persona 3 Reload Aigis Edition
Screenshot: Atlus / Walmart / Kotaku
Price: $200
What You Get: Last is the big kahuna: Persona 3 Reload’s Aigis Edition. Pre-ordering this eye-wateringly expensive version will get you the base game, a physical art book, a two-disc P3R soundtrack, a P3R DLC pack voucher, and an Aigis figure. There’s no clear information on the size of that Aigis just yet, although it looks like a standard 6-inch prize figure.
