Splash Damage

A small studio of about thirty ex-Ubisoft developers have released an ambitious, critically and commercially acclaimed RPG called Clair Obscur: Expedition. Despite being made by such a small team, it's blowing the woke, bloated AAA industry out of the water. We discuss how the video game industry at large should be embarrassed by this indie game's success along with The Last of Us show's plummeting ratings due to the golf club scene, the racist recasting of The Last Airbender characters for upcoming sequel movies, Nintendo proving how much they suck lately by suing the makers of Palworld, Polygon's destruction, increasing Xbox prices, and more!

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered shadow-dropped this week, and while it's mostly faithful to the original 2006 game, it has been adjusted in some ways for “modern audiences.” We discuss these changes along with the announcement of the Nintendo Switch 2 and its expensive games, Sweet Baby Inc. being dropped by Sony, and Compulsion Games' distaste for white men.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is out, and while Ubisoft keeps bragging about how many millions of people have played it, the truth is sales are down in Japan, and the game got fewer concurrent players than Dragon Age: The Veilguard. We discuss the game's launch along with TheGamer's hilarious article comparing Monster Hunter Wilds' success to Veilguard's failure, the Invincible graphic novel creator's lack of artistic integrity, and more.

Randy Pitchford, CEO of the Borderlands franchise, couldn't help but shoot himself in the foot by going on a tirade after a loyal fan criticized the direction of the upcoming Borderlands 4. We discuss his overreaction along with news that there's maybe only two dozen full-time games journalists left, Monster Hunter Wilds knowing how to make attractive female characters, thoughts on Avowed, Overwatch 2's desperate attempt to make their female heroes cute again, most Assassin's Creed Shadows controversies, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard's ongoing failure.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is out, and it includes several woke and out-of-place elements that never would have been included in the decidedly anti-woke original game from 2018. We discuss the 180-degree turn for the series along with BioWare downsizing and EA learning nothing since Dragon Age: The Veilguard's failure, Ghost of Yotei's impending horrible writing, the downplay of Yasuke in the upcoming Assassin's Creed Shadows, the success of Lords of the Fallen after changing genders from body type A and B to male and female, and Forza Horizon 5 coming to PlayStation 5 in the spring.

The sales figures for Dragon Age: The Veilguard are out, and they show the game fell short of sales expectations by fifty percent. We discuss what this means for Bioware along with drama surrounding the upcoming Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Ubisoft's change to the description of Yasuke from “samurai” to “warrior” in Japanese marketing for Assassin's Creed Shadows, Xbox censoring female characters in the Ninja Gaiden 2 Black trailer, CI Games removing wokeness from Lords of the Fallen based on fan feedback, and plenty more.

The developers of the upcoming Witcher 4 game admitted at least part of the story will focus on the struggles of being a woman in a medieval world. This isn't necessarily a red flag, but when you consider other suspicious things about the game and CD Projekt Red, it's a cause for concern for many fans. We discuss these warning signs along with Helldivers 2's director's advice to game makers to focus on making good games instead of contemporary political statements, polls that show gamers don't care about inclusivity in games, and PC Gamer and other prominent voices that believe Ubisoft as a company is cooked.

Not a single American-made game was nominated for The Game Awards' game of the year this year, proving how bleak the industry has gotten stateside. We discuss the annual awards show, including the controversial Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet trailer, along with the success of Marvel Rivals compared to Concord, Ubisoft possibly going bankrupt, the pending death of Xbox consoles, and Sony's attempt to buy out FromSoftware's parent company.

The art director of the upcoming RPG Avowed is in some hot water after basically admitting to discriminatory hiring practices against white men at Obsidian, the studio he works for. We discuss the hypocritical and blatant racism of such stances along with an IGN article about the burst of the blockbuster game bubble; Kotaku's defense of Dragon Age: The Veilguard being “snubbed” from the Game Awards; Polygon's atrocious and politically motivated list of the top 50 games of the year; and Elon Musk's teasing of a desire to buy Hasbro and, thus, Dungeons & Dragons.

Merely two weeks after awarding Dragon Age: The Veilguard a 9 out of 10, IGN published a long critique of the game's writing, worldbuilding, and roleplaying, which account for about 99% of what makes RPGs RPGs. We also discuss the game's likely poor sales and Jason Schreier walking back a mocking tweet about the game's critics along with news that Alyssa Mercante no longer works at Kotaku and Ubisoft's hilarious takes on “creativity” when it comes to making Assassin's Creed Shadows have a black protagonist.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is finally out in the wild, and it's already stirring up cringe from its terrible writing and voice acting, stale character interactions, and incredibly preachy woke nonsense. We discuss its success (or lack thereof) so far, reviews, and examples of embarrassing moments along with Concord's official permanent death, Thomas Mahler's reaction to Alyssa Mercante's insults, and research that shows women prefer playing as the sexy characters they love to hate.

Assassin's Creed Shadows has been delayed to February, no doubt due to criticism against playable character Yasuke, a black samurai in a feudal Japan setting, and the announcement of Ghost of Yotei, a sequel to a game that actually did a historical Japanese setting justice. We discuss how the final game might look along with Ubisoft's awful response to criticism along with Kotaku complaining about Dragon Age: The Veilguard's character creator, Silent Hill 2's manish-looking women, Moon Studios' CEO's based take on DEI, and more.

Preorders for Dragon Age: The Veilguard are apparently poor. It might have something to do with the fact the game is now basically a cartoon, the character creator looks like trash, and the devs don't even know characters from the series. We discuss this train wreck of a sequel along with The Gamer actually admitting the protagonist of Star Wars Outlaws is ugly, a Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts dev discussing why he makes characters hot, the Concord director stepping down, Elder Scrolls Online's first nonbinary character, and Game Devs of Color Expo.

Concord will go down in video game history as one of the most colossal failures of all time. The game, filled with ugly character designs and pronouns for each one, lasted barely a week before the developers announced they would take it offline and refund everyone who bought it because it sold so poorly. There are others like it, including Dustborn. Will developers finally see the truth that no one wants these woke train wrecks? Probably not, because another one—Fairgame$—is on the way.

The Dead Rising remake is making some notable changes, including changing the race of one of the baddies from Asian to white guy and removing the feature that would reward players for taking risque photos. We discuss the censorship along with the death of Game Informer, Black Myth: Wukong's alleged lack of diversity, Scientific American's take on D&D removing the term “race,” rumors about the development studio behind Concord, Runescape removing sexes from character creation while adding pronouns, and more!

Capcom announced they want to increase female representation in management roles to 15%. Surprisingly, even the far-left sides of the internet disagree with the idea of hiring based on sex. We discuss the terrible effort that is DEI along with Ubisoft “apologizing” to Japanese fans over Assassin's Creed Shadows and wokies upset that Genshin Impact is too white.

The Kotaku brand is one step closer to death as Kotaku Australia shut down last week. We celebrate this fact and also discuss a D&D creator's reaction to inflammatory remarks about the game's origin, Japanese players petitioning for the cancellation of Assassin's Creed Shadows, The Boys showrunner being a hypocrite when it comes to handling sexual assault on the show, and more.

Elden Ring's expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, arrived to stellar reviews, but a Kotaku writer couldn't help but use her article to compare her life of mean tweets to the brutality of the fantasy RPG. We discuss this ludicrous take (and our impressions of the DLC) along with the developers of the upcoming Black Myth: Wukong rejecting DEI consultants, woke devs finally realizing video game women are being uglified on purpose, Ubisoft's hilarious reaction to Elon Musk's criticism of Assassin's Creed Shadows, and more.

Ubisoft is finally making an Assassin's Creed game set in feudal Japan, so who is the protagonist? A black samurai. We discuss the controversy around this decision along with Shift Up releasing uncensored versions of the Stellar Blade outfits they originally edited and how far Tomb Raider has fallen.

The developers of Farm Folks took to X to ask for fan input on breast physics in their game. The woke, of course, got offended, and the CEO apologized, starting a series of events that will likely end in the game's failure. We discuss why you should never apologize to the left along with Sony's attempts to ruin Helldivers 2 and Ghost of Tsushima, Microsoft closing several studios, Kotaku firing a handful of writers, and Hades 2 continuing to racebend Greek gods.

A few days before release, developer Shift Up promised their highly anticipated Stellar Blade wouldn't be censored. Well, even before official release, fans discovered a fast one was being pulled: Several costumes and gore have indeed been toned down, and the developers tried to sneak it by gamers. We discuss the ramifications of such a game opting for censorship. We also talk about Kotaku's hypocritical comments about the game compared to the “hot” characters of Hades 2, Pokemon Go's wildly unpopular decision to uglify players' avatars, Fortnite allowing gamers to block “offensive emotes,” and more.

The upcoming Tomb Raider: Shadows of Truth won't be a Tomb Raider game at all, considering the developers are flipping the entire premise of the franchise on its head in the name of wokeism. We discuss this IP-killing move along with Microsoft's guidelines for devs on how to design female characters, Kotaku sticking to “news,” Star Wars Outlaws uglified protagonist, a couple community managers who hate white men and gamers, IGN France's meltdown over Stellar Blade, and more!

The upcoming Tomb Raider: Shadows of Truth won't be a Tomb Raider game at all, considering the developers are flipping the entire premise of the franchise on its head in the name of wokeism. We discuss this IP-killing move along with Microsoft's guidelines for devs on how to design female characters, Kotaku sticking to “news,” Star Wars Outlaws' uglified protagonist, a couple community managers who hate white men and gamers, IGN France's meltdown over Stellar Blade, and more!

An ex-Sweet Baby Inc. game developer working on the upcoming Black Panther game openly admitted to not hiring white people while working on an indie game because they make her feel “unsafe.” We discuss this blatant (and illegal) discrimination while highlighting all the ongoing Sweet Baby Inc. drama, including an interview with the Sweet Baby Inc. Detected page on Steam, Kotaku writers and developers weighing in, and more. Plus, we cover the Game Developers Conference nonsense, such as a reeducation panel for canceled devs.

Smaller games like Palworld, Baldur's Gate 3, and Helldivers 2 are becoming increasingly popular while major studios are seeing major layoffs. Could one of the reasons be that these games aren't tainted with the woke mind virus that seems to permeate the gaming industry as a whole? Sweet Baby Inc. is one example of a company determined to make games worse by inserting specific political ideologies into every game they consult on. We discuss the controversy surrounding the company that some are saying will spark Gamergate 2.0.

Crystal Dynamics remastered the original Tomb Raider trilogy and included a long trigger warning about how racist the games are. We discuss this virtue signaling along with the creator of Stellar Blade's based opinion about attractive characters in media and the Xbox news that came about after a week's worth of rumors about the end of the brand.

A Ubisoft executive recently said in an interview they want more players to get comfortable with the idea of not owning video games, instead turning to subscription-based models that have proven time and again to be detrimental to the fans. We discuss this growing trend along with bureaucrats telling Japanese developers to censor their games, Stellar Blade doing its best to ignore such advice, and some concerns with the upcoming live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

A Final Fantasy vocalist was going to appear at a convention, but when permanently online Twitter users discovered she had merely liked certain “problematic” tweets, her appearance was canceled. We discuss the ludicrousness of this decision along with the double standards in sexy mods, Snow White having dwarves again, and reactions to South Park: Joining the Panderverse.

The developers of the highly anticipated Spider-Man 2 game, Insomniac, have proven themselves to be the ultimate hypocrites by inserting an absurd amount of woke messaging into the game but censoring it all in the Middle Eastern version of the game. We discuss the irony of this decision along with League of Legends developers being equally hypocritical with their ogling of male characters, voice actors' role being segregated by race, Magic: The Gathering removing the word “witch” because it's a “real” religion, and plenty more.

Developers are bad at their jobs, so naturally, fans are going to mod games to their liking. However, certain mods, such as one to remove pronouns in Starfield's character creator, are being banned from hosting platforms. We discuss wokies trying to control what others enjoy in their games along with the inevitable censorship in the upcoming Lollipop Chainsaw remake, Bungie getting blasted on Twitter for being woke, the race-bending of the upcoming live-action How to Train Your Dragon movie, and spooky games we're enjoying this Halloween season.

We spend a lot of time on this show pointing out the ridiculous cultural trends of video games and other nerdy hobbies, but that's only because we love it all so much. To celebrate our 100th episode, we discuss some of our favorite games, books, and shows and why, at the end of the day, they're worth fighting for.

The Witcher TV show is likely going to be canceled, and Feminist Frequency is finally ending. We discuss both and how their deaths are well deserved along with the controversy surrounding Skullgirls and the weird wokeness prominent in players of games like Dungeons & Dragons.

In a confusing but unsurprising move, Ubisoft's upcoming Assassin's Creed game based in feudal Japan is rumored to feature a female samurai and a black shinobi as the two playable characters. We discuss the odd choice to shoehorn in genders and races where they don't make historical sense along with the increasing price and decreasing quality of AAA games, Call of Duty changing an operator's name to avoid offending anyone, challenges to Hollywood's diversity initiative, Disney's choice to remove the dwarves from the upcoming Snow White remake, and the ironic decision to rename the new Captain America movie.

Some reviewers are panning the recently released Final Fantasy XVI for a pretty dumb reason: Apparently, despite it being an entirely fictional fantasy world based on Medieval aesthetics, the cast is too white. We discuss what a stupid critique this is along with the new Prince of Persia being black, streamer Nickmercs' comments on Pride, diversity hires in the new Harry Potter show, and more.

Blizzard is virtue signaling hard this month, creating a month's worth of LGBT pride content for Overwatch 2. The game now includes personalization items reflecting every imaginable sexual orientation, and a map that has been “pride-ified” has replaced a cop car with a standard vehicle. We discuss all this plus Capcom not censoring booties in Street Fighter 6 and Magic: The Gathering's awful race-swapping of its Lord of the Rings sets.

With the latest predictable twist in Horizon Forbidden West's Burning Shores DLC, the question must be asked: Why do so many modern female protagonists have to be, well, you know? It's almost like developers think normal women are incapable of being strong. We discuss this trend and the agenda behind it along with Dove's awful take on sexualized video game characters, PC Gamer shaming the co-creator of Doom and Quake for attending BasedCon, an actor's take against Hollywood's diversity quota, and the hilarious public reaction to the Cleopatra movie.

The arbiters of social justice in the video game sphere, Kotaku, made a little oopsie this week when one of the site's writers showed his true colors by making a racist tweet in reaction to being upset that Nintendo has (rightfully) blacklisted the publication. We talk about the irony of this event along with the success of the Super Mario Bros. movie, Wizards of the Coast sending Pinkerton agents to retrieve trading cards, and more Queen Cleopatra drama.

Jeremy Crawford, one of the lead designers of Dungeons & Dragons, raised some eyebrows recently when he announced the new Player's Handbook for the popular tabletop roleplaying game would remove half-species, such as half-elves, calling the concept “inherently racist.” We discuss the backwards idea that race mixing, whether in fantasy or real life, is racist along with a teenager being disqualified from a Pokemon tournament after being asked his pronouns, teabagging being banned from an “inclusive” Overwatch 2 tournament, Netflix's Cleopatra being black, and J. K. Rowling continuing to not be canceled.

Kotaku has a weird take on sexiness. Things like Lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil Village and the cartoon dragon from Ring Fit Adventure are fine to sexualize, but, for some reason, a human girl's iconic skirt turning into a skort is something to celebrate. We discuss Kotaku's bizarre take on such changes to the Resident Evil 4 remake along with Hollywood's anti-Christian bias, the charges against Justin Roiland being dropped, and a ridiculous article about how to avoid being ableist in fiction.

Since the second failure of G4, Adam Sessler continues to prove how jaded and bitter he is about the industry he covered for decades with his latest Twitter meltdown. We discuss his lack of accountability over X-Play commentary on JRPGs along with yet more and more examples of publishers and producers censoring and gender- and race-bending beloved classics—further proof of the absolute oversensitive and creative wasteland that is the entertainment industry.

Hogwarts Legacy has been in the wild for over two weeks now, and still streamers of this incredibly popular game are being reduced to tears by people who think they have the moral high ground while bullying players of the game. We discuss this issue along with Games Done Quick banning Hogwarts Legacy and other games from its events, Ukraine trying to restrict sales of Atomic Heart, and more.

Due to Hogwarts Legacy's ties to the “transphobic” J. K. Rowling, many screeching leftists have attempted to boycott the game, but their efforts were in vain; the game has been nothing but a critical and commercial success. We discuss the game and surrounding controversy along with Wizards of the Coast's decision to reverse its proposed new Open Game License for the next version of Dungeons & Dragons, Forspoken's flop getting blamed on misogyny and racism, Frosk leaving the video game industry, Xbox's Phil Spencer acknowledging cancel culture, IGN review scores, and The Last of US TV show.

Dungeons & Dragons fans have been raging for weeks now after Wizards of the Coast, publisher of the popular tabletop roleplaying game, had a leak of its new Open Game License that puts everything from third-party content to virtual tabletop programs at risk of obsoletion. We discuss the ongoing controversy and the hopeful decline of D&D's popularity along with the ridiculous Velma show and Hogwarts Legacy pending success.

Kotaku, PC Gamer, and probably others blasted Final Fantasy XVI, an upcoming game with Medieval Europe aesthetics, for not including black people. We discuss how ridiculous it is to expect diversity in every piece of media along with Hogwarts Legacy developers removing gender from the game as a swipe at J. K. Rowling, Dungeons & Dragons requiring cultural consultants on all future products, The Rings of Power actors tripling down on their stance on black characters in Middle-earth, and how based Emily Blunt is.

EA took to Twitter to apologize after a single person got offended by the company's lack of representation during a presentation about The Sims. We discuss this spineless move along with how much the new Gotham Knights sucks, G4 being canceled, Kotaku's hilarious article on climate change, Overwatch 2's sexual game modes, Henry Cavill leaving The Witcher, D&D's quest to become worse and worse, and plenty more!

CD Projekt Red recently announced a slew of new games the studio is working on, but there's a catch: They're joining ESG, a sort of social currency system that funds only “woke” games. This likely means future CD Projekt Red games will cater to social-conscious investors rather than fans. We discuss this disappointing news along with Overwatch 2's required phone number blunder, The Last of Us TV actress being told not to play the original game to learn about her character, Polygon's awful take on Elden Ring's women, the UN blaming “toxic masculinity” and video games for the world's problems, and more.

God of War developer David Jaffe went on another tirade last week, accusing men who don't like lackluster female Marvel characters of being misogynists. The problem is Jaffe helped create the original God of War games, full of sex minigames and female nudity, nevermind the depraved parties his employer threw. We discuss his hypocrisy along with Frosk getting fired from G4, the GTA VI and Diablo IV leaks, how the Splinter Cell remake will be “modernized,” the government wasting tax dollar researching terrorism in video games, and plenty more.

Dungeons & Dragons has long been aboard the woke train, and the latest controversy proves just how hollow and hilarious it all is. D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast censored lore from its latest book after just a few Twitter wokies complained it was “racist.” We discuss how the only true racists in this story are those who found the lore problematic along with Game Informer wanting The Last of Us Part I censored, Kotaku's ridiculous take on the censoring of Velma in MultiVersus, Awesome Games Done Quick virtue signaling about how terrible Florida is, a Warcraft pro being punished for his private support of Andrew Tate, and reactions to The Rings of Power.

Nexus Mods removed a mod that changed the pride flags in Spider-Man to American flags and banned the user who uploaded it. We discuss how players should have the right to experience games the way they want along with the failure of the new, woke Saints Row game, how The Last of Us remake looks worse than the original game, the terrible direction Dungeons & Dragons is taking, more warning signs that The Rings of Power is going to suck, the hypocrisy of She-Hulk, and more.

Former Polygon games journalist Ben Kuchera took to Twitter recently to rant about the website, its higher-ups, vaccinations, and sexual abuse. We break down his tweet tirade and discuss other topics, including the ongoing trend of uglify-ing classic female video game characters, a pointless in-game climate march in a Ubisoft game, and yet more claims that D&D is racist.

Grand Theft Auto VI is in development, but don't get too excited; according to reports, the upcoming entry in the popular franchise will no longer “punch down” at minorities. In other words, GTA VI won't be the Grand Theft Auto series fans know and love for being an offensive and satirical take on politics and America. We discuss this groan-inducing news along with Kotaku getting upset at Stray and Quiet, Games for Change's warped view of reality, As Dusk Fall's spoiler-filled trigger warning, San Diego Comic Con using the term “Filipinx,” and more.