Kotaku – Gloomberg News

28May

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Gaming

Gotham Knights Dev Talks Batgirl Controversy, Red Hood’s Powers

Image: WB Games MontrealIn recent weeks, WB Games Montreal has been shedding new light on its upcoming Batman game sans Batman, Gotham Knights, and some details have left fans skeptical about the direction the game is taking with Bruce Wayne’s surviving Bat Family. First, a 13-minute gameplay video revealed that GK’s incarnation of Nightwing makes use of a jet-powered glider, while Red Hood has been endowed with wild “soul energy” abilities. By far the most troubling revelation came via a bio for Batgirl, published to the game’s website, that suggested she’d recovered from her disability through “raw willpower and determination.”During a Q&A session in Gotham Knights’ official Discord channel, creative director Patrick Redding addressed the backlash over the insensitive Batgirl charact...

27May

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Gaming

Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order 2, Jedi Survivor, Out In 2023

Screenshot: Respawn / EA / Lucasfilm / KotakuStar Wars Jedi: Survivor, the highly-anticipated sequel to 2019's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was finally revealed today via a new teaser trailer during Star Wars Celebration. It will be released in 2023 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. While we knew a sequel was in the works, this is the first time EA and Lucasfilm have confirmed the rumored name, which leaked earlier this year. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is the follow-up to Respawn’s 2019 third-person action-adventure Star Wars game, Fallen Order. Like that game, this new sequel stars Cal Kestis, a former Jedi who is on the run from the Empire alongside a ragtag group of misfits and outsiders. Y’know, classic Star Wars stuff. The newly announced sequel is being led once again by former God of ...

26May

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Gaming

The Concept Art Of Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Forbidden West

Horizon Forbidden West has been out long enough now that the game’s artists are free to post their work on sites like ArtStation, so tonight we’re going to be taking a look at all kinds of stuff that went into the game’s creation. As usual when we take a look at big game roundups like this, I won’t be posting everything from everyone involved in the game’s development, because I can only fit so many images on this website before it breaks. What I will be doing, though, is providing a handy cross-section of pieces that will give you an insight into the creation of Forbidden West’s visual identity. Here’s Ari’s review of the game from back in February, if you haven’t played it or would just like a quick recap:Setting aside the high-minded sci-fi hijinks, Horizon Forbidden West is at its core...

26May

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Gaming

Pirates Trolled By Game With Error Messages And Endless Rain

Photo: Emilia Drewniak (Getty Images)One of my favourite things to write about on this website are the creative ways developers have learned to fuck with people pirating their video games, so it’s with great pleasure I get to share another example today.Ross Symons, the CEO of Big Ant Studios, has been talking on Twitter today about some of the measures his company have used to deal with pirates, which are far more creative then just denying them access to the game.Speaking specifically about sports game Cricket 22, the studios’ latest release, he says Big Ant just turned on their own idea of piracy protection for the game, which involves making the whole screen flash white between matches. Like these kind of anti-piracy measures often do, it’s drawn a lot of oblivious pirates to the game’...

25May

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Gaming

No Man’s Sky Goes Roguelike With Leviathan Space Whale Update

Screenshot: Hello GamesThe next No Man’s Sky expansion is all about space whales. Well, okay, there’s a whole new, roguelike-style expedition for players to tackle too but come on. Space whales, baby.Today’s update, called “Leviathan,” sees the immense No Man’s Sky universe get a little bigger with the introduction of the aforementioned megafauna and a challenging mission that players will need to overcome together. Losing your one life means starting the whole thing over again with a new loadout, but the further into it the No Man’s Sky community gets, the easier reaching the end will be for everyone.Here’s how No Man’s Sky studio Hello Games describes what the Leviathan update brings to the table:Difficulty has been turned up in a variety of ways, but every death means a reset of the loo...

24May

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Gaming

Former Nintendo Boss Reggie Tells Companies To ‘Embrace’ Unions

Photo: Allen Berezovsky (Getty Images)In an interview yesterday, former Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime was asked about his thoughts on unions, which currently barely exist in the video game industry. Fils-Aime’s answer was not a ringing endorsement of unions, with the former exec saying they aren’t good or bad, just a situation to be dealt with. But he did add that companies should embrace unionization if their employees want it. Unionization is in the air, as yesterday, employees at Raven Software—a studio that works on Call of Duty Warzone—made history when its QA staff voted to unionize, becoming the first union at a large-scale, AAA video game company. This followed months of union-busting from parent company Activision Blizzard. As a result, some high-ranking video game ind...

23May

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Gaming

Blaidd’s Elden Ring Voice Actor Reacts To Your Thirst Tweets

“Oh? Fine. Time to douse your little flame.”Image: Bandai Namco / Kotaku / RossHelen (Shutterstock)It’s not easy when your pining for the superior, virtual men in your favorite video game goes unnoticed. But rarely, once in a blue moon, a voice actor will provide solace to fans by acknowledging your appreciation for their characters. Today fans of Elden Ring’s breakout furry husband Blaidd the Half-Wolf are eating well, as his voice actor not only read y’alls’ terminally down-bad tweets for the NPC wolfman, but leaned into them with gusto.In a recent episode of BuzzFeed Multiplayer, Scott Arthur, the voice actor behind Blaidd set the record straight on how to properly pronounce the wolf-man’s name (it’s “Blithe”) and read some of y’alls’ best and worst thirst tweets.“I know that he’s cause...

22May

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Gaming

Scott Morrison Video Game Makes Former PM Go To Centrelink

The people of Australia had a very good time over the weekend, as we resoundingly voted out a conservative government that had spent a decade doing...well, nothing really except put their boots to the throats of the poor, the young and anyone who thinks that a rapidly-warming planet might be a bad thing.I won’t bore you with the details of this—you can read more here if you’re interested—but the end result is that Scott Morrison, a man who once allegedly shit his pants in a McDonalds, is no longer the Prime Minister of Australia. While I’m sure there’ll be no shortage of fossil fuel companies, predatory investment funds and fascist-aligned media companies offering him a job in the years to come, in the meantime he’s off to Centrelink.Centelink is the government agency that is in theory su...

22May

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Gaming

EA Was Deep In Merger Talks With NBCUniversal

Photo: Christian Petersen (Getty Images)The video game market is consolidating like never before, and Electronic Arts is scrambling like everyone else. The Battlefield and FIFA maker recently pursued a merger with NBCUniversal, and also held potential acquisition talks with Disney, Apple, and other companies, according to a new report by Puck. While a deal isn’t currently in the works, it doesn’t sound like EA plans to give up anytime soon.“In recent years, as media companies have taken greater interest in the rapidly growing gaming industry, Wilson and Electronic Arts have held talks with a number of different potential suitors, including Disney, Apple and Amazon, sources with knowledge of those talks told me,” wrote Puck’s veteran media reporter, Dylan Beyers. “Several sources familiar w...

21May

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Gaming

Minecraft Devs Canned Fireflies After Frog Fan Feedback

Image: Mojang / KotakuMinecraft’s next big update is called The Wild Update and it will add a ton of new nature-related content to the game. However, no fireflies! The glowing little buggers, which were planned to be the food supply for the newly added frogs, got cut from the planned update after Mojang received feedback from players that the insects were toxic to frogs. Whoops! Sure, Minecraft may not be a spring chicken anymore, but it’s still an extremely popular video game with millions of players and a shit ton of content added via dozens and dozens of free updates released over the last decade. And the next update, The Wild Update or the 1.19 update, is adding even more to the blocky survival game, including a new mangrove biome and ancient cities. And as with all Minecraft updates, ...