No Man's Sky's Huge Overhaul, The Software Update That Stopped The World, And More Of The Week's Top Stories (original) (raw)

Photo: Anna Moneymaker (Getty Images), Christian Petersen (Getty Images), Screenshot: Hello Games, Richie Branson / Kotaku, Larian Studios / Kotaku, Image: Ubisoft / Xbox / Square Enix / PlayStation / 2K / Kotaku, Microsoft, The Kelly Clarkson Show, Fellow Traveller, Kolonko (Getty Images)

This week saw No Man’s Sky, a game that has repeatedly reinvented itself in the years since its release, get one of its biggest overhauls ever. Not to be outdone, Baldur’s Gate 3 also got a patch that rounds out the game nicely. Also, the FTC responded to Microsoft’s latest Xbox Live price hike, calling it “exactly the sort of consumer harm” it had hoped to prevent by working to block the company’s merger with Activision. Click on for these stories and more.

Photo: Anna Moneymaker (Getty Images)

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old man identified as the gunman behind the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump at a campaign rally last week, doesn’t appear to have posted about the attack ahead of time on Valve’s PC gaming storefront, Steam, after all. - Ethan Gach Read More

Screenshot: Hello Games

As No Man’s Sky nears its eighth anniversary, it’s clear the open-world survival crafting sim isn’t slowing down. A cavalcade of free updates continues to transform the game from what it once was at launch, and the latest of those is no different. Today, Hello Games revealed Worlds Part 1, a complete overhaul of planetary weather that’s dropping alongside a major balancing patch and a new expedition that will see the community collectively fight against the threat of alien bugs. Anyone else ready for some No Man’s Helldivers? - Ethan Gach Read More

Image: Microsoft

On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission pointed to Microsoft’s recent pricing overhaul of Xbox Game Pass as evidence of the harm its merger with Activision Blizzard has had on consumers. The agency filed a new letter in its ongoing appeal of last year’s deal, calling the changes “exactly the sort of consumer harm from the merger that the FTC alleged.” - Ethan Gach Read More

Image: The Kelly Clarkson Show

Rock duo Tenacious D (Jack Black and Kyle Gass) are in crisis mode following backlash to a joke about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally over the weekend. “After much reflection, I no longer feel it is appropriate to continue the Tenacious D tour, and all future creative plans are on hold,” Black wrote in a statement on Instagram. - Ethan Gach Read More

Image: Fellow Traveller

Image: Kolonko (Getty Images)

Americans are waking up this morning to discover that the whole world isn’t working properly. It’s a crisis that has spread around the planet, grounding flights, shutting down hospital procedures, and causing worldwide travel chaos, and it’s all because of a single software update by cyber-security firm Crowdstrike. - John Walker Read More

The title screen for Not Like Us: The Game featuring a pixelated version of Kendrick Lamar wielding a bat against an owl.

Screenshot: Richie Branson / Kotaku

Kendrick Lamar’s epic “Not Like Us” diss track has become the de facto song of the summer (as well as an all-time hater anthem) after effectively ending the short-lived, but all too entertaining beef with the Toronto rapper Drake. Just about every party and club I’ve been to in the past few months has played the song at least once, and a recently released music video has catapulted its popularity even higher. Folks…we now have a video game to accompany it. - Moises Taveras Read More

Screenshot: Larian Studios / Kotaku

_Baldur’s Gate 3_’s seventh big patch contains some of the most significant additions to the game since its release, and has been in development for a few months now. It’s finally coming to a PC or console near you in September, so developer Larian Studios has put together an update to whet your appetite that breaks down some incoming changes, from the big ones like the new endings and official mod support, to smaller things like bug fixes. - Kenneth Shepard Read More