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What To Expect From Steam And Valve In 2022

January 19, 2022Kotaku

It’s shaping up to be another record-breaking year for Valve-owned digital storefront Steam thanks to massive games like Elden Ring and Starfield, and new hardware like the Steam Deck. Last year was a sleepier one when it came to PC blockbusters due to covid-19-driven game delays, but 2021’s loss is this year’s gain. From ports and early access launches to massive expansions and a new console, here’s what’s coming to Steam in 2022.Read More: Valve Says It Hasn’t Found A Game That The Steam Deck Can’t HandleCapcom’s multiplayer loot RPG was a hit on Nintendo Switch last year and will…

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E3 2022 Goes Online-Only Amid Pandemic Fueled By Omicron Variant

January 6, 2022Kotaku

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, will shift to an online-only showcase for the second consecutive year and a year off, according to GamesBeat.In a statement shared with GamesBeat, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which runs E3, cited concerns regarding the ongoing pandemic, now fueled by the omicron variant that has caused a sharp spike in confirmed infections. At this point, it’s unclear when or if E3 will return as an in-person event.“Due to the ongoing health risks surrounding covid-19 and its potential impact on the safety of exhibitors and attendees, E3 will not be held in person in 2022,”…

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The Week In Games: A New Year, But Not Many New Games

January 2, 2022Kotaku

Happy new year! I hope you had a safe and fun New Year’s Eve and Day and I hope 2022 is a better year for all of us than 2021 was. I mean, it can’t be worse right…?If you were looking for a bunch of new games to start the new year off with a bang, you won’t find much this week. As usual, this tends to be a quiet time for big and even small game releases. I don’t mind at all. I’ve fallen back into Destiny 2 and it’s sucking up all my free time now. So I…

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The Biggest Gaming Disappointments Of 2021

December 21, 2021Kotaku

Hell-year 2021 is almost over. It’s been a terrible year for more reasons than I can count. Pondering all the bad, disappointing, or just plain sad news that transpired within the video game industry alone is enough to make you want to jump into bed, hide under the covers, and binge on TikTok, candy, and/or Animal Crossing until you pass out. But instead of running and hiding, let’s take a moment to look back at just how awful 2021 really was, examining some of the biggest disappointments, worst trends, and just plain not-great news this monster of a year threw…

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The Sequel To BotW Started Trending Because It Still Doesn’t Have A Name

December 10, 2021Kotaku

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2–Sorry, sorry. The Sequel to The Legend of–Actually, you know what? Screw it. We all know this is a sequel, and the awkward dance around its name is just cloying at this point. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 started trending on social media last night, following the four-hour advertisement known as The Game Awards, in part due to the fact that it still doesn’t have a name. Fans have been waiting years for proper news about a sequel to 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild,…

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Xbox Game Pass PC Gets A New Name And Four More Day One Games

December 10, 2021Kotaku

Xbox Game Pass is a good name for a subscription games service. Xbox Game Pass for PC is not, so Microsoft got together with rappers Lil Dicky and GaTa last night during The Game Awards to announce the PC version’s new name, the much more sensible PC Game Pass. The ad spot also revealed four new games coming to the service, including Sniper Elite 5 and Pigeon Simulator. Teased by the official Twitter account earlier this week, the Game Pass PC— sorry, PC Game Pass lineup is growing by four new titles: Sniper Elite 5, Pigeon Simulator, Trek to Yomi,…

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The Staples Center Will Be Renamed Crypto.com Arena

November 17, 2021Kotaku

Cryptocurrency and NFT exchange Crypto.com has announced it’s struck a twenty-year name-licensing deal for the Los Angeles arena currently known as the Staples Center in could be the biggest American venue naming deal ever. The Staples Center, aka The House The Kobe Built, is home to the Lakers, the Clippers, and the Kings, among other sporting teams and events. Home to the Grammy Awards and numerous concerts, it’s also adjacent to the Los Angeles Convention Center, where E3 has been held for decades. When E3 returns to an in-person event, cryptocurrency and NFTs will loom over the gaming expo in…

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Don’t Let Halo Infinite Make You Forget About The Great New Game Pass Additions

November 16, 2021Kotaku

It’s hard to believe, I know, but there are other games coming to Xbox that don’t start with Halo and end with Infinite. Over the next two weeks, Microsoft will add 10 more games to Xbox Game Pass. Here’s what’s struck me: I’ve been watching these rollouts like a hawk for several years. For the first time I can recall, every forthcoming addition will be available via Xbox Cloud Gaming: November 16November 17November 18November 23November 30The platform’s push into cloud gaming has been clear for some time, with Xbox head Phil Spencer working overtime recently to create buzz. Yesterday, an…

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The PlayStation 3 Is Now Fifteen Years Old

November 11, 2021Kotaku

Can you believe it? The PlayStation 3 launched fifteen years ago today. It was an expensive console and a messy launch, with hype overload and some truly bad press conferences. But Sony didn’t give up on the PS3, and neither did gamers. The PS3 was home to a slew of great exclusives, such as The Last of Us, Demon’s Souls, Little Big Planet, Metal Gear Solid 4, and Yakuza 4. It’s easy to look back at the PS3 as something that was always a terrific game console, but it didn’t start that way. I remember sitting in the audience at…

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Here’s 20 Minutes Of Elden Ring Gameplay

November 4, 2021Kotaku

At this point—and you’re well within your rights to still have reservations—it’s becoming pretty difficult to refute that Elden Ring…is real? Today, during a digital showcase, publisher Bandai Namco shows off 15 minutes of the next action-adventure game from FromSoftware. (Update, 10:20 a.m. ET: It’s over, and it was actually closer to 20 minutes—you can watch it all below.) Have a look: Yes, yes, Elden Ring, which was first announced at E3 2019, technically showed up earlier this year during Geoff Keighley’s Summer Games Fest. After two years of crickets about the game, FromSoft debuted a three-minute trailer. Any fans…

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Elden Ring Delayed, But It Also Keeps Leaking

October 18, 2021Kotaku

February 2022 was already packed full of big game releases. Now FromSoftware has added another to the list, delaying Elden Ring a month from its original January 21, 2022 release date. In the meantime, the game will get a player demo next month as grainy in-development footage continues to leak online. Elden Ring, the open-world successor to the Dark Souls series, will now come out on February 25, 2022 to give FromSoftware more time to work on it. “[T]he depth & strategic freedom of the game exceeded initial expectations,” the studio announced on Twitter today. In November, it will host…

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First It Was An Assassin’s Creed Expansion, Now It’s Ubisoft’s 8 Year Nightmare

July 20, 2021Kotaku

A few people said it was cursed. Others simply had no idea what they were supposed to be making. “Nobody knew what the fuck they were doing,” said one former developer.Skull & Bones development began back in 2013, as a multiplayer expansion to Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag that would release as a post-launch update, three sources with knowledge of the project’s origins said. The expansion soon took on a life of its own, however, morphing into a full blown MMO-like spin-off with the working title Black Flag Infinite, and later a brand new pirate game called Skull & Bones.The…

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Next-Gen Sports Games On PC Always Suck, This Is Nothing New

July 13, 2021Kotaku

This year, fans of EA Sports titles like FIFA and Madden who play on PC—and there are more of us than you think!—are upset that those games will be ports of the last-gen versions, and not of the fancier editions appearing on the PS5 and Xbox Series X. Eurogamer published a story earlier today collecting some of this disappointment and frustration, from game forums to Reddit, following the reminder this week that the PC versions of Madden 22 and FIFA 22 will once again be based on the PS4 and Xbox One versions.FIFA fans were particularly upset, because EA Sports…

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This Week’s PlayStation Event Won’t Include God Of War Or Horizon

July 6, 2021Kotaku

During last month’s E3/Summer Game Fest announcement bonanza, Sony was one of the many conspicuously absent companies. However, if you were expecting big, E3-style announcements out of the PlayStation maker’s July showcase, prepare to be disappointed. In a blog post today, Sony Interactive Entertainment senior director of content communications Sid Shuman said that the much-anticipated July 8 “State of Play” event will mostly focus on Deathloop and other third-party games.“In this extended gameplay sequence, we’ll see Cole use his abilities to stealthily skulk across rooftops…or go in guns blazing to create a whole lot of mayhem,” Shuman wrote of Deathloop….

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Why Wasn’t The ‘Switch Pro’ Announced At E3? Nintendo Still Won’t Say

July 1, 2021Kotaku

During Nintendo’s annual shareholder meeting this week, the firm was asked the obvious question: Why wasn’t the ‘Switch Pro’ shown at E3? It’s a question we asked here at Kotaku, and something both fans and investors want to know. The new version, which Kotaku predicted could be revealed at E3, was supposed to have a larger OLED handheld screen and enough power to output 4K graphics while docked. The console was supposed to go into production this summer for a holiday release. “It was widely reported that a new version of the Nintendo Switch would be announced this June at…

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All-Digital E3 Was A Mess

June 18, 2021Kotaku

Another E3 has come and gone. This year’s multi-day commercial for upcoming video games sure…happened. Was it terribly exciting? No, not that we were expecting it to be. Was it downright terrible? Also no. But in failing to find its footing on an all-digital stage, E3 2021 ended up being a showcase for the many different ways that cramming a bunch of announcements into one week doesn’t really make sense anymore. On this week’s Splitscreen, we discuss what went wrong.Ash Parrish, John Walker (Fahey was sick, so we called in his British replacement), and I begin the episode on a…

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Nintendo Scores Highest Peak Viewership Of E3

June 17, 2021Kotaku

Switch Pro or not, Nintendo still had the most people watching its E3 2021 presentation. Nintendo amassed 3.1 million peak viewers for its nearly 40 minute presentation, according to yesterday’s tweet from Stream Hatchet, a data analytics firm specializing in video game streaming.Despite being one of the shorter showcases, Nintendo smashed the competition, gaining 800,000 peak viewers over the joint Xbox/Bethesda conference, which was the next highest watched presentation, clocking a modest 2.3 million viewers. Showing off highly anticipated titles like Breath of the Wild 2 and the first 2D Metroid in two decades likely contributed to Nintendo’s success.And though…

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E3 2021: 20 Games Missing From The Show

June 16, 2021Kotaku

Silence screams volumes. Over the past five days, video game publishers have shouted announcements for the biggest games from the rooftops. But that chorus has been drowned out by the far more deafening din of what wasn’t announced at E3 2021. Of course, we had some inkling beforehand about which blockbusters wouldn’t show up. Ubisoft said from the jump that we’d see nothing from The Division or the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake. Deep Silver, the publisher behind series like Timesplitters and Dead Island, also said that it wouldn’t exhibit any games at E3. Activision, Sony, and EA…

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What To Expect From Nintendo At E3 2021

June 15, 2021Kotaku

Got your crystal ball handy? Hope so, because Nintendo won’t be holding its traditional press event, Nintendo Direct, until Tuesday, June 15. Though that’s the final day of E3, this is probably going to be a last-but-not-least sort of scenario, because Nintendo’s widely expected to bring out some big guns for its post-covid return to the biggest video game expo in the world. If you’d like to watch live on Tuesday, you can find the details on Nintendo’s E3 2021 landing page. The Nintendo Direct livestream starts at noon ET and will last around 40 minutes, after which the company’s…

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Twitch’s Official Channel Won’t Stream Nintendo’s E3 Direct Due To Co-Streaming Restrictions

June 15, 2021Kotaku

Later today, Nintendo will broadcast its Direct for this year’s E3. Leading up to the event, the Kyoto-based game company has issued a request on its Japanese Twitter account: Do not co-stream our presentation. “Please refrain from mirroring Nintendo Direct footage and sound during the Nintendo Direct livestream,” the tweet reads. Nintendo will allow simultaneous viewing (reactions, basically) without mirroring—and thus, without streaming sound or footage.Once the presentation is finished, Nintendo has okayed the uploading of clips, but with the caveat that the use of footage and sound follows the company’s previously released guidelines.In Japan, Nintendo clearly does not want…

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