The Last Of Us Season 2 Pics, Fallout Player Nukes Phil Spencer, And More News

Image: Naughty Dog, Bethesda / Koaku, Image: Bethesda / Patrick T. Fallon / Bloomberg (Getty Images), Jonathan Yeo Studio, EA, Ubisoft, Ubisoft, Screenshot: Roaring Kitty / YouTube / Kotaku, Kotaku / Bungie, Samsung / Kotaku

It’s the middle of May 2024 and that means we’re nearly halfway through the year. What has this year been like in video game news? Tons of layoffs (sad), lots of new games (glad), and some weird outliers, as usual. This week, we saw set photos and official shots from The Last of Us season two, dove back into the GameStop stock market, and asked the dude who nuked Phil Spencer in Fallout 76 about his motivations. Click through for all of this week’s best breaking news. 

Image: Naughty Dog

Screenshot: Roaring Kitty / YouTube / Kotaku

It’s been three years since GameStop’s stock originally exploded during the pandemic as big-time investors capitalized on an internet feud between deep-pocketed hedge funds and very online Redditors. Now the meme stock is back for round two after Roaring Kitty, AKA Deep Fucking Value, AKA Keith Gill, the WallStreetBets commentator who was one of the earliest and loudest champions of GameStop’s market upside, returned from a three-year hiatus. – Ethan Gach Read More

Image: Bethesda / Koaku

Last month, Bethesda released a “next-gen” update for Fallout 4 across all platforms intended to improve the aging RPG. Instead, it broke tons of popular mods and made the game buggier for some players, too. To fix that, Bethesda has released another update. The reaction from fans has mostly been negative, with people asking Bethesda to stop updating Fallout 4. Please. – Zack Zwiezen Read More

Image: Image: Bethesda / Patrick T. Fallon / Bloomberg (Getty Images)

Amid turmoil and disillusionment over recent studio closures, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has continued grinding through Fallout 76 and has just finished the “Officer on Deck” questline, granting him the ability to launch the survival MMO’s infamous nukes. The new capability was unlocked just days after a fan bombed the executive’s campsite. – Ethan Gach Read More

Image: Jonathan Yeo Studio

King Charles III, the current monarch of the United Kingdom, unveiled a new portrait of himself on Tuesday, May 14. The portrait, painted by British artist Jonathan Yeo, marks the first official portrait of the king since his coronation one year ago. In the reveal video of the portrait, Charles pulls back a shroud covering the painting and is brought face to face with something that can best be described as the painting you see in a video game meant to signify that this old, rich-looking dude is absolutely the villain. So, as previously occurred with his coronation, the internet is having some fun with it. – Willa Rowe Read More

Image: EA

May is shaping up to be a very, very good month for Xbox Game Pass—with some sleeper hits, like magic FPS Immortals of Aveum, and new games, like Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, arriving soon. And I bet Xbox is happy to have some good news to share right now, following the last few months. – Zack Zwiezen Read More

Screenshot: Kotaku / Bungie

Bungie’s been slowly peeling back the layers of Destiny 2: The Final Shape, unveiling systemic reworks, a new subclass, nitty gritty server details, and most importantly, a great deal of new loot for players to obtain. However, the newest Exotic weapon to be revealed isn’t entirely new, and might require a bit of a history lesson for folks to appreciate. – Moises Taveras Read More

Image: Ubisoft

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the next big open-world RPG from Ubisoft. It sports dual protagonists, a shinobi and a samurai, and it looks incredible so far. The next game in the blockbuster stealth series arrives on November 15 and based on its first trailer, it seems like exactly what fans have been dreaming of ever since they first learned the latest sequel would be set in Japan. – Ethan Gach Read More

Screenshot: Samsung / Kotaku

Every now and then a corporation is at least a bit funny when going about their late-stage capitalism. For instance, Samsung has released an absolutely perfect diss-ad response to Apple’s recent crushing PR disaster. – John Walker Read More

Image: Ubisoft

The Xbox 360 is a legendary console, and its storefront, the Xbox Marketplace, was similarly legendary, becoming one of the most prominent online stores in console history and helping pave the way for digital distribution. The Xbox store has hosted the likes of Xbox Live Arcade, which shone a light on rising indie games that have gone on to worldwide acclaim, like Castle Crashers, and it still has a number of digital-only titles you can’t find anywhere else. That makes it such a huge bummer that the store is finally