Just in time for the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Blizzard is letting you playDiablo IV for free for one full week on Steam right now. That’s a pretty sweet deal among a crop of other pretty sweet deals that Valve is offering as part of the PC gaming store’s massive annual Autumn Sale.
Blizzard tweeted on November 21 that the action-RPG has a free trial going on until November 28. If you head toDiablo IV’s Steam page right now, you can get the demon-slaying, loot-hunting game for the low until the end of the week.
“Give thanks and drag your friends to Hell,” Blizzard said. “Play Diablo IV for free on Steam, from now until November 28th at [10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET].”
This free Steam trial coincides nicely with a gold and XP bonus Blizzard is also running in Diablo IV. Dubbed Mother’s Blessing Week, folks playing the game will earn 35 percent more gold and experience points until November 27. This bonus applies to everyone, including people running amok in the Eternal and Seasonal realms, as well as players across all four World Tiers (Diablo IV’s interpretation of difficulty setting). Blizzard really wants this game to take over your Thanksgiving holiday, it seems.
Diablo IV—out now on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox—is running its second season of content, the Season of Blood. The new update, which brought the game to Steam on October 17, adds gameplay changes (like revamping inventory management) and story content while promising an easier grind so folks can level up faster. It’s the first of many seasonal drops, which will be interspersed between yearly paid expansions. The first DLC, Vessel of Hatred, arrives next year, bringing with it a new class to play and a new region to explore.
Image: CD Projekt Red / Bethesda / Blizzard / EA / Lucasfilm / Valve / Kotaku
Valve’s annual autumn sale. Some of the best and biggest PC games, including action-RPG Diablo IV, the fantastic Star Wars game Jedi: Survivor, and Bethesda’s latest, Starfield, are all on sale right now.
The Top 10 Most-Played Games On Steam Deck: October 2023 Edition
This latest fall sale (“autumn,” if you are fancy) runs from November 21 to November 28th. Steam’s autumn sale features a huge list of discounted PC games. Some are older games and others, likeRemannt II and Dredge, are hits from 2023.
Here are some of highlights from this massive sale:
Anno 1800 – $15 (75% off)
Black Desert – $1 (90% off)
Blasphemous – $6 (75% off)
Climbey – $6 (40% off)
Cyberpunk 2077 – $30 (50% off)
Darkest Dungeon – $5 (80% off)
Dead By Daylight – $8 (60% off)
Demon Turf – $15 (50% off)
Diablo IV – $42 (40% off)
Dredge – $19 (25% off)
EA F1 23 – $28 (60% off)
El Paso, Elsewhere – $16 (20% off)
En Garde! – $12 (40% off)
Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition – $10 (75% off)
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade – $35 (33% off)
God of War – $30 (40% off)
Hades – $12.50 (50% off)
Half-Life: Alyx – $20 (66% off)
Halo: The Master Chief Collection – $10 (75% off)
Hexcells Complete Pack – $2.69 (70% off)
Hogwarts Legacy – $36 (40% off)
Horizon Zero Dawn – Complete Edition – $12.50 (75% off)
Lies of P – $48 (20% off)
Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered – $36 (40% off)
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales – $30 (40% off)
Ninja Saviors, The: Return of the Warriors – $16 (20% off)
Red Dead Redemption 2 – $20 (67% off)
Remnant II – $35 (30% off)
Rust – $27 (33% off)
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor – $42 (40% off)
Starfield – $56 (20% off)
Stray – $20 (34% off)
Street Fighter VI – $40 (34% off)
System Shock – $28 (30% off)
Tales From Off-Peak City – $5 (50% off)
Tiny Tiny Wonderlands: Chaotic Great Edition – $20 (75% off)
Warhammer 40k: Boltgun – $15 (32% off)
As always with Steam’s big fall sale, the store’s limited-time blowout kicks off nomination season for the Steam Awards. Players can hop over to the official Steam autumn sale store page and then vote for their favorite games in various categories including Game of the Year, the best Steam Deck game, most innovative gameplay, and so on. Valve will announce the winners in January.
If a game you loved this year got snubbed from the Game Awards, now you can (sort of) right that wrong and nominate it for some Steam awards. These are just as good as the Game Awards, right?
After some beta testing, Bethesda has released Starfield’s latest patch for PC and Xbox. This new update adds DLSS support, the ability to eat food you find in the world instantly, some much-needed graphical options, and plenty of bug fixes, too.
The Top 10 Most-Played Games On Steam Deck: October 2023 Edition
Starfield’s 1.8.86 update is now live on Xbox Series X/S and PC. This update was first beta-tested via Steam earlier this month. It appears those tests went well, as Bethesda has now pushed the new update live for everyone. This means that after months of paid mods and community drama, Starfield finally has official DLSS support, letting folks with compatible Nvidia graphics cards use DLSS Super Resolution, Deep Learning Anti-aliasing (DLAA), Nvidia Reflex Low Latency, and DLSS Frame generation. But that’s not all that’s been added in this update.
The new 1.8.86 update also adds the ability to eat food and drink items that you find in the world without having to pick them up first and chow down on them via the inventory screen. It’s a small change, but it should help keep you immersed in the world and spend less time digging through menus. Plus, it will be fun to just run around places and eat every Chunk I see like an out-of-control cartoon character.
This patch also adds brightness and contrast sliders to the massive open-world space RPG. There are some HDR brightness settings, too for platforms that support that. And yes, it’s still wild that in 2023 a big-budget AAA video game from a veteran game studio shipped without brightness and contrast sliders. What a world!
Anyway, here are the full 1.8.86 patch notes for Starfield:
PERFORMANCE AND STABILITY
Addressed a number of memory-related issues and leaks.
Added some GPU performance optimizations, which will be more impactful on higher-end cards.
Improved renderer threading model, improving CPU usage most notably on higher-end systems.
Various stability and performance improvements.
GAMEPLAY
Added the ability to eat the food placed in the world.
Adjusted stealth to be a bit more forgiving.
Fixed an issue where Andreja’s head would stay permanently cloaked.
Fixed an issue that could prevent players from firing their weapons.
Fixed issues where some NPC could be seen not wearing clothes (Note: This issue may resolve itself over time).
Fixed an issue where already in-progress skill challenges could stop progressing after reaching “the Unity” and starting a new game.
Fixed an issue that could temporarily prevent opening the inventory or saving after entering “the Unity”.
PC: Fixed an issue where mouse movement could be choppy.
Fixed a rare issue that could cause the home ship to be lost.
Fixed an issue where the ship services technician might be missing.
Fixed an issue where occasionally the camera could shake incorrectly during Traveling, Grav Jumping, Docking, or Landing transitions.
GRAPHICS
Addressed an issue with how ambient occlusion appeared in ultrawide resolutions.
Optimized initial shader compilation that occurs on start-up.
Added the ability to adjust Brightness and Contrast in the Display Settings menu.
Added the ability to adjust HDR Brightness provided that the system supports it. (Xbox & Windows 11 only).
Addressed a number of materials that could sometimes present an unintended pattern under certain conditions.
Fixed various visual issues related to the new FOV slider options.
Improved the appearance of the eyes on crowd characters.
Addressed a number of minor visual issues related to lighting, shadows, terrain, and vegetation.
PC: Addressed additional visual issues related to DLSS.
QUESTS
All That Money Can Buy: Fixed a rare issue where players couldn’t sit during the negotiation with Musgrove.
Blast Zone: Fixed an issue where the hard rocks that need to be cleared out by players will not appear on Ngodup Tate’s land.
Echoes of the Past: Fixed an issue where the Grylloba Queen could sometimes not be reachable during the objective “Secure the Shuttle Bay”.
Eye of the Storm: Fixed an issue where players’ quest progression could potentially be blocked due to a missing docking prompt.
Grunt Work: Addressed an issue where progress could appear blocked if “Supra et Ultra” was completed while returning to the Lodge during “High Price to Pay”.
No Sudden Moves: Fixed an issue that could prevent the entrance door to the Scow ship from being opened again.
Operation Starseed: Fixed an issue where the key that is needed to exit the facility could sometimes not be present.
Sabotage: Fixed an issue where David Barron could potentially not be found by players.
Short-Sighted: Fixed an issue where players could rarely become control-locked while speaking with Vladimir.
The Heart of Mars: Fixed an issue where players might not be able to mine the “The Heart of Mars”.
From mergers to memes, the landscape of interactive entertainment is always in motion. Here’s your cheat sheet for the week’s most important stories in gaming.
6 Things To Know Before Starting Persona 5 Tactica
Baldur’s Gate 3already has one special edition, in the form of its Collector’s Edition. We even unboxed it here at Kotaku, and it’s got a lot of cool knickknacks that pay tribute to its tabletop roots. Of course that was expensive, solely for PC and PlayStation 5 players, and didn’t include a physical copy of the game itself. But Baldur’s Gate 3 is coming to Xbox next month, so Larian Studios is taking the opportunity to release a new, Deluxe Edition for all three platforms. And given what comes in the box, I think it’s pretty darn affordable. Read More
Like game director Ji Won Choi promised in early November, duo-developers Neowiz Games and Round8 Studio have dropped a new update for their gothic, Belle Époque-era Soulslike RPG, Lies of P. And just as expected, this update makes some significant changes to the game so that you have an actual fighting chance at surviving this bloodied retelling of the Pinocchio story. Read More
Modern Warfare III players are begging Activision to remove a “literally invisible” cosmetic first introduced in Modern Warfare II that’s plaguing multiplayer matches yet again. Read More
On November 16, Valve will let folks purchase a new Steam Deck OLED Limited Edition model, which features all the upgrades of the base OLED version of the portable PC, but with some extra cosmetic details, too. And to help folks actually get a chance to buy this thing, Valve is implementing some safeguards to slow or stop bots and resellers from buying them all up instantly. Read More
One of the best action-RPGs in a generation is finally getting a mobile version, but it’s a mixed blessing. The good news is that Hades is coming to iPhones in 2024 and will be free for Netflix subscribers. The bad news is that it will be exclusive to both, with no way to buy the game outright or play it on Android devices. Read More
Rocksteady is finally ready to start talking about Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, after delaying it (again) earlier this year. The studio first announced its upcoming supervillain co-op action game way back in 2020. In a new video series going behind the scenes of the game, the devs explained how big its map will be and showed off some new cutscenes. Conveniently, they barely mentioned any of the live-service aspects fans aren’t happy about. Read More
Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards are far from the be-all and end-all of which games are good, creatively bold, and deserving of praise each year, but they’re still fun to get way too serious about. It’s the one day game developers get to dress fancy, go up on stage, and receive our collective thanks for their artistic accomplishment rather than getting canned the night before the quarterly earnings call. Read More
Chinese publisher NetEase is opening a new studio with the lead writer behind the Mass Effect series at the helm.
Worlds Untold will be based in Vancouver, and helmed by CEO Mac Walters, who’s known for his work at BioWare that spanned almost 20 years. Walters was a writer on martial arts RPG Jade Empire, then a senior writer on the first entry in the sci-fi RPG series, Mass Effect, and was eventually promoted to lead writer on Mass Effect 2 and 3. Following this, he was brought on as creative director on Mass Effect: Andromeda, worked on early narrative direction on Anthem, and project directed the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition remasters, before ending his tenure at the studio as a production director on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. So he was at the forefront of a lot of the narrative direction of BioWare’s last two decades. How you feel about that probably varies depending on your opinions on the state of the studio, but speaking personally, the narrative wasn’t my biggest problem with most of those games. Read More
Kotaku Unboxes The Spider-Man 2 Limited Edition PS5
The $600 set is currently sold out at PlayStation’s store but is still a gift to keep in mind for the Spidey-loving gamer in your life this holiday season
Gamers are a passionate bunch, and we’re no exception. These are the week’s most interesting perspectives on the wild, wonderful, and sometimes weird world of video game news.
6 Things To Know Before Starting Persona 5 Tactica
This is Lars Wingefors, the CEO of Embracer, a Swedish holding company that owns multiple video game publishers, dozens of studios, and employs over 16,500 people. Or at least it used to. Embracer has been laying off hundreds, canceling projects, and closing studios as it reckons with deals that fell through, ambitious bets on big games, and an unprecedented acquisition spree that saw the investor group hoover up everything it could, from the studio behind Deus Ex to the license for The Lord of the Rings. One company to rule them all. That seemed to be the extent of the strategy. Read More
I love Persona 5, but over the years, Atlus’ stylish, supposedly socially-conscious RPG hasn’t loved me. Queer Persona fans know the series to be fraught, and even the most passionate among us treat it like the fun uncle who claims to love everyone and still says something extremely out of pocket each holiday. I figured Persona 5 Tactica, the tactical spin-off launching on November 17, would follow all the previous games and find some way to throw a jab at queer people for no reason. But after years of feeling like one of my favorite series has been trying to push me out, Tactica opened the door for me, if only for a moment. Read More
It’s been nearly a decade since GamerGate, the misogynistic game industry tantrum that harassed women under the guise of demanding journalistic ethics—yet 2023 has felt like we’re not that far past it at all. Read More
I liked Crash Team Rumble. I even said as much on this very website when the brawler MOBA launched back in June. But man, seeing them add Spyro, Crash’s flying, fire-breathing, OG PlayStation platformer contemporary to the roster just makes me wish we had a new Spyro the Dragon game. Read More
I liked Crash Team Rumble. I even said as much on this very website when the brawler MOBA launched back in June. But man, seeing them add Spyro, Crash’s flying, fire-breathing, OG PlayStation platformer contemporary to the roster just makes me wish we had a new Spyro the Dragon game.
The Week In Games: What’s Coming Out Beyond Super Mario RPG
Spyro is set to join Crash, Catbat, and many of the bandicoot’s other friends and foes in Crash Team Rumble when its third season, titled All Fired Up, launches on December 7. The purple dragon joins Ripto (one of the series’ villains, who was strangely added before the hero himself in the second season) as a guest character, alongside Elora, the guiding fawn companion from the original trilogy. Not much is known about how Spyro will play, but it’s curious that Crash Team Rumble has been adding Spyro crossover characters, music, and cosmetics two seasons in a row, huh?
My hope is that this is more than just lip service and that publisher Activision is actually planning to make a substantive Spyro announcement in the near future. Back in September, rumors of a fourth mainline Spyro game circulated on sites like Reddit, but the specifics of the alleged leak, such as an October reveal and Spyro Reignited Trilogy remake artist Nicholas Kole being attached to the project, were debunked. As fun as Crash Team Rumble is, it’s not the Crash Bandicoot or Spyro game I want, and I know that sentiment rings true for a lot of fans.
Even if Crash Team Rumble isn’t what fans are looking for, Activision has been investing pretty heavily into Crash Bandicoot since it had a soft reboot with the Crash N. Sane Trilogy in 2017. That collection remade Naughty Dog’s first three Crash games for modern systems, then Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled followed in 2019. Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, a brand-new platformer, launched in 2020, and was a really solid, challenging spin on the original formula.
Spyro the Dragon, meanwhile, has been getting scraps in this wave of OG PlayStation platformer love. The Reignited Trilogy brought his original three Insomniac-made games to modern systems with a new coat of paint in 2018, but it’s been 15 years since the last brand-new Spyro game. The little purple guy has pretty much been relegated to a crossover cameo here and there in Crash Bandicoot games.
I grew up on these games, and even if the mascot platformer has mostly gone out of vogue, I would still play a Spyro or Sly Cooper game in 2023. But while companies love to throw little references and crossovers into current games, that rarely leads to a new game. Spyro has been showing up in Crash’s adventures for years now, and with each passing year that he doesn’t get his own comeback game, these crossovers feel more and more like a carrot on a stick, leading nowhere.
I’ll still probably boot up Crash Team Rumble to play Spyro, though. So guess I should put on my clown makeup.
This story is part of our new Future of Gaming series, a three-site look at gaming’s most pioneering technologies, players, and makers.
The Top 10 Most-Played Games On Steam Deck: August 2023 Edition
Video game fashion is often uninspired, Hot Topic-adjacent fare: T-shirts with a game logo ironed on the front, or zip-up sweatshirts with a garish all-over print of an animated character. It’s rare to see a piece of merch that feels like it’s pulled from a game-world (like the Disco Elysium jacket) or one that’s subtle enough you could wear it out to dinner without anyone knowing you’re repping your favorite RPG.
When I first saw “The Lands Between,” the Elden Ring-inspired collection from luxury streetwear brand ARK/8, I felt like I was looking at the future of game-related fashion. Nothing is so high-concept that it’s unwearable (the line is still firmly rooted in a streetwear aesthetic) but the entire collection could easily be worn by someone strutting through SoHo, or captured and posted on Instagram by Watching New York and no one would know it references a video game.
A lush, blood-red faux-fur coat that looks like the lion draped over Godfrey’s shoulder, an oversized, menswear-inspired crisp white button-down with Queen Marika stretched across the back, a few elegantly distressed crewnecks—all if it is so chic and so effortlessly cool that I can’t help but get excited looking at everything.
I was so curious about the person behind the designs that I reached out via email to ARK/8’s creative director, Dimitri van Eetvelde, to learn what inspires him and what he thinks is the future of gaming fashion.
Image: ARK/8
Finding fashion inspiration in Elden Ring
First, van Eetvelde made one thing very clear: ARK/8 isn’t a video game merch company, it’s a “fashion brand with gaming and pop culture as its DNA.” He likened it to how “skate is part of the DNA of brands like Supreme or Vans.” For him, too many pieces of game-related clothing are “very safe” items like “printed basics or pieces that are more suited for cosplay and gaming conventions.”
“The problem is that most of the licensed companies don’t care about gaming, it’s just a business decision. They sell the same T-shirt, whether it’s Jack Daniels or Iron Maiden or Assassin’s Creed,” he said. Van Eetvelde understands this approach, because he’s done it before—his first fashion company, Level Up Wear, was a printed tee and outerwear line started back in 2007, which focused on printing branded content on high-quality t-shirts. For him, Level Up Wear “was the inception of the concept of gaming and quality together,” though he soon reached a creative limit, and wanted to find a way to further explore high-quality garments and game-inspired designs. That’s when ARK/8 was born, fully materializing in 2019 after several iterations (including, briefly, as Italian-made high-end jewelry).
Image: ARK/8
The Lands Between collection marries high-end fashion with gaming, but not reductively—though items like the Boss Door t-shirt or the Queen Marika button-down clearly feature more obvious game references, there’s a sense of evocation at play here, as well. “We wanted to create a collection that didn’t feel like a repeat of the gaming merch template focusing on key characters or iconography, or using heavily illustrated prints,” van Eetvelde said. “Elden Ring was going to be approached not from a traditional asset/graphic perspective, but from a texture, world immersion angle.”
Brilliantly, the design team leaned into “exploration and content discovery” which van Eetvelde noted is a key part of Elden Ring gameplay. From there, two visual themes emerged: maps and the Tarnished aesthetic. “The map is so beautifully made,” van Eetvelde said, “The challenge was a technical one at that point, as getting it to look vibrant and detailed on different fabrics took a few tries.” The resulting “Our Lands Between Bomber Jacket,” however, is pretty wild—a “seemingly infinite print” of the in-game map, swirling colors across the model’s torso. The Tarnished aesthetic shows in the distressed but robust crewnecks, which van Eetvelde suggested mimic how players start out their Elden Ring experiences. “You start at the bottom in the game, your clothes are ragged. It’s rough, like in most FromSoftware experiences, but there’s also that robustness, that persistence of getting up and dusting yourself off, death after death.”
The future of video game fashion
With individual items ranging from $145 to $2500, it’s a gorgeous—albeit pricey—collection that elevates game-related fashion, and according to its chief designer, The Lands Between is just the beginning for ARK/8. The Elden Ring collection is the brand’s “guinea pig,” according to van Eetvelde—he gave me a sneak peek at a cool, splashy Overwatch drop coming soon that features a D.Va bodysuit I simply must have and a very cool Genji-inspired zip-up.
Image: ARK/8
“ARK/8’s mission is to establish a platform to elevate the conversation around gaming and the incredible art, music and narratives that underpin these amazing entertainment creations,” van Eetvelde said. “There’s a constant to it, it’s not just a one-off like most collabs. Fashion is a way to express our passion and show gaming in a new light.”
During our chat, he cited a few other examples of the somewhat dissonant worlds of fashion and gaming meeting and making something incredible. “I liked the Han Kjobenhavn X Diablo IV runway pieces for example, as they did push the envelope. I think the LOEWE X GHIBLI one was also really good because Jonathan Anderson really has a passion for Ghibli movies and it reflects on the whole collection. It’s brimming with details and complex executions. I want to see more of that.”
For game developers and fashion brands, ARK/8’s ethos can and should be mined for future collaborations. I want to see more high-concept runway pieces, more elevated streetwear looks, and less gaudy, ironed-on 1-Up mushrooms and zip-up sweatshirts meant to look like Samus’ power suit. Video games are visual marvels, brimming with color and creativity—lets make more clothes and accessories that speak to that.
I love Persona 5, but over the years, Atlus’ stylish, supposedly socially-conscious RPG hasn’t loved me. Queer Persona fans know the series to be fraught, and even the most passionate among us treat it like the fun uncle who claims to love everyone and still says something extremely out of pocket each holiday. I figured Persona 5 Tactica, the tactical spin-off launching on November 17, would follow all the previous games and find some way to throw a jab at queer people for no reason. But after years of feeling like one of my favorite series has been trying to push me out, Tactica opened the door for me, if only for a moment.
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We aren’t going to get into any big, overarching story spoilers as I explain how, but a brief scene in Tactica’s first chapter does require a little table-setting. If you want absolutely no context, maybe minimize this tab and come back when you’ve finished the first chapter.
Persona 5 Tactica opens with the Phantom Thieves, the teenage superhero vigilantes heading back into the supernatural world called the Metaverse. This time they’re facing Marie, a tyrant bride who has repurposed an entire town to hold her dream wedding. There’s no need to get into the why and who here, as it’s a spoiler, but this serves to set up the scene we’re here to talk about. It’s called “The Ideal Marriage,” and you can find it in the Talk menu in Café Leblanc after you find out Marie’s plot.
The Phantom Thieves discuss Marie’s plan in their home base, and the conversation moves on to the team’s own ideas of “dream weddings.” Ann excitedly talks about how she can’t wait to wear a white wedding dress, and it’s all very cute. Eventually, Ryuji turns to our mostly silent protagonist, Joker, and playfully asks which of the Phantom Thieves he would marry.
I went through a few stages of subverted expectations here, so hold my hand, Phantom Thief, and let me walk you through. When Ryuji asked the question, I fully expected my options to be limited exclusively to the women in the room, as that would reflect the original Persona 5’s extremely limited view of romance. These spin-off games don’t import your P5 save, so games like Persona 5 Strikers find ways to ask you who your paramour in the first game was so you can experience a little continuity.
But much to my surprise, Tactica allowed for everyone in the room to be an option, including Ryuji, who I have headcanoned as my Joker’s unrequited crush since first playing Persona 5 in 2017. Even still, my trepidation wasn’t gone, as any time a dialogue option gave me a chance to suggest how my Joker felt a door was instantly slammed in my face. Persona games haven’t just denied characters’ possible queerness at every chance, they’re often eager to turn any gesture toward it into a mean-spirited joke.
I braced myself as I chose Ryuji, ready for Tactica to hit me with the metaphorical backhand in the form of my would-be boyfriend jolting away in the opposite direction…but it never came.
Screenshot: Atlus / Kotaku
Instead, what I got was a really sweet scene of Ryuji in a stylish white tux, saying he couldn’t believe the person of his dreams had been right by his side the whole time. It was a reference to one of the best interactions between Ryuji and Joker in OG Persona 5, one often pointed to by fans as a moment that implies some level of romantic trust between the two. But here in Tactica he also acknowledged sparks had been flying between the two since they met at the beginning of Persona 5, and I thought to myself it was about damn time he wisened up to this.
As Joker stops pondering his dream wedding it’s back to reality, where he and Ryuji aren’t dating, despite those sparks. The scene then ended, and before a wave of excitement hit me, my first feeling was a sense of relief.
Persona 5‘s homophobia problem
Persona 5 has always positioned itself as a story about standing up against oppressive forces in the name of standing up for the little guy crushed under their boots. The Phantom Thieves use their supernatural powers to fight crooks as small-time as an abusive high school coach and climb up until they reach a major politician. The game tackles power imbalances, class issues, and corrupt law enforcement, but queer identity has always been its blind spot. Even as it stumbles in advocating for victims of abuse by putting those same people through the same violence after the fact, at least Persona 5 does, at some point in its 100+ hours, take a stance.
But when it comes to how identity is a marginalizing factor, Persona 5 has always been willing to shun, or even point and laugh at queer people. Men, especially. Playing the original Persona 5 as a gay man was an incredibly disheartening experience as it both refused to let me go down a romantic path with any of my male friends, and also bombarded me with assumptions of who Joker, and by extension, myself, was in its dialogue.
Image: Atlus / CloverWorks
On top of this, Persona 5’s treatment of its sole canonical gay men, two harassers assaulting Ryuji in the middle of a crowded street, remains one of the lowest points in the series. The English localization team stepped in for the definitive Persona 5 Royal version by making these characters enthusiastic drag queens eager to show Ryuji the ropes rather than predators, but even that can’t make Persona 5 an inclusive game when it’s entirely uninterested in telling a story about queer characters, even if the player is trying to push it in that direction. Sure, you can tell a random shadow in a buried battle menu that you like men, but in terms of living as a gay teen in supernatural Tokyo? Persona 5 won’t let you.
It’s frustrating because I’d argue the social link arcs between Joker and Ryuji or Joker and his rival Goro Akechi still enjoy the most romantic tension in the game, far more than most of the women the player can pursue. But really, it didn’t come as a surprise that Persona 5 was dismissive of queer identity, because Persona almost always is.
Persona 3 has weird transphobic jokes that I’m curious to see handled in Persona 3 Reload. Persona 4 nearly has interesting conversations about queer identity with party members Kanji Tatsumi and Naoto Shirogane initially being presented as possibly working through male attraction and gender fluidity respectively, only for the game to handwave those conversations, fall back on the status quo, and engage in some casual queerphobia along the way. Shoutout to Persona 2, which had a gay romantic interest in 1999. I wish your successors followed suit, but maybe they can moving forward?
Screenshot: Atlus / Kotaku
Persona 5 Tactica doesn’t make good on the series excluding queer people, and it definitely doesn’t fix that it made us the butt of the joke for almost 20 years. But it does hint that maybe the future’s looking brighter for queer Persona fans in the future. Now, even if the love stories that should’ve been there aren’t, those of us who spent years playing as Joker pining for Ryuji or Yusuke (apologies to the Akechi lovers but he isn’t here, R.I.P. to you) have something in hand to beat the headcanon allegations.
I didn’t flirt with any of the women in any of these games because I was truly committed to the self-insert bit. Now I finally have at least one scene in this whole series that acknowledges that my Joker wants to smooch his golden retriever best friend. This leaves me a little more hopeful that whoever I play as in Persona 6 might get a boyfriend of his own.P
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth isn’t out until early next year, but ahead of the game’s launch it’s been rated and reviewed by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). Turns out the Teen-rated RPG will contain a “bodacious beach bod.” The question is: Who’s rocking that body?
Three Things We Learned From The Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Demo
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, coming exclusively to PS5 on February 29, 2024, picks up after the events of 2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake and is the next entry in Square Enix’s three-part Final Fantasy VII remake project. We’ve already seen a few trailers for the upcoming RPG, but we’ve learned a bit more about Rebirth thanks to a newly posted rating description on the ESRB’s official website.
The ESRB’s rating description explains that some women in the game are “designed with revealing outfits” including “deep cleavage.” The ESRB also states that Rebirth contains “suggestive dialogue” and close-up shots of characters’ bodies. It points to one example where the camera pans to someone, presumably wearing a revealing outfit, who then says: “Just admit it. You’re obviously captivated by my bodacious beach bod.”
Now, the way the ESRB describes this makes it impossible to say who has (or thinks they have) a bodacious beach bod. So who, among the cast of FF7 characters, seems the most likely to say they have a bodacious beach bod? Place your bets now!
Other secrets revealed by the ESRB
The ESRB’s rating description of Rebirth also confirms that at least one character will be “impaled” by a sword in slow motion. Famously, and beware spoilers for a game released in the ‘90s, Aerith was killed by sword-wielding Sephiroth in the original game. You could describe what happens in that original sequence as “slow motion,” too. It seems the new remake sequel will do the same. The question is, who gets stabbed this time around?
In October, Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi promised a “big surprise” during that famous, iconic death. But he didn’t elaborate beyond that tease. Does he mean that someone else will get stabbed in slow motion? Perhaps nobody gets stabbed and Sephiroth just misses and runs away embarrassed. Or would it be really surprising to stab Aerith and trick everyone into thinking you wouldn’t do that this time around? Maybe someone just has a vision of a slow-mo stab. I’m not sure, really.
Oh and finally, the ESRB confirms that some characters get drunk and slur their speech and you’ll hear people say shit, asshole, and prick. I can’t wait!
Here’s the full ESRB description for FF7 Rebirth, coming February 2024 to PS5.
This is an action role-playing game in which players follow the story of a mercenary (Cloud Strife) on a quest to save the planet from evil. Players explore fantasy landscapes, perform missions, and battle monsters and soldiers in frenetic melee combat. Characters use swords, staffs, guns, and magic spells to fight monsters and human soldiers; combat is highlighted by impact sounds, cries of pain, and explosions. Cutscenes depict further instances of violence, sometimes with splatters/pools of blood: characters impaled or slashed by swords, sometimes with slow-motion effects; an assassin throwing a spinning blade at a targeted figure; characters shot by soldiers.
Some female characters are designed with revealing outfits (e.g., deep cleavage); suggestive dialogue sometimes accompanies camera panning/close-ups of characters’ bodies/outfits (e.g., “Just admit it. You’re obviously captivated by my bodacious beach bod.”). The game contains some alcohol content: as Cloud, players can drink a version of moonshine while at a bar; cutscenes sometimes feature drunk characters slurring their speech. A handful of scenes depict characters smoking cigars or out of hookahs. The words “sh*t,” “a*shole,” and “pr*ck” appear in the game.
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As pointed out by VGC, Modern Warfare III is sitting at a middling 50 out of 100 on review aggregate site Metacritic, putting it a whopping 23 points below the average review score of 2021’s Call of Duty: Vanguard, which previously held the worst-reviewed title with a 73. Metacritic is based on average critic scores, and MWIII has 33 reviews as of this writing—given that the game is just a few days old , more reviews are likely. But the user score is an abysmal 1.5 on a scale from 1 to 10—some of which may be from review-bombing, as player reviews are likely dropping a 0 or 1 score to voice their grievances, but overall, the sentiment around Modern Warfare III is an all-time low for the series.
Kotaku doesn’t score games in our reviews, but we do have Modern Warfare III campaign impressions, in which Claire Jackson called it “at best a net neutral experience that feels rushed, and a boring waste of charismatic characters at worst.” All of this comes after reports that Modern Warfare III’s development was rushed to get the game out in 2023 after alleged mixed messaging from management about the scope of the project.
If you’re at all confused about what’s going on with Call of Duty’s Modern Warfare subseries because you thought Modern Warfare 3 came out a decade ago, check out this handy explainer.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III’s single-player campaign was panned by critics when it released early on November 2. Reviewers hit it with low scores and said it felt short, rushed, and incomplete. Now Bloomberg reports that the game was rushed out in half the time of a normal Call of Duty sequel, with devs working nights and weekends to meet Activision’s annualized sales goals.
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According to Bloomberg, the game was originally pitched to Sledgehammer developers as an expansion to Modern Warfare II that would focus on missions based in Mexico instead of the series’ normal globetrotting set-pieces. In the summer of 2022, however, Activision executives apparently rebooted the project as a full-fledged sequel about the Modern Warfare II villain Vladimir Makarov. The company needed to fill the gap left by an apparent delay of Treyarch’s next Call of Duty game, and reportedly decided against simply taking a year off from the blockbuster’s annual release schedule.
A spokesperson for Activision denied this, however. Sledgehammer Games studio head Aaron Halon told Bloomberg in an interview that the developers who thought Modern Warfare III had originally been planned as an expansion were simply confused because it was a “new type of direct sequel,” despite the PlayStation 5 version of the game appearing as DLC on the trophies menu and asking some players to insert the Modern Warfare II disc.
But more than a dozen current and former Call of Duty developerstold Bloomberg that Halon’s take “conflicted” with what they were initially told. Some of them also seemingly worked nights and weekends to try and get Modern Warfare III out on time, despite the game only having half the development time of a normal Call of Duty sequel. “They felt betrayed by the company because they were promised they wouldn’t have to go through another shortened timeline after the release of their previous game, Call of Duty: Vanguard, which was made under a similarly constrained development cycle,” Bloomberg reports.
Call of Duty has made billions for Activision, but the series has a long and increasingly-well-documented track record of burning out its developers. One of the big questions facing the franchise now that Microsoft owns it (after recently closing its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard) is whether it will continue the seemingly unsustainable development cycles or let the blockbuster take a year off for the first time in decades.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is out November 10 and almost everything about it is unnecessarily confusing to figure out, from when it goes live to what it includes. Even the name is a labyrinth to untangle. Here’s when you can get started unraveling its violent mess of content and file installations for yourself.
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When do Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer and Zombies go live?
Image: Activision
Modern Wafare 3‘s multiplayer releases on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4 beginning on November 9 at 6:00 a.m. ET for those who live in New Zealand. If you’re on Xbox, you can set your region to that in the settings menu and begin playing. According to the Activision blog, everyone else will have to wait until the game is officially live in their region:
On PC, the game will go live everywhere at the same time. That’s midnight on the East Coast or 9:00 p.m. PST on the West Coast, whether you’re playing on Steam or Battle.net.
What does Modern Warfare 3 include?
Believe it or not, Modern Warfare 3 includes the brief single-player campaign, multiplayer mode, Zombies, and seasonal content.Everything is now downloaded through the Call of Duty HQ launcher and Modern Warfare 2 items carry over to it and into Modern Warfare 3‘s multiplayer.
Multiplayer will include the following modes: Domination, Ground War, Hardpoint, Kill Confirmed, Team Deathmatch. It will also bring back 16 Modern Warfare 2 maps from the original 2009 game. Zombies, meanwhile, won’t be round-based. Instead, it will be a PvEopen-world mode with up to eight teams of three players each.
At launch, Modern Warfare 3 will have a pre-season pass that lets you earn unlocks up through military rank level 55. The game’s full first season 1 won’t go live until sometime in December. When it does, the game will get three additional maps and cross over with Warzone 2.
Though Halo Infinite might be drawing folks back with its expanding map diversity and new customization options, the in-game cosmetics shop is still rubbing fans the wrong way. A recent skin intended to be a tribute to the very first Halo game, 2001’s Halo: Combat Evolved, is drawing a bit of attention not for its looks, but because it’s currently twice the cost of the entirety of Halo: Combat Evolved (see on Amazon).
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Though The Master Chief Collection played around with free, live-service quirks like seasons and battle passes, Halo Infinite marked the series’ first full shift, with a free-to-play multiplayer augmented by microtransactions and season passes, to a live service title. That shift, among other things, hasn’t been very popular with the community, particularly where it concerns pricing of in-game cosmetics. That discomfort continues with the Mark V Halo: Combat Evolved skin, which feature Master Chief’s original armor design and colors.
“For half of the price of the new bundle” a Reddit thread on r/Halo starts, “you can buy the entirety of [Halo: Combat Evolved], the game it’s from, on Steam.” The bundle costs 2,200 in-game credits. That boils down to about $20. As you can buy Halo: CE for just $10 a la carte on Steam, that’s more than double the cost of Master Chief’s premiere game.
So in theory you could buy two copies of Halo: Combat Evolved on Steam, one for you and another for a friend to play cooperatively in one of the most influential first-person shooters of the 21st century. I assure you, that’ll be a lot more fun than a skin.
But the price isn’t the only thing that’s annoying. Were it so easy.
In Halo Infinite, player skins are divided up into “cores,” each core representing a certain style of armor from the Halo universe; the “Mark V [B],” for example, is based on the design from 2010’s Halo Reach. Each core has its own set of helmets, chest plates, shoulders, armor colors (referred to as armor “coatings” in-game), and more.
Frustratingly, you can’t customize the individual parts across different cores. That changed a little bit with season five; you can now use helmets, visor colors, and some coatings across different cores. The problem is that the Mark V suit isn’t a core, but rather an armor “kit” for the Mark VII core; you’re far more restricted in how you can customize the set. You can’t even stick the helmet on other designs. The gold visor is cross-core compatible though, as well as green coating—though about that…
While the Mark V’s specific armor coating is usable across cores, some players are pointing out that the certain shade of green is almost identical to the free green coating that comes with the game. Yes, the “Cadet Sage” armor is ever so slightly darker, but at the pace of action Halo Infinite usually goes, it’s not like this looks wildly different during gameplay.
So yeah, go play Halo: Combat Evolved if you haven’t. The gameplay is aging a bit, but it’s an essential first-person shooter campaign of the modern era if there ever was one.
We’ve known for some time now that IO Interactive, the studio behind the fantastic Hitman games, is working on a new James Bond game. And while that team seems like a perfect match and a new Bond game seems long overdue, according to IOI, the team had to assure the folks who own the spy franchise that it wasn’t going to make another FPS in order to convince them to hand over the rights.
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GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64 is one of the most famous and beloved video games in history. It popularized FPS games on consoles, sold over eight million copies, and led to dozens of similar James Bond FPS games. I’d argue the games helped grow the franchise’s audience. With all that said, you’d think Eon Productions—the folks who own the Bond franchise—would be excited about a new game based on its popular spy. But according to the devs behind it, that wasn’t the case—and you can blame GoldenEyefor that.
In the newest edition of Edge magazine, as reported by GamesRadar, IO Interactive co-owners Hakan Abrak and Christian Elverdam talked about the still-in-development 007 game, detailing their vision for the project. But the two also explained that it took a lot of convincing to get Eon Productions to sign off on the project, as the Bond owners didn’t want yet another “action-oriented” FPS.
“Our impression was clearly that [at the time] they were not looking for a game,” said IO Interactive CEO and co-owner Hakan Abrak. “And I think it’s fair that they might not have been super-happy with some of the later games.”
The co-owners of IO Interactive pitched Eon Productions on a James Bond game that was less GoldenEye and more about being a globe-trotting, stealth-oriented spy. Elverdam explained that its pitch to Eon focused on how its 007 project would be about getting in and out of a location without causing much collateral damage or engaging in violence unless needed. In other words, IO Interactive’s project won’t be Bond running down endless corridors carrying 20 guns and shooting everyone he encounters, which is how I would describe the vast majority of 007 games made in the last 20 years. Instead, it sounds like it will play a lot more like the Hitman games, where violence is often a last resort and stealthy gameplay is king.
Elverdam told Edge that this approach “helped [IO Interactive] convince Eon that there’s a sophistication in how we treat the agent fantasy.” This seems to have been enough to get the green light and let IO make its Bond project. And honestly, after playing far too many Bond shooters, I can’t wait for a more stealth-oriented spy game. I’ve said before that IOI is the best developer to make a modern 007 game and I can’t wait to see what the studio is working on when it finally reveals more about Project 007.
Two weeks ago, hundreds of Roblox players jumped into a custom game that let them take part in a pro-Palestine march. The game, which appeared to have been organized by Malaysian Roblox players, was made in response to the escalating violence in the Middle East. On October 7, the Islamic political and military organization Hamas, attacked, kidnapped, and killed around 1,400 Israeli citizens. Since that day, Israel has reportedly dropped more than 18,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip, the six-mile wide piece of land that is home to more than 2 million Palestinians.
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Roblox is a game creation system that allows players to build their own shareable games for others to enjoy online, and the pro-Palestine march gained a lot of attention. People took to social media to share their stories, with one person saying their young cousin attended the virtual march because they were too young to drive to one in-person. Others said this march was a sign that the “kids are alright.” The game featured Palestinian flags and a large, open square with the words “Solitary Untukmu” (Malay for “Solidarity for you”) on one end.
On November 5, an X (formerly Twitter) user named Qaali Husseinshared: “My daughter just told me that all the marches are gone…because they were reported for hate speech and antisemitism,” he wrote. One commenter responded, saying that the two Roblox games they had played that featured pro-Palestinian marches were also gone. “The one in the video got taken down first then the second one got privated,” they allege.
A Roblox spokesperson told Kotaku via email that one of the experiences referenced is “still live” and can be found at this link. However, the spokesperson notes, “the experience is set to private mode, which is a setting that was selected by the creator of the game.” When asked about the reports that additional pro-Palestinian experiences were taken down, the Roblox spokesperson could not confirm nor deny without specific details of the game itself, which I could not find online.
The same person who alleged that one pro-Palestinian game was taken down did receive a warning from Roblox for saying “FREE PALESTINE.” They shared a screenshot of that warning on X, which shows why the warning was issued (“political content”) and what the “offensive item” was (“FREE PALESTINE FREE PALESTINE”), but the moderator note seems somewhat at odds with the current Roblox community standards. The note reads: “Roblox does not permit support for current political candidates, parties, associated flags or symbols.”
However, a spokesperson for Roblox clarified the situation over email, writing that “the phrase ‘Free Palestine’ is compliant with Roblox’s Community Standards and is indeed allowed for use on our platform. It is considered an expression of solidarity as allowed by our Community Standards and is not recognized as prohibited political content.”
It’s not clear why the original poster’s statement was flagged.
Update 11/06/2023 7:00 p.m. ET: Updated story with a new quote from Roblox spokesperson.
At BlizzCon 2023, Blizzard announced it’s preparing to enter what it’s calling World of Warcraft’s “Worldsoul Saga,” a multi-expansion story arc in the MMORPG that it plans to roll out over the course of the next three expansions.
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During the convention’s opening ceremony, Warcraft Executive Creative Director Chris Metzen explained that the Worldsoul Saga will bridge the gap between the first 20 years of World of Warcraft and whatever Blizzard has planned next for the long-running MMORPG. The tenth expansion, titled The War Within, will kick things off and will be followed by the eleventh and twelfth expansions, called Midnight and The Last Titan, respectively. The next three expansions form a trilogy that will usher in the next era of World of Warcraft storytelling.
After Metzen outlined the next three expansions, Blizzard showed a cinematic trailer for The War Within, which featured long-time World of Warcraft figures Anduin and Thrall getting into a heated discussion before the camera panned to the Sword of Sargeras, a giant sword that was stabbed into the surface of Azeroth during the events of the Legion expansion.
Blizzard Entertainment
Following this, Blizzard showed a trailer running down new features, including new zones to travel around in Azj-Kahet, Isle of Dorn, The Ringing Deeps, and Hallowfall. Players will also be able to take part in cooperative PvE instances called Delves, transfer progression between multiple characters through Warbands, and take advantage of expanded Hero Talents. Check out the trailer below:
Blizzard Entertainment
The War Within will launch in fall 2024. While past World of Warcraft expansions have launched around two years apart for years, Metzen says Blizzard is looking to release Midnight and The Last Titan with less downtime between. However, he didn’t give a specific timeline. It’s possible World of Warcraft’s next three expansions could launch annually, and that the next era of the MMO could be a reality in the next few years. Before that, however, World of Warcraft now have three more expansions to look forward to.
If you fired up your Xbox today, you might’ve seen something you didn’t expect: A darn full-screen advertisement for the latest Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare III. Though Microsoft has done this before with exclusives like Starfield, it’s already rubbing some gamers the wrong way.
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Though 2023’s Modern Warfare III isn’t technically coming out in full form until November 10, those who want to get in on the campaign can do so right now by pre-ordering any edition of the game. So while that early access period might be enticing for those eager to follow the story of Task Force 141, it’s far from a universal desire, making the full-screen Call of Duty ad on Xbox’s start screen feel intrusive. The Modern Warfare III marketing blitz comes just weeks after Microsoft wrapped its acquisition of CoD’s publisher, Activision Blizzard.
Screenshot: Activision / Kotaku
“Fight against the ultimate threat. Play the Campaign now,” the ad starts. Players are then given three options: “Buy Now,” “Get the Vault Edition Upgrade,” and “Exit.” While it’s not uncommon to see ads on consoles, a full-screen one that greets you the second you fire up your box is unusually aggressive.
“Don’t hit me with ads that take my whole screen when I paid $500 [for] your machine,” reads one post on X (formerly Twitter).
“This really is my push factor in building a proper PC,” reads one Reddit comment in reference to the ad. Though, as many were quick to respond, Windows (also owned by Microsoft) is far, far, far from an ad-free experience. Even after configuring much of the OS’s tendency to harass you with ads for Game Pass or Microsoft 365, it’s not uncommon to see other ads or unwanted pop-ups appear. The year of the Linux desktop can’t come soon enough.
It’s frustrating when a machine you spend hundreds of dollars on doesn’t feel like it’s totally under your control. But who knows, maybe a decade from now, people will get nostalgic over the CoD ad from 2023 that greeted them upon starting up their Xbox.
Call of Duty filesizes are completely out of control. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, the latest in the long-running military FPS franchise recently acquired by Microsoft, consumes over 200GB of storage on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S when you add up everything it contains. The new Call of Duty HQ download manager alone is itself a roughly 50GB install.
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Call of Duty games have had massive digital footprints for a while now. We complain about themevery year. Things were particularly bad with 2020’s Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, which ate up a staggering 255GB on PS5 after all its content packs were installed. It seemed like video game filesize inflation slowed down for a bit afterward, but with Modern Warfare III the hit shooter is back to eating up anywhere from a third to half of players’ “next-gen” SSD drives, according to IGN.
Activision tried to explain why this is happening on X (formerly known as Twitter) today. “In preparation, we would like to provide an update on file sizes which are larger than last year,” the company tweeted. “This is due to the increased amount of content available Day 1, including open world Zombies, support for item carry forward from #MW2, as well as map files for current Call of Duty: Warzone. (Note: as part of our ongoing optimization efforts, your final installation size will be actually smaller than the combined previous Call of Duty experiences).”
While it makes sense that all of Modern Warfare III’s map packs, modes, and cross-over content with Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2 would add to the final filesize, Activision’s explanation still doesn’t still doesn’t make clear why players can’t simply download the single-player campaign that came out in “early access” today without messing around with the rest via a convoluted, 50GB launcher.
In theory, Call of Duty HQ is supposed to make MW3’s nearly 235GB footprint easier to manage by streamlining how players pick and choose what content to download and install. In practice, however, many fans seem to think it’s a huge pain in the ass. Warfare 2 players have already had to put up with it for months now, with PC Gamer calling the interface, “a real mess of data management.” Being required for Modern Warfare III hasn’t won the launcher any more supporters.
“Call of Duty HQ system seems way too complicated for casual players,” tweeted Charlie Intel co-founder Keshav Bhat. “The amount of posts I have seen asking how to install [the] campaign or where to find it is insane.”
Plus, if the total size of MW3 is already over 200GB, it’s likely to get even bigger in the months ahead as Activision rolls out additional content, including remastered Modern Warfare 2 maps. I’m looking forward to when Call of Duty HQ gets its own overhaul, requiring players to install a massive patch to fix the massive installer.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III’s multiplayer mode goes live November 10.
Happy Halloween! Ubisoft Netherlands invites you to celebrate the spooky festivities with AI-generated Assassin’s Creed art. Terrifying indeed!
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People first began to notice some of Ubisoft’s social media channels posting what appeared to be AI-generated versions of Assassin’s Creed art last night. A smoothed over, off-brand Ezio emerged on the French publisher’s X (formerly known as Twitter) account for Latin America. “In other amazing industry news here’s an official Ubisoft account with 300K followers posting AI art,” tweeted Forbes contributor Paul Tassi. The publisher’s post was mocked for making Ezio look like a Fortnite character and for one character in the background wielding gun grips like knives. The tweet was deleted soon after.
Not to be outdone, however, the Ubisoft Netherlands account followed up with its own AI-looking Ezio art complete with Jack-o’-lanterns. “Which Ubisoft game is perfect for this horrible evening?” the account asked in Dutch. Clearly the one the Assassin’s Creed maker was playing with fans’ hearts.
Ubisoft recently revealed that over 1,000 people have left the company in the last year as part of its “cost reduction” program. Some of those departures were voluntary, but others included layoffs across customer support, marketing, and other departments in Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere. “Ubisoft literally conducting layoffs this year and last month, and they’re posting AI art,” tweeted film concept artist Reid Southen. “Unbelievable. What the hell is the game industry doing right now.”
Still, over 19,000 people continue to work at Ubisoft, including many devoted just to the Assassin’s Creed franchise and all of its sequels, spin-offs, and other incarnations currently in the pipeline. Surely one of them could have made some art for the social media accounts. Or the company could have just used one of its many existing Ezio images. Anything would have been preferable to posting ugly AI-generated crap as thousands are laid off across the video game industry this year.
Fans have had to become increasingly vigilant in 2023 about companies trying to pass off AI-generated images in their marketing, as DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and other AI text-to-image models make it easier than ever to cobble together fake art. Amazon did it to promote its upcoming Fallout TV show. It sure seemed like Niantic did it to promote upcoming content in Pokémon Go. Legendary Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki calling AI art tools “an insult to life itself” back in 2016 has never felt so prophetic.
Ubisoft has announced plans to shut down online services for nearly a dozen video games, including Assassin’s Creed 2 and Splinter Cell: Conviction. The games will lose online functionally on January 25, 2024.
How Alan Wake 2 Builds Upon The ‘Remedy-Verse’
As we’ve seen over the last year, plenty of video game publishers and developers have already pulled online services and shutdown servers for a plethora of games across all platforms. The reasons vary, from low player counts to expiring licenses, but the reality is the same: More games become harder or impossible to play once the plug has been pulled. Now we can add even more titles to the growing list of “Dead Games.” This time around it’s Ubisoft announcing more shutdowns.
In a new post on Ubisoft’s support site, the publisher confirmed plans for “decommissioning” online services for 10 “older” games. Ubisoft further added that shutting down servers for old games is a choice it doesn’t make “lightly,” however it also added that it is “a necessity as the technology behind these services becomes outdated.”
Kotaku has contacted Ubisoft about the shutdowns.
Here is the full list of games losing online service on January 25, 2024, as well as which platforms are affected:
Assassin’s Creed II — Xbox 360
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood — Mac
Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD — PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Assassin’s Creed Revelations— PC
Ghost Recon Future Soldier— PC
Heroes of Might and Magic VI — PC
NCIS — PC
Splinter Cell: Conviction — Xbox 360
R.U.S.E. — PC
Trials Evolution— PC
According to a chart from Ubisoft, once online features are shut off for these 10 games, users will no longer be able to play online multiplier, link accounts, or collect Ubisoft Connect rewards for the affected titles.
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