Photo: Bloomberg (Getty Images), Image: Marvel, Obsidian / BioWare / Kotaku, Valve, FromSoftware, Hazelight Studios, Iron Lore / Crate Entertainment / Runic / Kotaku, Screenshot: Obsidian Entertainment / Kotaku, Marvel / Kotaku, BioWare / Kotaku
We’ve been playing quite a bit of Obsidian’s great new first-person RPG Avowed lately, and we have thoughts about the companions who fight by your side during your journey. Also, we share our impressions on Elden Ring Nightreign after spending time with its recent network test, and look at how the internet reacted to the surprising news of layoffs hitting the team behind hugely successful hero shooter Marvel Rivals. Read on for these and more of the week’s top takes.
Photo: Bloomberg (Getty Images)
In case you didn’t notice, the console wars—the decades-long battle between mulitple companies and their plastic game boxes—ended a few years ago. And while Sony continues to fight on with its PlayStation despite the war being over, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer recently confirmed that, yeah, it’s all over, and the company is no longer trying to steal users away with exclusives. - Zack Zwiezen Read More
Image: Marvel
On February 18, NetEase laid off Marvel Rivals development team members, including game director Thaddeus Sasser, just two months after its incredibly successful launch. The hero shooter has been such a runaway success that the news blindsided people across the video game industry. According to a statement the company issued to Game File, NetEase made these cuts “for organizational reasons and to optimize development efficiency for the game.” The layoffs specifically affected the support team based in Seattle while the “core” Guangzhou-based team “remains fully committed to delivering an exceptional experience.” - Kenneth Shepard Read More
Screenshot: Obsidian Entertainment / Kotaku
“Another win, but who’s counting?” It’s the stupidest thing a person could say after a fight. No one. No one was counting. Including you, Kai, unless you think “another” is a numeral. Recognizing a win in no sense implies tallying anything. It doesn’t make sense. Stop saying it, man. Just stop saying it. In fact, unless you’ve got something useful to say, maybe don’t say anything at all? - John Walker Read More
Image: Obsidian / BioWare / Kotaku
Avowed is officially out for everyone today, February 18. Obsidian’s latest RPG in the Pillars of Eternity universe is pretty damn good, and fans who paid up for the game’s Premium Edition have been playing it a few days early. The aspect I’m most looking forward to in Avowed, beyond the character creator, is a companion who shares a voice with one of the most beloved characters in Mass Effect. - Kenneth Shepard Read More
Image: Valve
A surprising contradiction sits at the heart of PC gaming: the medium’s most open platform is nevertheless dominated by a single storefront. That storefront belongs to Valve, it’s called Steam, and despite plenty of challenges in the two decades since it launched, no one has yet come close to unseating the Counter-Strike maker’s grip on the PC gaming market. Amazon was one of the companies that tried, and one of its retired VPs recently explained his take on why nobody has succeeded. - Ethan Gach Read More
Image: FromSoftware
Elden Ring Nightreign looks like Elden Ring, the 2022 FromSoftware hit, and it seems like it should play like Elden Ring, an action-RPG about fighting massive bosses in a cursed open world. And in a lot of ways it does feel cut from the same cloth as its predecessor, but there are also some very important ways in which it doesn’t. The biggest of those is speed. - Ethan Gach Read More
Image: Hazelight Studios
When I played Hazelight’s last game, It Takes Two, back in 2021, it was with an ex who’d had different ideas about where our relationship should go than I did. This made playing as a squabbling, estranged couple in a co-op platformer more fitting for that moment in my life than I could have anticipated. So it’s funny that Hazelight’s upcoming co-op game, Split Fiction, also feels timely, this one due to its obvious disdain for corporate slop and art theft at a time when nearly every creative field, including the one I work in now, is dealing with the fallout of AI. - Kenneth Shepard Read More
Screenshot: Marvel / Kotaku
The Human Torch is joining the Marvel Rivals roster tomorrow, February 21, and before the fire-flinging hero has even joined the scrap, fans are already scared. Part of Marvel Rivals’ appeal is that its heroes are powerful, destructive, and unconcerned with the petty matters of balance and fairness. The Human Torch seems to continue this trend, as some of the early playtests have shown the flying hero to be a devastating menace. - Kenneth Shepard Read More
Screenshot: BioWare / Kotaku
When you’ve been on the internet as long as I have, you get the distinct displeasure of watching cycles of toxicity repeat themselves ad nauseam, usually over things that don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. The world is on fire and rather than devoting energy to important matters, a subset of the internet will create and participate in online campaigns to harass developers who made a video game they didn’t like. These campaigns go beyond reasonable criticism and veer into attacks on people’s personhood, and sometimes include gleeful celebrations of people losing their jobs after layoffs. - Kenneth Shepard Read More
Image: Iron Lore / Crate Entertainment / Runic / Kotaku
Following the success of Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, along with the recurring seasonal themes and fresh start opportunities, enjoying the grind brought to us by Blizzard Entertainment is easier than ever. But sometimes it’s not enough. Say, for example, you finish a season early. What then? Well, you could roll a new character and grind to max level a second time…or you could swap games for a bit while you wait for the next Diablo 4 season start date. That’s likely some time in April, so what to do with the next month? Here are a bunch of other ARPGs to enjoy. - Brandon Morgan Read More
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