At long last, Xbox owners will soon get to enjoy the MMORPG PlayStation players have enjoyed for nearly a decade. Final Fantasy XIV is headed to Xbox Series X/S in spring 2024 after being a PlayStation console exclusive since 2014.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
Producer and director Naoki Yoshida made the announcement on stage at the game’s 2023 fanfest in Las Vegas, NV alongside Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer. The Xbox Series X/S version will offer 4K graphics and faster load times, like its PlayStation 5 counterpart. While the full release is still almost a year away, an open beta will be available for players to try much sooner when patch 6.5x arrives in the months ahead.
For those who have been living under an adamantoise shell, Final Fantasy XIV has you complete fetch quests, dungeons, and raids across the dazzling world of Hydaelyn, full of political intrigue and mythical wonder. The game was one of the first live-service disasters when it first launched in 2013, and was even entirely shutdown for a time before re-releasing as A Realm Reborn.
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
It’s recieved increasingly excellent expansions ever since, each introducing new characters, classes, and conflicts. And while it’s an MMO, a Duty Support system lets you play solo with AI-controlled NPCs. By the time Final Fantasy XIV comes to Xbox Series X/S, Square Enix says the feature will enable players to complete everything from the start of the game up through its most recent Endwalker expansion without ever needing to interact with another human being.
Why did it take so long to get FFXIV on Xbox?
The story of how we got here, however, is a long one. Yoshida was asked as early as 2013 why the game wasn’t on Xbox One. His answer at the time was that Microsoft’s stance on crossplay was too restrictive. “The main reason from our side is that I don’t want the community to be divided; to be split into two or more. For example, one player might be on the PC version, another might be on the PS4 version, and I’m playing the Xbox version – but we’re not able to join the same game servers,” he told RPGSite at the time. “That is just… I just don’t like the idea. I disagree with it.”
That was back when Microsoft was the company seemingly standing in the way of crossplay between the two consoles. Years later, roles were reversed, with Sony pushing back against crossplay for games like Fortnite. Yoshida repeated his requirement for crossplay in a 2017 interview with Kotaku, and things seemed to be progressing in that direction not long after.
Spencer publicly promised to bring the game to Xbox at the X019 fanfest event in London. “We have a great relationship with Yoshida-san and we’re working through what it means to bring a cross-platform MMO, that they’ve run for years,” he told VGC at the time. “It will be one of the games that’s coming and it’s something that I know our Xbox fans will be incredibly excited to see.”
No deal immeidately materialized, however. Yoshida was asked again what the problem was during a 2021 interview around the time Final Fantasy XIV came to PS5. “So I feel bad for saying the same thing every time,” he told Easy Allies. “But we are still in discussions with Microsoft and I feel like our conversations are going in a positive tone.”
The positive tone of those conversations seemingly wasn’t enough to finally get Sony to agree to crossplay though, until now. The two companies also recently reached a 10-year agreement for Call of Duty to keep coming to PlayStation after Microsoft’s acqusition of Activision Blizzard is finalized. Purely a coincidence, I’m sure. Sony, Microsoft, and Square Enix did not immediately respond to requets for comment.
While exploring dungeons in Diablo IV, you might encounter The Butcher, a terrifying and hard-to-kill demon boss who’s been a staple of the series since the original game in 1997. But if you get lucky, you might be able to easily kill this legendary baddie if he gets stuck behind a locked door. I’d feel bad for the guy, but he’s been getting trapped like this for nearly three decades now.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
Released in June, Diablo IV is the latest entry in Blizzard’s popular and long-running demon-killin’ action-RPG franchise. The game offers mostly the same classic looting and dungeon-crawling action you’d expect from a Diablo game, with some of the same enemies and classes from past titles returning for this latest entry. Also returning is one of Diablo’s most famous bosses: The Butcher.
This big demon first appeared way back in 1997 and also showed up in Diablo III in 2012. He’s a fan of big cleavers, killing adventures and asking for fresh meat. He’s scary and has been wrecking Diablo IV players when he randomly (and rarely) shows up in a dungeon or basement. However, old-school Diablo players might already know his weakness: doors. And it appears not much has changed in 2023.
What makes this funnier is that back in the first Diablo, The Butcher was known to commonly get stuck on random bits of terrain or even, like in 2023, get trapped behind doors. And just like today, back then players would take advantage of the helpless Butcher and beat the demonic shit out of him until he died and spit out some loot.
As far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be a reliable way to force the ol’ Butcher to spawn behind a locked door. But if it happens to you, don’t feel bad as you murder him. You’re just taking part in an old, time-honored Diablo tradition.
Team Fortress 2 has now been with us for over 15 years, and for some reason, developer Valve just decided to jack the maximum number of players who can join a server at once up to 100. Valve doesn’t actually recommend you play with that many people, and warns that the game doesn’t properly support that many players, but that hasn’t stopped the community from creating chaotic 100-player TF2 servers.
Stray Almost Feels Like A Modern Valve Game
Valve’s online class-based FPS,Team Fortress 2, isn’t a spring chicken by any definition, having first been released back in 2007 for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. And while the console versions have been long since abandoned, the PC version on Steam has continued to receive hundreds of tiny, medium-sized, and significantly large updates, all of which have been free. The latest update to the classic shooter has provided gamers with an option to set the world on fire and invite 99 other TF2 players into a single server.
On July 25, Valve released an update for Team Fortress 2. The patch notes reveal a pretty lengthy list of tweaks and changes, but the one change that caught the attention of many was the quiet announcement that the game’s maximum player count had increased from 32 to 100.
Valve: Don’t make 100-player servers, Gamers: LOL
Also in the patch notes? A warning from Valve letting players know that this new max player count is totally “unsupported” and “not recommended.” In other words, Valve isn’t going to spend time fixing bugs introduced by playing with 99 other folks. If shit breaks, that’s just how it goes. You were warned, after all.
Freddy210hill / Valve
As you can probably guess, even with that warning, many players have already fired up servers with the new max player count, and the chaos that followed was incredible. Watching people play on 100-player servers feels like looking into an alternate dimension in which Valve teamed up with Sega to put out a Total War: Team Fortress 2 spin-off.
Unsurprisingly, playing Team Fortress 2 with this many players causes some issues. Players are reporting lots of lag, poor framerates, broken models, collision problems, and even some instances when the game just crashes completely. That’s not surprising considering this is a 16-year-old game that was never designed to handle 75 people, let alone 100.
But also, I love this so much. Good for you TF2! There is something very impressive about 100 people in a single TF2 match. It’s like an old car making a long road trip after years without a tune-up. It might stall a few times, overheat, or even lock up, but it gets the job done. Brings a tear to your eye, really. It’s also a perfect time to let people create high-player-count servers, as Team Fortress 2 is setting player count records on Steam following the last big update.
If you’re jumping into Diablo IV for the very first time, you may not know which class to start with. And since each season in Diablo IV requires you to make a new character, if this isn’t your first rodeo you might want to check out a class you haven’t played before.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
Either way, it can help to brush up on some basics, review what your class options are, and take a look at some solid builds.
How to pick a Diablo IV class for the very first time
Diablo IV is a game with a lot of numbers and choices, but don’t be too intimidated by the wide variety of builds and opportunities available to you.
The Necromancer is an excellent first choice for beginners. We’ve got a list of three solid Necromancer builds that give you a variety of options for commanding the forces of the undead.
Between the exploding Corpse Necromancer, Summoner Necromancer, and Bone Spear Necromancer, you’ll get a solid grasp of how to build out and wield this class.
How to build a Sorcerer in Diablo IV
The Sorcerer is a satisfying and approachable class to jump into a new character with. We’ve put together a list of three different Sorcerer builds focusing on different elements for your consideration.
Whether you pick the Fire, Lightning, or Frost sorcerer, you’ll be able to take your character to level 50 with our builds, bending elemental forces to your will.
Our guide covers the Storm Druid, Pulverizer Druid, and Shapeshifting Druid with specific considerations for werebear and werewolf form.
Barbarian builds for Diablo IV
The Barbarian might be a very straightforward, kill-everything-in-your-way class to pick, but don’t let that fool you: Like other classes, they’re surprisingly versatile. But if you just want to cover your basics, take a look at our guide for Barbarian builds. We focus on the Whirlwind, Bleed, and Upheaval Barbarian in our list.
The extreme amount of damage output makes the Barbarian an essential role in just about any party. But even if you’re playing solo, you’ll have a blast mopping up room-fulls of enemies.
But don’t let the Rogue’s steeper learning curve turn you away from what can be a very fun class to throw down with. You might stumble a bit in the beginning, but once your Rogue starts demolishing their foes, it’ll feel that much more rewarding.
Diablo IV’s multiple options for character builds, which can combine to create some unique synergies in a multiplayer party, might be complicated to understand at first. Once you build your first character, however, you’ll get a better sense of what ability types to focus on and will find more opportunities to experiment with future builds.
If you were feeling nostalgic for old-school Max Payne, the perpetually grimacing star of Remedy’s iconic third-person shooter of the same name, take heart. There’s now a mod for Max Payne 3 that brings back the character’s unforgettable OG face—based on Remedy Creative Director Sam Lake—squint and all.
Why The Hot New Redfall Gameplay Trailer Left Us Feeling Cold
For the uninitiated, Max Payne is a 2001 third-person shooter developed by Remedy Entertainment, the studio behind Alan Wake, Control, and Quantum Break. The game featured the likeness of Sam Lake, a Remedy staff member who became known for lending his very structured face to the game’s protagonist. But Lake’s time as Payne’s face soon ended, as both Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne and Rockstar Studios’ Max Payne 3 changed course, with the former NYPD detective being modeled after actors Timothy Gibbs and then James McCaffrey in those sequels. However, modder AlexSavvy has now released a Sam Lake mod on Nexus Mods that puts Lake’s memorable mug back into Max Payne 3.
AlexSavvy
The mod “brings back the original look of Max Payne from the first game” so you can basically play as Sam Lake’s Max Payne in Max Payne 3. That game was pretty graphically sophisticated in its time, so making this mod required AlexSavvy to alter the fitting of every single costume to match Sam Lake’s body, and also model all the different hairstyles Payne sports throughout the game’s narrative.
The modder sought to fully preserve all existing facial expressions and wounds, and also brought back Payne’s Hawaiian shirt and leather jacket combo from the first game. In total, the mod replaces some 98 in-game models and 66 textures to reconstruct Sam Lake’s likeness. As ever, even a seemingly simple mod can require a ton of work.
If early feedback is anything to go by, AlexSavvy nailed it. Certain Max Payne fans have always had a bone to pick with the character’s changed appearance in Max Payne 3, and while it may have taken over a decade, now they can finally enjoy the game as the Max Payne they know and love, who happens to look a lot like Sam Lake.
I started regularly playing competitive online games in 2007, with the launch of Halo 3. Back then, participating in in-game voice chat was harrowing for a 17-year-old girl whose voice betrayed her gender and her youth. I was subjected to such frequent and horrific hostility (rape threats, misogynistic remarks, sexually inappropriate comments, you name it) that I eventually started screaming back, a behavior my parents still bring up today. And yet, voice chat is essential in competitive online games, especially modern ones like Call of Duty: Warzone, Apex Legends, Fortnite, Valorant, and Overwatch.
All of these popular games require extensive amounts of teamwork to succeed, which is bolstered by being able to chat with your teammates. But in-game voice chat remains a scary, toxic place—especially for women.
Unfortunately, despite efforts from developers to crack down on toxicity in voice and text chat, it still feels, at times, like I’m stuck in the same world as that 17-year-old girl just trying to compete in peace. And I’m not alone in that feeling. I spoke to several women about their voice chat experiences, as well as reps from some of today’s biggest online games, to get a better understanding of the current landscape.
A 17-year-old me playing Halo 3 circa 2007.Photo: Alyssa Mercante / Kotaku
Voice-chatting as a woman
Competitive online games are intense, but doubly so if you’re identifiable as outside the industry’s so-called core playerbase for the last 35 years: white, straight, and male. “Marginalized users, especially women, non-binary people, and trans folks, are more likely to experience harassment in voice and video chats,” game researcher PS Berge told Kotaku’s Ashley Bardhan last year.
The moment a woman or woman-presenting person speaks in voice chat, they run the risk of being identified as an “other” and thus deserving of ridicule, ire, or sexual harassment. For many, that fear of being othered and how it could (and often does) lead to harassment directly affects their willingness to speak in competitive game settings.
“I usually wait for someone else to speak first so I know what the vibe will be,” video game level designer Nat Clayton, who regularly plays Apex Legends, told Kotaku via email. “Though I feel more comfortable chatting in Apex than I do going back to older PC games like Team Fortress 2 or Counter-Strike—games where the expectation of bigotry seems absolutely set in stone, where you feel like you cannot turn on voice chat without immediately experiencing a flood of slurs.” Both Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike came out in the early 2000s and still attract an older, male-leaning playerbase, many of whom can be hostile to women.
This problem has been long-standing, but companies are doing more to dissuade people from being toxic or abusive in in-game voice and text chat now than they were 10 years ago—though it often doesn’t feel like it.
Microsoft recently announced a new voice reporting feature that will let players save and submit a clip of someone violating the Xbox Community Standards, which a team will then review to determine the next course of action. “Reactive voice reporting on Xbox is designed to be quick and easy to use with minimal impact to gameplay,” reads the press release announcing the new feature. This means that Xbox players can report toxic voice chat no matter what game they’re playing, which adds another layer of protection on top of the ones set up by individual developers.
Those protections include ones laid out In the uber-popular battle royale game Fortnite. If a player is found in violation of Epic’s community rules (which have guidelines against hate speech, inappropriate content, harassment, and discrimination), they could lose access to in-game voice chat—a newer approach to punishment that the company introduced in 2022—or have their account permanently banned. Epic wouldn’t share specific numbers on bans, but did tell Kotaku that its team is “planning to introduce a new feature for voice chat soon.”
But Fortnite “[relies] on player reports to address violations of our voice and text chats,” which places the onus squarely on those who are on the receiving end of such violations. And for games that don’t record or store voice and text chat, reports can feel especially useless. When asked if she has reported people in Apex Legends, Clatyon replied, “Many, and often, but unfortunately the current Apex reporting system doesn’t monitor/record voice interactions and so doesn’t take action based on voice chat.”
Image: Microsoft
New ways games are combatting toxicity
Companies don’t always rely on players, though. Activision, Blizzard, and Riot Games all use a mix of automation and human moderation for multiplayer modes in Call of Duty, Overwatch 2,and Valorant.
As detailed in an official Call of Duty blog post from last year, an automated filtering system flags inappropriate gamertags, while human moderation of text chat helps identify bad actors. The aforementioned post (which is from September 13, 2022) boasts 500,000 accounts banned and 300,000 renamed thanks to enforcement and anti-toxicity teams. We don’t have more recent data from the Call of Duty publisher.
After the launch of Overwatch 2, Blizzard announced its Defense Matrix Initiative which includes a “machine-learning algorithms to transcribe and identify disruptive voice chat in-game.” Though Blizzard did say what it considers “disruptive voice chat” or what the algorithms entail, the company did say the team is “happy with the results of this new tech” and has plans to deploy it to more regions and in more languages.
But women still often find themselves deploying strategies to deal with the toxicity that isn’t caught by these systems. Anna, a UI/UX researcher who regularly plays competitive games like Overwatch 2 and CS:GO, told Kotaku over email that she also waits to see what the vibe of the chat is before diving in. She’s “more inclined to speak up if I hear another woman too because there’s potentially more safety in numbers then,” she explained. Others, myself included, play solely with friends or offer to group up with women they meet in matches to avoid encountering agitated players.
Toxicity persists, which is likely why companies continue to try new methods and approaches. When Kotaku reached out to Riot Games for details on its efforts combating disruptive behavior and toxicity in Valorant, executive producer Anna Donlon said via email that:
In addition to the player reporting tools, automatic detection system, and our Muted Words List, we’re currently beta testing our voice moderation system in North America, enabling Riot to record and evaluate in-game voice comms. Riot’s fully-dedicated Central Player Dynamics team is leveraging brand new moderation technology, training multi-language models to collect and record evidence-based violations of our behavioral policies.
While companies struggle to find a solution to an admittedly complicated problem, some women have been discouraged from trying altogether. Felicia, a PhD candidate at the University of Montana and full-time content creator, told Kotaku that she used to say hello at the start of every game (she mainly plays Fortnite and Apex Legends) but that willingness eventually “turned into waiting to speak, then not speaking at all.” The shift came as a direct result of her experience using Overwatch’s in-game voice chat function. “It got so bad I’d only talk in Xbox parties,” she said of the feature which allows you to group up and voice chat with friends.
Jessica Wells, group editor at Network N Media, speaks up in her CS:GO matches despite the threat of toxicity. “I say hello, give information, and see how it goes. If my team is toxic to me, I’ll either mute individuals or mute all using the command,” she said via email. “I used to fight it—and I mean really fight the toxicity online—but I find toxicity breeds more toxicity and the game goes to shit as a result.”
Image: Blizzard
Toxicity persists and worsens in highly competitive games
If you’ve played ranked matches in games like Overwatch or Valorant, you’ve experienced this direct correlation: Verbal harassment increases when competition levels increase. And no one experiences this phenomenon more acutely than women.
Alice, a former Grandmaster Overwatch1 player, told Kotaku over email that her experience with the original game “changed how [she] interacted with online multiplayer.” She was ranked higher than her friends, so would have to queue for competitive matches alone, and said she’d get “the usual ‘go make me a sandwich’” remarks or requests to “let your boyfriend back on” in more than half of her games.
Overwatch is a curious case when it comes to harassment and toxicity. Despite a cartoonish visual design that suggests a more approachable game and a diverse cast of characters, competition is at the heart of the team shooter’s identity. Over time, patches and updates have focused on balancing competitive play, and its popular esports league encourages highly competitive gameplay. Overwatch players who regularly watch Overwatch League may be more prone to “backseating” (telling other players what to do) or be more judgmental of the way people play certain characters. And the more extreme ire is often directed towards women—especially those who play support or the few playing Overwatch at a professional level.
“Sometimes someone else on the team would stick up for me, but most of the time the other players would stay silent or join in.” Alice’s experience may not be surprising when you consider the one study that tracked over 20,000 players and found that men played more aggressively when their opponents or their characters were women. “Through our research, we found that women did perform better when they actively concealed their gender identities in online video games,” the study said.
Me, likely playing Call of Duty: Black Ops or Modern Warfare III circa 2011.Photo: Alyssa Mercante / Kotaku
Because of her consistently negative experiences in Overwatch voice chat, Alice plays Valorant now—just not ranked. She chooses not to play at a higher level because competitive Valorant (which also has its own, uber popular esports league) is a cesspool of toxic masculinity.
Anna, who regularly plays Riot Games’ 5v5 hero shooter, told Kotaku over email that she’s “encountered increasing amounts of toxicity in Valorant…which can include anything from sexual assault threats, threats of general violence or death threats, to social media stalking.” Male players have told her to “get on [her] knees and beg for gun drops, and proceed to use their character to teabag or simulate a blowjob.”
Anna says she changed her Riot ID to a “common household object” to try and prevent harassment from male players.
Stacy, a full-time streamer, told Kotaku via email that the harassment has bled into the real world, too. “Threats of DDOS, stalking, assault, murder and other crimes – a lot of which ended up on my live stream…I’ve had people ask me for my personal connections and accounts like Snapchat…as well as my phone number, and have even had people use my PSN account name to find me on social media like Instagram for non-gaming related reasons. [They even found] my email address to try to either harass me, send me unsolicited photos or attempt to bully and berate me beyond the console.”
The future of competitive games for women
It’s clear that even with automated moderation systems, extensive reporting options, and loud declarations against toxicity from publishers and developers, women who play competitive online shooters still regularly experience harassment.
“I have reported people in the past and it was an easy report button but with all the toxicity I encountered it made it feel like reporting them wouldn’t make a difference,” Felicia said. “I stopped reporting for the most part unless they come into my stream or in my comment section being toxic.”
Overwatch has a feature that will show you a pop-up upon login if the team has taken action against someone you’ve reported, but many players rarely (if ever) see that login. I’ve only ever seen it once.
Jessica finds that reporting players in CS:GO is virtually useless. “I can’t think of a single case where it felt like Valve directly took action,” she said.
Image: Alpha Intel / Respawn
The same can be said for Valorant, which has a similar reporting feature as Overwatch. “I think I’ve only seen [the report was actioned on] screen three or four times since it was implemented,” Anna said.
And though the process of reporting is simple, it requires women to retread traumatic territory. “With the particularly nasty people, it always feels gross having to recount the words someone used to explain how they’d like to assault me, or typing (partly censored) slurs that I’d never dream of using myself, but it feels like if my report is not water-tight, it won’t get dealt with,” said Anna.
Unfortunately, eliminating toxic game chat, like so many other problematic things in the gaming industry, requires changing the perspectives of people perpetuating the problem. We need a holistic approach, not one that’s centered solely on automated monitoring or the reports of victims.
“I think more than anything it is a cultural problem,” said Alice. “FPS games are ‘for boys’ and until we change that perception, I think people will continue to be rude in them, especially when there are minimal consequences.”
Game studios can and should center more women and marginalized creators, players, and developers in marketing materials, streams, and esports events—and they should make it explicitly clear that a toxic culture has no place in their games. Instead of shying away from providing details on banned or otherwise penalized players as a result of toxic behavior, studios should wear them like a badge of honor, presenting them proudly as a way of saying “you have no place here.”
FPS games like Splatoon 3 are a great example of how competitive games can be less toxic. Nintendo’s ink-based shooter has minimal communication tools and a diverse character creator that allows for some more gender fluidity, allowing it to feel less like a “boys game.” The perceived casual nature of a Switch player stands in stark contrast to the console warriors and PC try-hards, which begs the question: Can competitive games exist without toxicity?
Nat Clayton has some suggestions: “You need to visibly and publicly create a culture where this kind of behavior isn’t tolerated, to make your community aware that being a hateful wee shit to other players has consequences.”
Update 07/24/23 at 12:00 p.m. EST: The original story included a Jessica Wells quote about Overwatch, but Wells was referring to CS:GO’s reporting system, which is calledOverwatch. The quote has been adjusted to reflect that.
The last 48 hours of Diablo IV has been a little chaotic following wildly controversial changes to player power level in the game’s first pre-season patch. Now, developer Blizzard is doing a bit of damage control, taking to a livestream on July 21 to try and explain its decision-making process, as well as what changes it’s making in response to the overwhelmingly negative feedback.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
Diablo IV’s latest patch, 1.1.0, dramatically reduced player power across the board. Changes include reductions to XP earned for various activities, as well as a diminished role to status effects like Vulnerability that have played a central role in class builds. It was a tumultuous set of changes to say the least, all documented in an exhaustive list of alterations via the official patch notes. As promised, Blizzard held a livestream today to address these changes, as well as provide some updates on future changes to the game—particularly in response to the negative feedback on the previous patch. You can watch the whole stream here:
Blizzard / Diablo
Reducing player power: ’We know it is bad. We know it is not fun.’
On the stream, Blizzard’s associate director of community management, Adam Fletcher, immediately responded to the overwhelmingly negative feedback in response to the patch, acknowledging that missteps were made and that the reduction to player power has wrecked the fun of the game for some players.
While Fletcher stated that Blizzard had specific goals in mind with the most recent patch and that it wanted an opportunity to explain why it made these changes, some good news is that the team doesn’t “plan on doing a patch like this ever again.”
Blizzard plans on ‘always providing patch notes well beforehand’
While the most recent patch did dramatically reduce player power and strike at the heart of the developing meta, one of the most chaotic elements of it all was how suddenly the patch notes arrived, how lengthy they were, and how it felt like there was absolutely no heads up as to what was going to happen going into the game’s first season, which started on July 20.
As a way to get ahead of future issues like that, Blizzard has promised to provide patch notes “well beforehand,” estimating that notes will hit about a week before a new update. The game’s next patch, version 1.1.1, is expected to arrive sometime soon, and Blizzard will discuss the specific details of that patch in another livestream chat next Friday, July 28.
Changes to player power explained
Though some may find Blizzard’s explanations for the dramatic, across-the-board nerfs lacking, associate game director Joe Piepiora explained that the reductions to player attributes like cooldown rates and status effects like Vulnerability were done to try and amplify player choice. On the cooldown rates specifically, Piepiora said:
[Cooldown reduction (CDR) is the most powerful stat] in Diablo IV, and the reason for it is obvious: When you’re able to get CDR to a certain point when using certain class mechanisms, you’re able to get effectively instantaneous active skills. That can give you unlimited resources, can give you unlimited movement speed, can give you unlimited damage resistance, and it begins to dwarf the effectiveness of other options when you start trying to take these things into account.
During the stream both Piepiora and game director Joe Shely recognized that overpowered builds and mowing down tons of enemies is core to the action-RPG power fantasy. However, the team is presently concerned that player choice in builds is dying in favor of go-to metas, meaning that if you don’t emphasize cooldown reduction, or optimize builds to send foes into Vulnerable status, you’re operating at a disadvantage.
Vulnerability, which saw its damage modifier reduced significantly in patch 1.1.0, according to Piepiora, became the only way to really start dealing damage to enemies at certain levels of play. This, the team said, is not in line with their vision of the game, and in many ways they believe it’s the result of the outsized influence of high-level Nightmare Dungeons, which Piepiora said is one of the areas of endgame content that tends to demand very specific builds without much room for customization and choice.
The reality is that Nightmare Dungeons are dramatically overtuned from where they actually need to be based upon the role they fill in the game itself. So Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeons are excruciatingly difficult for most classes to be able to actually get through and as a result it begins to winnow the opportunities and options that players have when they begin to engage with content at that Tier. You need to lean on very, very specific builds, very specific setups with access to things like near-instantaneous cooldowns for some skills in an effort to actually make it through those spaces. And that was never really the intent of that content.
Apparently Nightmare Dungeons will see changes on at least two fronts: The density of hordes will be increased to play into the power fantasy of destroying vast amounts of enemies and, in respect to Piepiora’s statement that the crushing level of difficulty they pose is having too much of an effect on build choice, difficulty will be reduced, bringing Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeons down to about the current difficulty level of Tier 70 Nightmare Dungeons.
Patch 1.1.1 is expected to address some of the concerns
During the stream the team stressed that the goal was not, in fact, to reduce the speed of the game and slow progress, though many have felt that changes to game systems like an increase in the amount of time it takes to teleport out of dungeons seems to suggest otherwise. Commenting on that very change, Shely said the team will continue to evaluate changes like this, but stopped shy of saying why, exactly, that specific change was instituted in the first place.
The next patch, 1.1.1, is expected to address a wide variety of the issues present in the current build of the game. Blizzard revealed some such changes, like an extra tab in stash size to mitigate concerns over inventory management, and a 40 percent reduction in respec costs so players can more adequately respond to changes in the game’s meta while also having more choice over build variety as the game progresses. Other specific details, such as changes that have wildly reduced the power level and strength of certain classes more so than others, will be explored more in depth in next week’s livestream.
The team stressed that it doesn’t want to take powerful skills and items away as abruptly as it did with the most recent patch, and pledges to offer more alternatives when potentially sweeping changes come about in the future. A hotfix is scheduled to arrive later today (July 21), with patch notes expected to hit Diablo IV’s website shortly before it goes live.
It’s not uncommon for live-service games to make sudden changes like Diablo IV did here, but community frustration over poorly communicated and executed changes can easily build up over time to create burnout and resentment. Time will tell how quickly Diablo IV recovers from this latest kerfuffle.
Like many games these days, the highly anticipated Baldur’s Gate 3 comes in a few different editions at a few different price points. Obviously if you’re a D&D superfan, you might be interested in the most expensive one, but what, exactly, will shelling out that extra cash get you? And what of the other versions? Let’s break it all down.
The Witcher 3 Meets Tense Roguelike PvE Card-Battling In Rogue Mage
When is Baldur’s Gate 3 even coming out?
You wouldn’t be alone if you found Baldur’s Gate 3’s release status a little confusing. Though the game hit Early Access back in 2020, the full version of Baldur’s Gate 3 releases on August 3, 2023 for PC (Steam or DRM-free GOG). On console, the PlayStation 5 version launches on September 6. And, yes, Xbox and Mac versions are expected eventually, though certain challenges developer Larian has faced there mean we’ll have to wait.
The standard edition of Baldur’s Gate 3 will be available for $60 on PC and Mac, and $70 on PS5. But there are a few other versions you may wish to consider. There is no physical version of the game itself, as in a plastic saucer with laminated data that you insert into a slot, but the priciest edition does net you some tangible goodies. More on those in a moment.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Deluxe Edition
Good news, everyone™: if you have preordered Baldur’s Gate 3 on PC or Mac, you’ll already have the Deluxe Edition coming your way. Sick, right?
But if you’re on PS5, it’s gonna cost you an extra 10 bucks ahead of the already more-expensive version: so that’ll be $80 bucks.
However you source it, here’s what’s coming with the deluxe edition:
Divinity Bard Song Pack
Exclusive Dice Theme (themed to your platform of choice)
Treasures from Rivellon Pack (select items from Divinity: Original Sin 2)
Mask of the ShapeshifterCape of the Red PrinceLute of the Merryweather BardNeedle of the Outlaw RogueBicorne of the Sea Beast
Now for the pricey one. For a cool $270 bucks you’ll get everything in the Deluxe Edition, plus some physical stuff:
A custom sticker sheet (sticker bomb the hell out of stuff)
A Mind Flayer vs. Drow battle diorama (put it on your mantelpiece)
A 160-page hardcover art book (great for coffee tables)
A cloth map of Faerûn (great prop for TTRPGs, by the way)
Epic D&D character sheets (pro tip: If you want to use these in actual D&D game, photocopy them so you don’t ruin the originals)
A metal tadpole keyring (which you’ll have to remind everyone is a tadpole)
Magic: The Gathering booster pack
A custom metal d20 themed to Baldur’s Gate 3 (I’ll still roll 1’s all the damn time)
A certificate of authenticity (show it off to your friends, make ‘em jealous)
Exclusive in-game dice skin based on the Collector’s Edition metal d20
Sounds good, right? Well I’ve got good news and bad news. The Collector’s Edition, only available from Larian’s online store, is currently sold out. The good news? You can give Larian your email address to be notified when it’s back in stock. If $270 isn’t too many gold pieces to put you off the idea, I suggest grabbing a copy as soon as you can when it’s available once more, as this seems to be quite a hot item.
Correction 7/20/2023 7 p.m. ET: Updated to reflect that the Mac version has no set release date yet.
Baldur’s Gate 3 launches on August 3 on PC, September 6 on PS5, and at a later date on Xbox and Mac.
On Wednesday, CD Projekt Red juiced up The Witcher 3 with yet another patch, giving the eight-year-old fantasy role-playing game improved cross-platform progression on consoles, new features for Nintendo Switch, and even better-looking grass for touching purposes.
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The Witcher 3’s version 4.04 patch introduces a hodgepodge of graphical updates and quality-of-life improvements to both console and PC versions of the game, as well as bringing certain specific improvements to the Nintendo Switch. In short, the latest patch improves the Switch’s cross-progression feature making it so that, once logged in to your CD Projekt Red account, you can pick up where you left off in The Witcher 3 on other platforms. The Switch is also getting the Netflix-inspired content other consoles received in the last patch.
Aside from numerous bug fixes like, umm… “mending grass collision,” patch 4.04 has also made it so you don’t have to do so much fussing in menu screens during combat, letting you switch oils and potions right from the game’s radial menu. It’s a welcome change, since oils are vital tools in taking down specific monsters. Now Geralt can bathe his sword in whatever specific concoction will help him defeat the beasties he’s currently battling without you needing to break the flow of combat by opening up the pause menu and fiddling around with witcher’s brew.
These quality-of-life updates come as the second half of the third season of Netflix’s Witcher series—the final season with actor Henry Cavill in the role of Geralt—is almost upon us. In his absence, Liam Hemsworth will take up the Roach-riding mantle, debuting as the Butcher of Blaviken in the show’s fourth season.
The second part of The Witcher’s third season will premiere on the streamer on July 27.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the creative director on Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 revealed that he was nervous about finding the right person to play the sequel’s notorious big bad, Venom. That is, until he heard the unmistakably awesome voice of Candyman actor Tony Todd.
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Speaking with EW, Insomniac Games’ Bryan Intihaar disclosed that deciding on the right voice actor for Venom was “one of the things I was avoiding for as long as possible because I was so scared of who we were going to get to do the voice.” Although Insomniac’s previous Spider-Games, Marvel’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales, garnered high praise from critics as some of the best iterations of the web-slingers, Intihaar said pressure was on to cast the perfect Venom because “people would have a lot of opinions on it.” But Todd, he says, was up to the task.
“Everything we talked about [with] Venom — that sense of strength, that sense of fear, that sense of overwhelming, so different from Peter — Tony embraces that completely in the performance,” Intihar told EW.
After hearing the booming voice of Tony Todd in the trailer for 2021’s Candyman (in which Todd reprises his role as the title character of the 1992 original), all Intihar’s fears went away. Luckily for Insomniac, Todd had already submitted an audition for the role of Venom.
Spider-Man 2 PS5 director says Todd is the perfect Venom
As Intihar has noted in previous interviews, the tone of Insomniac Games’ take on the iconic Spider-Man villain will be darker than some other depictions, treating Peter’s struggles with the symbiote as akin to battling an addiction.
“We wanted to try something very different, and I don’t think you can get much more different from Doc Ock than you do Venom,” Intihar said. “It’s about power, it’s about strength, it’s about being slighted, it’s about Peter being involved much more in the creation of Venom. I think that’s what attracted us.”
Narrative director Jon Paquette echoed Intihar’s sentiments, saying Parker’s internal struggle with Venom impacts those closest to him, adding that “there’s a lot of juicy drama that we can get from that.”
“For us, Venom is the host plus the symbiote,” Intihar said. “You don’t get Venom without both of them being bonded together. What Tony represents is that bond. I think, if anything, casting Tony made us feel more confident in the visual design of the character.”
Yes, Insomniac Games’ Venom has a grotesque mouth just like in the movies
Insomniac Games gave fans an exclusive look at Venom’s design in EW’s article, revealing the space-faring symbiote’s numerous teeth and imposing ink-black physique as he roars in the center of a city block surrounded by Humvees. While drafting early concept art for Venom, senior art director Jacinda Chew revealed that the trickiest design components involved his freakish monster mouth.
“One of the challenges we had throughout production was, how much does [Venom] talk?” she says. “I remember we did some concepts early on [of] does Venom have lips? Does he laugh? Does he smile? Does he frown? It’s a fine line between making this creature scary and intimidating, but then also, I guess, relatable.”
For all the monster-fuckers out there who fell to their collective knees at Tom Hardy’s Venom having a gaping maw, I hope Spider-Man 2 throws them a bone. Perhaps it could offer up a tiny crumb of the anti-hero’s silly side by having him give Parker and Miles Morales a shit-eating grin before their inevitable two-on-one brawl.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 releases on October 20 for PlayStation 5.
Baldur’s Gate 3’s character creator is incredibly expansive. Larian Studios has described it as a tool for players to build their ideal fantasy protagonist, but before it could be that, the Belgian studio needed it to serve a different purpose: filling the RPG’s world with unique, believable civilians.
11 Minutes With Baldur’s Gate 3’s Character Creator
In an interview with Kotaku, lead character artist Alena Dubrovina walked us through nearly every aspect of Baldur’s Gate 3’s suite of character customization options, and despite its impressive breadth, each variation of the RPG’s hero I saw still looked like a deliberately crafted individual on which every scar, piece of jewelry, or hairstyle looked tailor-made for their face, whether they were a human, a reptilian Dragonborn, or any of the game’s numerous other races. According to Dubrovina, a lot of that precision comes from Larian making these options for its team more so than for the players who will inhabit these characters when the game launches on August 3.
“We never make a character creator […] specifically for the players, even though we sort of do,” Dubrovina said in a video call. “First of all, when the production starts, we make it for us. Because we knew that the game was gonna be huge. We knew that there’s gonna be too many characters and we knew we need to customize everyone and be prepared for Dragonborns or similar creatures like that. […] So we kind of know that if a design is requested and there’s gonna be—like in a year— 100 [characters] throughout the game, it’s our job to kind of be prepared to make sure that all of those imps or at least some of those imps look unique.”
11 Minutes With Baldur’s Gate 3’s Character Creator
11 Minutes With Baldur’s Gate 3’s Character Creator
Unlike other RPGs like Skyrim that use sliders to fine-tune aspects of a character’s face or body to your liking, Baldur’s Gate 3 uses preset faces that can be added upon with what Larian calls “attachments,” such as hair, jewelry, scars, tattoos, or facial hair. According to Dubrovina, this was to maintain that tailor-made look of other characters you meet in the game.
“My personal experience with most [slider-based character creators] is you kind of customize it, it takes you a lot of time and effort, and then a lot of times it kind of looks the same in the end,” she said. “So we wanted to avoid that. And if we would make sliders, we needed to make it into something that would be truly unique and wouldn’t look the same.”
According to Dubrovina, Larian isn’t married to taking this approach for all of its games, but they felt the approach worked well for Baldur’s Gate 3 and, she said, it kept custom characters from looking “mediocre.”
That crafted look for each race, hairstyle, and accessory means that there aren’t really “ugly” custom characters. This isn’t Street Fighter 6 where players are making a bunch of weirdos. And indeed, even as Dubrovina repeatedly clicked the randomize option in the character creator, each hero with different accessories, colors, and other options looked believable.
Larian has been working on Baldur’s Gate 3 for six years and the game features 11 races, with their own original appearances and traits. For now, the studio has “no plans whatsoever” to add any new races to the RPG. So if you were hoping to play as some of the other Dungeons & Dragons races like a Giff or a Bugbear, temper your expectations. But the races that are in the character creator all seem to have a lot of options, even among the presets.
“We tried to kind of stay true to the lore,” Dubrovina said. “If the [Dungeons & Dragons] book said, ‘Oh, Tieflings usually have like a red shade of skin,’ then we followed that for the most part.”
In that spirit of staying true to D&D lore, the options Baldur’s Gate 3 initially gives you to customize aspects of your character are meant to be in-line with what you’d find in the storied tabletop RPG’s sourcebooks. However, you can also opt to swap to a more expanded options list and use any color provided, so you can have a green-colored human or a blue Tiefling. There is some freedom in customization, but you’ll still find traits that are exclusive to certain races, such as horn customization for Tieflings or a Dragonborn’s ancestry affecting a pattern on your character’s scales. It also results in some restrictions, such as Elves canonically not having beards.
Gif: Larian Studios / Kotaku
While the lore itself will stick to the script, Dubrovina said Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t too beholden to Dungeons & Dragons, as it doesn’t implement concepts like moral alignment. So you won’t be forced to adhere to a specific alignment that you pick early on, which opens up opportunities for role-playing and player expression. The source material acts as an inspiration for the team, rather than a set of hard rules.
Even with its fantasy foundation, Baldur’s Gate 3’s world overlaps with our own in some ways, and the character creator is part of that. Video games’ and studios’ frequent inability (or unwillingness) to render the specific textures of Black hair has been a hot topic in recent years. In some of the biggest games like Elden Ring, Black players are often left to choose between fairly standard options like cornrows or dreadlocks, if they even get those. In creating Black hairstyles for Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian Studios sought help from consultants and animators outside the studio to get them right, both in terms of how they look when dry, but also to account for how different hairstyles might react to the elements.
“The types of hair that humans have varies,” Dubrovina said. “[There are] different physical properties dependent on the quality of the hair itself. Like if it’s wet, if it’s dry, if it’s unkempt, [we’d say] ‘oh yeah, let’s try making this hairstyle less sleek and a little bit dirty, but we’ll need to remake it’ because, you know, the mesh needs to be placed in the whole different ways.”
Dubrovina says working on those hairstyles was a learning experience for the studio that has helped its art team “expand [its] lineup,” and will hopefully let people play as a character who looks like them. That philosophy of trying to let players create a character who looks and acts like them expands into gender identity. Baldur’s Gate 3’s approach to gender and how you identify with a body is incredibly fluid, and has even been changed up in a few ways since the RPG was in Early Access.
Screenshot: Larian Studios / Kotaku
Most races now have four different body types no longer designated by the gender symbols, but simply numbered one through four. In these four choices are options for a shorter stature, or a taller, more broad one for both sexes. This is entirely independent of your character’s pronouns (you can choose between male, female, or non-binary ones out the gate), voice, or, as we wrote about earlier this month, their genitals.
Baldur’s Gate 3 allows you to pick your character’s genitals, and unlike Cyberpunk 2077, they actually show up in the game itself, rather than just in the menu. You can choose between a penis or a vagina, as well as pubic hair options, though given the Dragonborn’s reptilian nature, theirs will look slightly different.
According to Dubrovina, the decision to add this option didn’t stem from the inclusion of sex scenes in romance subplots (such as the one with the druid bear), but rather because the team decided to make underwear a piece of equipment you would obtain throughout the game, customize, and wear. She explained that underwear is an extension of the character customization as a form of in-universe expression, as some of the underwear you’ll find is meant to represent the race that wears it (or did before you looted or stole it), such as the leather-based “spicy” Githyanki pair. Then after putting so much work into underwear, the studio naturally thought about what would be under these meshes.
“The question arose, ‘what happens when you take it off?’” she said. “At first we were like, ‘you know, maybe nothing’s gonna happen. Maybe we’re gonna have another underwear mesh under it. Who cares? But then I started thinking about it, talking about it, and we realized that for some players, it’s just another way to represent their identity.”
Having options like this, especially ones that aren’t tied to each other like how Cyberpunk 2077 tied protagonist V’s pronouns to their voice, is key to letting people, regardless of their identity, represent themselves in a game all about player expression. That expression extends far beyond which race you play and which class you pick. Having the option to mix these different pieces of your character is how you allow a player to be their truest selves in a game. Baldur’s Gate 3 is lacking in some aspects of body diversity, what with all its body options appearing to be very fit and there not being any means to create a fat character (as fans have noticed), but there is something to be said for its commitment to different signifiers of queer identity.
Baldur’s Gate 3 – Genital Character Creator Options
Baldur’s Gate 3 – Genital Character Creator Options
Conversations around queer player expression in video games have spanned decades, and have only become more fraught thanks to the internet. One common response to requests for more representation is that development time and resources must be spent elsewhere. BioWare made a similar argument regarding the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition remasters and not implementing gay male romance in the first two games, claiming doing so was beyond the scope of the project. Meanwhile, developers like The Game Bakers spent an entire year making the romance in its adventure RPG Haven queer-inclusive through new models, voice lines, and other assets. The recent remake of Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life modernized the 20-year-old game to allow same-sex romance and diverse gender and fashion options. It feels like whether or not these requests get implemented largely comes down to the will of the studios in question, rather than them being a huge burden, as detractors might predictably argue.
Dubrovina says she’s sympathetic to how difficult it might be to implement these things retroactively, but she feels that Larian’s character creator was was designed to be more flexible, which made adding things like genital options somewhat easier.
“It really actually depends on how your characters are made and I can very much imagine the scenario where you made your character model in a certain way that it’s really hard now to change it,” Dubrovina said. “That is very much possible. in our case, we tried to be prepared for anything. Like, you want to slap a tail on an elf? Sure, we, we might get prepared for it. it’s relatively easy to do with what we established as our character systems.
“I could imagine with some other developers or with some games, it could just happen that nobody had thought about [the need to add new types of options] when working on the character model or mesh and then it just happened. Yeah, [in that case] it’s gonna like be like a few months of work and the production time just couldn’t accommodate that. So that’s possible.”
Because Larian was already prioritizing player expression, it was able to plan accordingly when it came to voice line recording, which was notably an issue in retroactively adding gay romance to the original Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 in the remaster. By planning from the jump to accommodate they/them pronouns, which did take extra work and time, the studio was able to make the implementation a smoother process. Also, because these options don’t affect gameplay, they can more easily be added without having to worry about how doing so will impact other systems. They will, however, change the nature of which romance scene you get because the mechanics will obviously be different depending on what your character is packing.
Development lift aside, Dubrovina explained that adding all these customization options that tie into your character’s identity felt in-line with Baldur’s Gate 3’s philosophy of prioritizing player expression, and so it was worth the extra effort.
“BG is very focused on your identity and the ultimate fantasy where you can be whoever, whatever you wanna be,” she said. “And we wanted to have this represented. We believe that visual [character creation options create] a positive player experience. I noticed it with myself when I playgames or when I pick which game to buy, right? I’m looking at the characters and I wanna look pretty. I wanna look fun.”
If you’re someone who doesn’t really want to engage with the genital options (among other nudity), Baldur’s Gate 3 does have the option to hide nudity and other non-stream-friendly content.
Screenshot: Larian Studios / Kotaku
The options are vast and the custom characters are cool, but if you’re anything like me, who makes a character that looks like him and then replays a game over and over making the same choices with the same character, you might be wondering if Baldur’s Gate 3 will have an option to import an old character into a new playthrough. Unfortunately, you’ll have to remake them for your future playthroughs, as Baldur’s Gate 3 won’t have any kind of import option at launch. This includes bringing an old character from the Early Access period into the full game.
All of this comes after years of iteration working on Baldur’s Gate 3 during Early Access, and Dubrovina says feedback from the past three years of players making their way through the game’s first act has helped Larian craft the character creator it has.
“We weren’t living under a rock,” she said. “We were following what the community wanted and we were looking at what other games do. We were looking at what’s being discussed online. There are a lot of things that evolved, and I feel like, yeah, generally games are trying to move towards increasing the amount of diversity they have. We definitely wanted to represent that. So we wanted to like, kind of give everyone the opportunity to pick from a wide selection.”
Remember that awful looking The Last of Us clone, The Last Hope, that got released earlier this month? Well, it turns out the game is much worse than the trailer first suggested. Apparently, the whole game is only about 20 minutes long, takes place in one street, and is a broken mess.
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Let’s cast our minds back to last week. That’s when a horrible-looking Nintendo Switch The Last of Us clone went viral online. A trailer for the game looked like a blatant copy of Naughty Dog’s award-winning franchise, complete with its own Ellie-like companion. It was even called The Last Hope. Yeah, the people who made it weren’t being subtle about where they were pulling their “inspiration” from. Most would agree, it looked bad, but now thanks to Digital Foundry, it’s clear this is much worse than we thought. In fact, it might be the worst game of 2023.
In a new upload on Thursday, the video game tech analysts at Digital Foundry ripped The Last Hope apart in a video that is about as long as the actual game.
Digital Foundry / West Connection Limited / VG Games
Where to even begin? For starters—this might be the most shocking—the entire game seems to take place mainly on one U-shaped street in a generic city. Thanks to the game’s reliance on Unity store props, it’s a rather confusing place. American flags can be seen next to European power outlets. Other assets also don’t seem to work together, with some being far too detailed compared to other, lower-res objects scattered about.
Playing The Last Hope is a frustrating, bad experience
When you actually start to play The Last Hope, you’ll also notice that the framerate is horrendous, often dipping well below 30. This makes it hard to play, as the game’s performance goes up and down constantly. What also makes it hard to play is that the game seems to have barely been playtested. As shown in the Digital Foundry video, it gives the player very limited resources.
For example, your stamina meter doesn’t recharge over time, limiting how many times you can swing your baseball bat. And there are only three MREs, that partially refill your stamina, in the entire game. Bullets are also rare, meaning that if you miss too many shots you could end up in an unwinnable situation.
At one part, players have to use a lockpick to unlock a police car, and while doing this you can be killed by zombies. The problem is the game doesn’t tell you this is happening. So you do your lockpicking, finish, and exit to a screen that simply states “You Dead.” This means that you’ll need to clear out the area of zombies before starting the lockpicking mini-game. But based on Digital Foundry’s math, you can only kill around 65 zombies with the resources offered in-game. So don’t miss a single shot, don’t sprint (as that wastes stamina), and also hope the game doesn’t randomly crash during all of this, erasing your progress in the process.
Oh and keep in mind that it’s only about 15 minutes long, assuming you manage your limited resources correctly and don’t get stuck trying to open a door that can only be opened with the “E” key. (Note: The Switch doesn’t have an E key.)
The Switch’s digital store is filled with this crap
And it’s easy to laugh at it, which I did and continue to do. But it’s sadly not an oddity on the Switch’s eShop, which in recent years has become filled with shovelware garbage that, some might say, is getting very close to scam territory. Not that I’m calling The Last Hope—a game that can be completed in 15 minutes and looks to be directly ripping off The Last of Us using poorly cobbled together Unity assets—a scam. Just, you know, some people might be saying that.
I think some folks just assume these shovelware games are bad and don’t think much of it. But I think Nintendo should try to bring back some quality control to its store.
For one, so many indie devs are working really hard on games that end up getting lost in a massive sea of content. Pruning some of the worst, most broken shovelware from the store might help these devs find more success. The Switch platform also has a lot of younger players and they or their parents might not know better and waste some money on something awful, broken, and terrible. Something like The Last Hope.
Genshin Impact is one of the biggest, most successful video games in the world, bringing in tens of millions of dollars a month for developer/publisher miHoYo. However, according to some voice actors involved with the popular game, they don’t get paid for months, and it’s causing some to possibly fall behind on rent.
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Launched in 2020, Genshin Impact is a free-to-play gacha-driven online anime-themed action-RPG featuring a large roster of characters who work together to defeat enemies using elemental magic attacks. The game has been a massive hit from the moment it first went live and has spawned a giant community of players around the world. However, despite all the money and success the game has brought developer miHoYo, two voice actors who have worked on the game have publicly shared frustration about their pay on Twitter.
On July 12, Corina Boettger and Brandon Winckler, two voice actors who have voiced characters in Genshin Impact, tweeted how frustrated they were and claimed that money owed to them had yet to be paid months later. Boettger voices popular NPC Paimon and Winckler voices various minor characters in the RPG.
Winckler explained that he has sent five emails to miHoYo asking for the company to pay him, but has yet to receive any response. He said it was “inexcusable” that he has had to wait over four months for his paycheck, while he estimates the publisher brings in over $85 million a month. Between 2020 and 2021, Genshin Impact reportedly generated a total of $3.7 billion.
“It’s really hard to justify working on something for the sake of work when you can’t afford to eat,” tweeted Winckler. “Many non-union productions have this problem, I’ve waited anywhere from four to eight months for payment, and even then, it isn’t much to ask. $1000 here, $500 there, and it adds up fast.”
Winckler added that while he loves working on video games, he won’t be working on Genshin Impact anymore, saying that the game should be a “union production” with a union contract and protections.
Fellow actor Corina Boettger also tweeted about frustrations over lack of pay, saying they had worked for “months” unpaid on a “big project.” Boettger claims they are owed thousands of dollars and is currently struggling to pay rent because of the delayed payments. While Boettger didn’t directly say Genshin Impact in the tweets, follow-up replies make it clear what project the actor is referring to in their public statements.
“This project has made BILLIONS,” said Boettger. “This project should be Union. This wouldn’t happen if the game was union. Tell them to make the game SAG.”
Boettger further added that while they’re not sure if the developers, publisher, or someone else are to blame for the payment issues, they believe that if the game was union none of this would be happening.
Kotaku contacted miHoYo, Boettger, and Winckler for comment, but didn’t hear back before publication.
I’ve finished Final Fantasy XVIand am now working on 100 percenting it, including beating the game a second time on the New Game+ “Final Fantasy” mode difficulty. For all the game’s flaws, of which there are plenty, there’s just so much it does that I just can’t get enough of. From the music and environments to the heart-stopping Eikon battles, Square Enix’s latest action-RPG is chock full of things both big and small, in your face and very subtle, that make it, for me at least, one of the most memorable Final Fantasy games in nearly two decades.
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Released on June 22 as a timed PlayStation 5 exclusive, Final Fantasy XVI tells the story of the orphaned prince Clive and his (not so merry) band of outcasts as they seek to overthrow the powers that be and install a new, more equitable world order. It trades the turn-based, menu-heavy RPG customization the franchise is known for for chunky action combat and cinematic spectacle that’s constantly cranked to 11. And it works. Mostly. Here are some of our favorite things we can’t stop thinking about from Square Enix’s latest blockbuster adventure.
Clive’s slutty little waist
If we’re talking about little things in Final Fantasy XVI worth spotlighting, I think it would be a crime to not include Clive Rosfield’s slutty little waist. Who gave that man permission to wear a blood-red corset and just show off what he’s working with at all times? Oh, you’re sad about your brother’s death? I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the sound of your loud-as-fuck fit. Criminal. Lock him away. — Kenneth Shepard
The anime flexes
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
Spectacle is at the heart of Final Fantasy XVI, and that includes using its Kaiju Eikon fights to recreate some classic anime moments. An early sequence where Ifrit punches the crap out of Phoenix is an homage to Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Eikons can regrow entire limbs like in Attack on Titan. The development team took almost every opportunity afforded by the game’s central premise and used it to go berserk (speaking of which).
When the music hits
Final Fantasy XVI’s soundtrack was composed by Masayoshi Soken. It’s very subtle in parts compared to some earlier scores in the series, but goes very hard in others. Most satisfying of all is how elegantly it shifts mid-battle to take advantage of choreographed quick-time cinematic moments. “To Sail Forbidden Seas” is the name of the song that plays during all of the Eikon battles, and the mood ebbs and flows in perfect sync with the battle, as you go from hacking away at the stagger gauge to unleashing a flurry of cooldown abilities while the boss is vulnerable. The track builds, brings in the chorus, and then reaches another level when the cinematic clashes begin before settling back down again when it’s back to the main combat. Final Fantasy boss fights have always sought to be dynamic and exciting even when turn-based, but XVI takes it to a whole new level. Especially during the Titan fight.
Clive’s Wall of Memories
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
At a certain point in the game, you start amassing keepsakes from your adventures, little remembrances of people you’ve helped or things you’ve accomplished. I like this because you don’t get anything for them except the keepsakes themselves. They don’t provide you with any combat bonuses or stat boosts. They’re just keepsakes, a little reminder that what matters most of all in the world of Final Fantasy 16 isn’t your strength stat or how good your bracers are, but the connections Clive forms with others.—Carolyn Petit
The Torgal toss
Speaking of epic boss fight moments, holy hell Torgal is out of his mind. I pointed at the screen like Leonardo DiCaprio when he grabbed Benedikta in his jaws and swung her across the battle arena after she beat the crap out of Clive. We’ve moved so far beyond “Can you pet the dog?” If your game’s canine friend can’t go Super Saiyan on a demigod, then what’s even the point? Final Fantasy VIII’s Sant’ Angelo di Roma walked so Torgal could run.
The way the Mothercrystals disintegrate
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
A lot of massive crystals get destroyed in Final Fantasy XVI, and every time it’s as satisfying as watching an ice sculpture get sent through a wood chipper. Probably not great for Valesthea’s air quality, but beautifully effervescent nonetheless.
No clipping
Sometimes a game’s graphics are so good you don’t even notice all the ways in which they’re incredible. Final Fantasy XVI’s intricate costumes and long hairstyles are particularly notable for how rarely, if ever, they clip through one another, let alone the environments. Clive in particular has a long dark mane and a long dark cape, and they never get caught on one another or stray objects across all of the environments, even when the rebel sellsword is vaulting over fences or climbing up ledges.
How gracefully Clive gets out of people’s way
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
In keeping with Final Fantasy XVI’s theme of providing the occasional ridiculous level of attention to small details, I can’t get over the automatic animation Clive goes into every time you’re about to steer him into another NPC. Getting snagged on random characters in the world has been a staple in older games in the series, but here you’d have to go out of your way to steer into one. And even still, Square Enix’s developers decided to add a bespoke animation precisely for those rare occasions, just to keep things flowing naturally and avoid the the game-y-ness of the game coming through.
The sound of the XP screen
Whether it’s the rounding up of the numbers like a slot machine or the clink, clink, clink of new gil and items getting added to your inventory, there’s something magical about Final Fantasy XVI’s minimalistic battle results menu. At first I hardly noticed it, but with every battle the tiny dopamine hit of seeing and hearing Clive rack up points wrapped its tendrils around my lizard gamer brain.
The scenery
Final Fantasy games are known for being beautiful, but I can’t get over the muted extravagance of some of Final Fantasy XVI’s environments. The hyper-realistic style almost masks how much is actually going on, whether its giant kingdoms in the background or dense forests thick with different types of foliage. Except for the deserts, which look like how my brain remembers every other Final Fantasy desert.
Summons fighting
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
Shiva, Ifrit, Odin and Bahamut have been blowing up stuff since 1990’s Final Fantasy III, with summon animations that got more and more over-the-top in each new entry. Final Fantasy XVI is the first to render those scenes as if they were just part of the underlying fabric of the game rather than rewards doled out sparingly. My favorite is when, in one scene early on, Bahamut and Odin stare each other down from across a battlefield as their two kingdoms’ armies collide. It’s presented so nonchalantly that it’s easy to forget just how incredible it is to play a Final Fantasy that never flinches from showing you everything.
Uncle Byron
Clive is great and Cid is excellent. I love Gav too. There’s no shortage of great (mostly male) characters in Final Fantasy XVI, but let’s give it up for Uncle Byron, who thinks Clive is an imposter until they recite a scene from a play they used to perform together years ago at family parties. He’s a coward but throws his vast reserves of gil into the rebellion, wants to make amends for past failures, and never misses a chance to talk a big poetic game like he just sprang out of a Sir Walter Scott novel. The developers at Square even made sure to keep him animated behind the bar guzzling down beer at the inn during an early brawl in the Dhalmekian Republic.
There’s an obsession with incremental changes and bullet-point features in the sports game scene, one which challenges fan’s ability to take a step back and assess each game as its own standalone title. It’s something I try and address in my own sports reviews on this site, and it’s something I’m taking to its logical conclusion here in this Quixotic attempt to pluck one game out of hundreds and call it the “best”.
Sports games by their nature don’t turn up for each new season as entirely fresh products. The economics of the industry have determined that they re-use the same engine and models for years at a time, which means the difference between them can often be limited to current uniforms, a few new features and some adjustments to ball physics. And those changes are usually influenced as much by fan feedback as they are by the development teams working on them.
So it’s tough looking at say Madden 17 as something entirely separate, since its creation was heavily influenced by the sales and reception of Madden 16, and it will in turn play a big part in how Madden 18 is designed. How do you pick one of those games and say, ok, THIS ONE is the best, when much of what made it great may have been inspired by—or come directly from—an entirely different video game?
Then you have to take into account the way sports games have changed their entire outlook over the last 20 years. In the 90s, series like FIFA and NBA Live were perfectly happy being fast, accessible, almost arcadey. Fast forward to today and advances in technology have turned blockbuster sports games into simulations, each one trying its hardest to replicate the on-field experience as best it can (or, if it can’t, then the broadcast experience instead). This makes direct comparisons between games in long-running series pretty damn hard!
Making matters worse is that each sport is different, with its own set of fans, style of play and culture. What makes the #1 baseball game better than the #1 hockey game? Is football better than basketball?
……Image: FIFA 98
I think I’ve found one way to compare all sports games, though, and as weird as it may sound at first, it’s through the one thing they all have in common. The one thing they’re more fixated upon than anything else, and which in many ways defines sports video games as their own distinct space in video games. And that’s content.
Every sports game is stingy. It’s possibly the most defining thing about the business, and is often the first thing that non-fans will mock. The genre’s business model is built entirely around balancing the need to make gamers happy with the game they just bought, but unhappy enough that they’ll turn around 12 months later and buy an incredibly similar product.
So after lingering over a short list of truly great sports games—Madden 2002, NBA 2K11, Pro Evolution 6, NBA Jam, NFL 2K5—I’ve settled the tie by going with one that wasn’t just a very good sports game in its own right, but one which decided to just say “fuck it” and give fans everything they could have wanted or needed for years to come, all in the one box.
That game is FIFA: Road to World Cup 98, as bizarre but beloved a major sports game as I think we’re ever going to see.
At the time of its release in 1997, it was a damn fine football game. It had very flash polygonal visuals, audio commentary, all the things we’ve long associated as being hallmarks of the FIFA series. But it’s where the game went above and beyond what we expect of a sports game can include, whether at the time or today, that marks it as truly great.
INDOOR FOOTBALL – In addition to regular 11v11 football, FIFA 98 also included an entirely separate 5v5 indoor mode, with its own rules and conditions, like the fact the ball never went out of bounds. It was just as fun as the actual FIFA. Maybe more fun. And while it had actually been introduced in FIFA 97, the fact it stuck around in 98 when there was so much else in the box is one of the things that helped cement this game’s legacy.
AN ACTUAL WORLD CUP – The reason for the game’s longer title was the fact that the development team decided to include, alongside domestic leagues, the 1998 World Cup. Not just the finals in France, but the entire qualifying system as well. That meant over 170 nations and their squads made it into the game, an absolutely ridiculous number that literally represented every football-playing country on Earth at the time (modern FIFA games usually only include a few dozen). You could, if you wanted, play as one of the smallest nations on the planet, take them all the way through qualifying then win the tournament itself, a feat so monumental that after FIFA 98 it would only be seen again in standalone video games specifically made for World Cups.
Image: FIFA 98
CUSTOMISATION: Besides the 170+ national teams, there were almost 200 club sides included in the game as well. And you could customise the lot. Home kits, away kits, even a player’s appearance. I remember spending what must have been weeks tinkering with this, making sure that every major team’s kit matched its actual design, and that player haircuts had been accurately recreated. This wasn’t just useful in 1997, either; people were playing FIFA 98 for years to come because as 1998, then 1999 rolled around, you could just update the kit designs again.
Here’s the most incredible thing about all this: FIFA 98 was so big it made another of EA’s own video games completely pointless. In addition to FIFA 98 (released in 1997), EA Sports had a game in development designed to cash in on the World Cup itself, due for release in early 1998. Simply called World Cup 1998, it had official branding throughout, from the tournament mascot to branded kits (a first for the series). But with only 40 teams, what was the point of buying it it when you could just fire up FIFA 98, edit some kits and enjoy much the same experience?
To get non-FIFA fans up to speed on just how crazy this was, it’s like NBA 2K18 shipping on four blu-rays, or the next MLB game deciding to include the entire Japanese and Korean pro leagues, just for one year, just for the hell of it.
This kind of thing just isn’t supposed to happen with sports games, because it gives fans everything they need to not buy your game the next year. Yet here we have, for one beautiful year, EA sports giving away the keys to the kingdom. Amongst the blur of year-to-year releases, FIFA 98’s largesse looms large like no other sports game’s inclusions ever have.
But it’s not just the excess content that’s helped FIFA 98 endure. Quantity would be nothing without quality, and the game includes several other series favourites, from the humble free kick arrow (still somehow superior to anything EA comes up with these days) to the ability to slide tackle a goalkeeper and get instantly sent off, which despite its punishment ranks as one of the most cathartic moves in all of video games.
Then there’s the matter of the game’s soundtrack, beginning with its intro, perhaps the most iconic in sports game history:
Don’t let Blur’s cameo overshadow the game’s real musical hook, though, which is the fact much of the menu music was provided by The Crystal Method:
Sports games using popular music is nothing new today, but in 1997 it was a coup for FIFA (for reference, check out FIFA 97’s tragic attempts at hip-hop and rock). Indeed, you could trace the series’ current place on the pop culture landscape back to FIFA 98 and its soundtrack, which dared to suggest that, hey, maybe these sports video games can be cool.
In a world where sports games are and always have been seen as disposable, FIFA 98 stands apart. By including so many teams across such a breadth of competition, and allowing for such a degree of customisation, people were able to dig in and play it not just throughout 1997, but well into the next few years as well.
Even today, when the FIFA series is known as much for its licensing as it is its football and has over 20 years of experience under its belt, you’ll find fans still talking about FIFA 98 in reverent tones. Amazing what some decent music, tiny teams and the ability to let try and murder a goalkeeper will do to a fanbase…
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Diablo IV has six Uber Uniques that are the rarest and some of the most powerful items in the game. Players have spent hundreds of hours without ever coming across them—until now. A trick for easily earning them was recently discovered and Blizzard has now removed the items from the game entirely to try and stop the madness.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
Previously only farmable in Nightmare dungeons, Uber Uniques were added to the game’s Helltide event in the latest patch, an in-game event where a particular zone on the map turns blood red and fills up with extra tough enemies. Players quickly found out that there was a way to significantly increase their chances of getting the Harlequin Crest, better known as Shako, one of, if not the, most powerful item in Diablo IV. That’s because characters like Barbarians don’t have many Unique helmets, meaning Helltide chests that only give out helmets are much more likely to grant those players Shakos instead.
“Just do Helltide and open the helm chest over and over and over and these are dropping like candy,” said YouTuber Raxxanterax in a how-to video about the trick. Players rushed to try and snag their Shako before Blizzard nerfed the exploit, and the Diablo IV forums and subreddits immediately began to fill up with success stories and memes. Players who chose the night of July 6 to not log on to the game were kicking themselves, while others who got Shako called on Blizzard not to take their cheesed Uber Uniques away.
It didn’t take long for Blizzard to step in and remove Uber Uniques, including Shako, from the game entirely until a hotfix goes live. Naturally, there were debates about whether this actually constituted an exploit, versus players just seizing on a seeming oversight in the game’s design following the latest patch. Others complained about how fast Blizzard reacted to what is arguably an innocuous issue when other quality of life features are still missing from the game.
On the bright side, once the hotfix goes into effect, Uber Uniques like the two-handed sword The Grandfather and the Ring of Starless Skies will be easier to earn overall since they’ll now drop in Helltide activities, as well. While players still might not earn them even after dozens of hours of end-game farming, at least they can have a change of scenery from their standard Nightmare dungeon runs.
Diablo IV’s first season, meanwhile, goes live on July 20. Players will have to start entirely new characters but also have access to a whole new raft of season-specific abilities and builds. Hopefully the action-RPG’s most devoted players manage to earn at least one or two of their most coveted Uber Uniques by then.
Update 7/7/2023 7:38 p.m. ET: Blizzard has released the hotfix and brought Uber Uniques back online. It says only 142 accounts in total earned them while the Helltide chest exploit was live and the studio doesn’t plan to take them away from players. However, if something like this happens again in the future it might in order to keep things fair. Here are the full patch notes:
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where Uber Unique items had an unintended higher chance to drop from Helltide Chests.
Developer Note: With the above change, we have re-enabled Uber Unique drops in Diablo IV. In total we have discovered that only 142 accounts obtained an Uber Unique between the launch of 1.0.4 and when we disabled Uber Unique items from the game on the evening of July 6th. We do not plan on removing these items from the accounts. In the future, we may need to take action to maintain fairness within the game when a bug or exploit impacts the gameplay of others.
Gameplay Changes
Helltide Chests will now have the chance to drop any Unique and not be restricted to specific item slot limitations from any chest.
Developer Note: With the above change players will now be able to find Unique items from ALL Helltide Chests. Uber Unique items also have a chance to be found from all chests.
The rise and rise of 2022’s PowerWash Simulator is everything that’s right with video games. It’s a game about washing the dirt off stuff, delivered with absolute sincerity, and extremely well made. It got me through a horrible bout of Covid, as I meticulously scrubbed every fleck of dirt from adventure playgrounds and country mansions, and rightly became a huge hit. Which makes it all the better that its post-release additions have leaned in. And today developers FuturLab have revealed plans for much more to come in 2023.
The Sims 4’s Free Infant Update Can’t Compare To The Growing Together Expansion
The first update back in January was the completely free addition of five brand new levels set in the world of Tomb Raider. You can clean the front of Croft Manor! You can scrub down the obstacle course! And it was delivered with equally as straight a face as the main game. Then in March came a bundle of free Final Fantasy-themed areas! Last week saw its first paid DLC, which was naturally based onSpongebob Squarepants.
Today FuturLab have laid out their roadmap for the rest of the year, and while it is quite frustratingly vague, it does give me the all-important opportunity to post the teaser for its Warhammer 40K crossover! That’s the farthest away inclusion in the roadmap, however. It seems we have much to look forward to before even then.
FuturLab
What we’ve learned from their tweet is that there’s to be another paid DLC due to appear in Q3 (whatever that means in this instance), along with more from what the game calls The Muckingham Files—the title it gave to a slew of free new content it added in the 1.2 update back in April.
Then following that, toward the end of the year, FuturLab is promising even more free “seasonal content,” which of course means, Christmassy cleaning!
If you’ve not played PowerWash Simulator, and you think this is either an elaborate wind-up, or that Kotaku has gone completely nuts, be assured it’s neither! It’s a legitimately stupendous game, available on Game Pass, creating a zen-like methodological happy place, where you get all the satisfaction of making dirty things get sparkly clean, without having to even pick up a vacuum.
Rick the Door Technician might not be the most powerful or dangerous enemy in Respawn’s fantastic sequel,Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. But he is a fan favorite who, in a game filled with great boss fights, provided one of the game’s most memorable and shortest.
10 Creatures We Wanna Ride In Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Fairly late into Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s main campaign, while exploring a large Imperial base, your protagonist, Jedi warrior Cal Kestis, runs into a single stormtrooper. Right before this, Kestis had to fight off a large garrison of Imperial baddies in one of the game’s biggest, toughest fights. After surviving all that, and likely injured with no checkpoint, you encounter a new boss: Rick the Door Technician. While another boss encounter seems like an unfair challenge after such a big fight, this lone trooper is really just a joke character who Kestis can defeat with one hit. So why is he here? Well, according to Respawn, he was created to make you laugh and feel better after a tough fight. Isn’t that nice of Rick?
In an interview with IGN, Jonathan Wright, the lead encounter designer at Respawn, explained the origin behind this odd “boss fight.” After that very large fight, players were stressed out, as Respawn purposely designed that section to be even tenser by not including a checkpoint. This makes players nervous about what’s coming next, as they desperately search for a checkpoint. While this all worked to create a tense moment, Repsawn wanted to eventually provide something that would “be a release of all that built-up tension.” Its solution: making players laugh.
Fuzzy Bearbarian / Respawn
“Players have just come from an extremely hard fight. Players are more than likely very low on health at this point, and are probably very stressed with finding the next meditation point so they can rest,” said Wright. “The moment with Rick allowed us to build up another moment of tension as players think they are in for another hard fight, but then release all that built-up stress when they fully realize the moment with Rick. It’s a good emotional reset to prepare players for what is to come.”
This is all part of Respawn’s effort to balance the mostly serious narrative and events in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor with moments of humor. According to Wright, this balance is what makes the jokes “land.”
“The seriousness of the rest of the game is what makes the more humorous moments land,” said Wright. “The contrast between funny and serious elevates both kinds of moments. We knew that the moment with Rick was important because of this.”
Respawn didn’t expect people to fall in love with Rick
However, nobody at Respawn could have predicted how fans would react to Rick, quickly embracing the character and creating fan art, mods, and other content based on the lonely stormtrooper who tried to stop Cal Kestis. The character has become one of the most talked about moments in the game, and has players asking for more of Rick the Door Technician. (It would probably have to be in a prequel, considering what happens to him…)
Wright told IGN that seeing all the fan love and community support for Rick has been “indescribable” and that he “never imagined [Rick] would explode in popularity to this extent.”
“To me, there is no greater achievement than something you had a hand in creating [then inspiring] other people to be creative,” said Wright. “All the comments on videos from people describing their experience with Rick’s heroic last stand, all the jokes and the memes, the videos and stories, it’s all a spark of creativity that started with Rick and I think that is amazing.”
As for if Rick will return, as so many Star Wars Jedi: Survivor fans have asked about, Wright told IGN that it isn’t his call, but he added that he doesn’t think more Rick content is “needed.”
“Rick’s story already has a valiant ending,” said Wright. “The explosion in popularity and fan creativity shows that we already did a good enough job with Rick. Let players have fun with it and let people be creative with Rick’s backstory in their own minds.”
With so many skill trees and loot combinations, Diablo IV has no shortage of ways to eviscerate your foes and make them fear your mathematical superiority. Players are still finding all sorts of incredible Unique-rarity items, and certain of these weapons and armors are proving to be exceptionally worth hunting down.
I’ve coordinated with our resident Diablo IV experts to take stock of what’s been discovered thus far. Here, you’ll find a collection of both class-agnostic and class-specific items with which to enhance your build. We’ll also let you know where you’re likely to find these weapons and armors. Of course, given the nature of the game, most are random drops across different tiers.
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