Is Republican senator Josh Hawley an advocate for video game players or an ambitious politician with a savvy staff who know a win-win argument when they see one? The freshman senator from Missouri, who plans to soon introduce a bill that will ban loot boxes and pay-to-win microtransactions, spoke to Kotaku yesterday…

Game of Thrones has come to an end, and with it, so has Kotaku Splitscreen’s very special run of bonus recaps. BUT FIRST: The final episode.

Next year’s Call of Duty has gone through a major upheaval, as publisher Activision informed developers this week that studios Raven and Sledgehammer, which had until now led the project, will no longer be in charge. Instead, according to three people familiar with goings-on at the companies, Treyarch will lead…

Footage of the upcoming role-playing game Cyberpunk 2077 has blown away fans so far, but coupled with that hype is a burning question: Are workers at CD Projekt Red, the Polish studio behind the game, ruining their lives to make it? The developer best known for The Witcher series has cultivated a reputation for…

That annoying Final Fantasy VII music bug is fixed on Switch and Xbox One thanks to a patch that went live today. Until now, the music had started from scratch after every random encounter—a problem that was far more annoying in practice than it seemed on paper.

In a move that’s equal parts surprising, inevitable, and brilliant, Microsoft today announced Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality game that will let people build all sorts of blocky creations as they’re walking down streets and trying not to get hit by cars. It’ll be out later this year for phones, with a beta…

There hasn’t been much to complain about in Destiny 2 recently, which is perhaps why Bungie decided to spice things up last night and announce plans to weaken some of the game’s most useful gear, including Whisper of the Worm and Sleeper Simulant. Players are... well... let’s take a look at the Destiny subreddit.

“The thing about strategy guide publishing is that it’s a parasitic industry,” says Doug Walsh, who spent 18 years writing video game guides for the two biggest publishers, BradyGames and Prima. Perhaps that’s why the infamous Final Fantasy IX guide turned out the way it did.

The sequel to Super Mario Maker will have a story mode, unlike its predecessor, Nintendo said today in a Nintendo Direct dedicated to the game. In said story mode, you’ll get to rebuild Princess Peach’s destroyed castle by playing through courses to earn coins for the reconstruction effort. Plus: lots, lots more.

Ubisoft’s multiplayer pirate game, Skull & Bones, is delayed indefinitely and won’t be at this year’s E3. The game’s creative director, Justin Farren, left late last year, so it’s safe to say development has been struggling. If and when we next see Skull & Bones, it will likely be very different.

When the dust is all settled and the fire has turned into ashes, one thing about Game of Thrones will always be clear: They shouldn’t have tried to end the whole damn show in 13 episodes.

Destiny 2's new season will go live on June 4, and alongside it there will be a brand new raid. Rather than give players a few days to grind for levels, Bungie is letting everyone access the raid on day one this time around. Recommended power for the first encounter? 715.

After a long period of development hell, the Final Fantasy VII remake is finally back in the real world, with Square Enix dropping a short teaser trailer today and promising more to come in June. It looks great.

It is nearly time for E3, the annual convention where companies from around the world unite to show trailers for video games that don’t actually exist yet. Are you ready? I’m ready.

In the grand tradition of Ubisoft games leaking early, a store listing has revealed Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, the new Tom Clancy game that the publisher has been teasing recently. It’s a sequel to Wildlands, according to the leak. More tomorrow at 2:30pm ET.

Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) today announced a bill that would ban loot boxes and pay-to-win microtransactions in “games played by minors,” a broad label that the senator says will include both games designed for kids under 18 and games “whose developers knowingly allow minor players to engage in microtransactions.”

Why is everyone on Game of Thrones making so many bad decisions all the time? Are the showrunners just sick of it? And why will nobody pet Ghost? This week on Kotaku Splitscreen, we discuss.

Avengers: Endgame was three hours of wonderful fanservice in what was ultimately the first TV series finale we’ve seen in a movie theater. This week on Kotaku Splitscreen, we discuss.

The Final Fantasy XII remake came to Switch this week, and the good news is that it runs pretty well in handheld mode. The even better news is that it’s got some killer features that should probably have been in the game from the start, which sure sucks for anyone who bought it two years ago.