Cyberpunk 2077’s lone expansion, Phantom Liberty, is coming to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S on September 26, and it brings some new characters to the game’s gritty world. These include Idris Elba’s Solomon Reed, a spy who’s been in Night City for years under direct order from the President. However, he obviously had a life before we meet him in the add-on’s story, and CD Projekt Red has released a new cinematic trailer that gives you a glimpse into his life seven years prior to the events of Phantom Liberty.

While there are no spoilers for the events of Phantom Liberty, this trailer does show a key event in Solomon’s past, as well as that of Songbird, the netrunner who helps V throughout the expansion. So if you want to wait to be told about this event (which you won’t actually see in the game), this is your spoiler warning. However, showing is always better than telling, so if you’d like to see a bit of Elba’s performance and Christine Minji Chang as Songbird, read on.

The cinematic shows Solomon getting on a train leaving Night City. He’s seemingly nearing the end of an op, with Songbird in his ear ensuring he makes his exit safely. As they talk about taking some time off from being government spies, the tone of the scene shifts from relief to suspense, and we see a big moment between these two that gets explored later in Phantom Liberty. What happens next is better seen than read, so check out the trailer below:

Phantom Liberty is launching on September 26, but the 2.0 update that brings some major systemic changes like new skill trees, car combat, and enemy tactics will launch for all players on September 21. For more on that, check out our impressions, and for more on Phantom Liberty, keep an eye out for Kotaku’s full review on September 20, 11 a.m. Eastern Time.

A freaky new trailer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III’s Zombies gave us our first look at the upcoming game, and it’s as eerie and tense as you would expect from the now legendary first-person shooter mode—except now it has some new (yet familiar) faces in the undead mix. That’s because this version of Zombies marks the first time the mode comes to a Modern Warfare game.

Read More: Modern Warfare III Comes Out In November, Brings Back Slide Canceling
Pre-order Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

The trailer begins with a team of four seemingly unknown operatives donning night vision goggles to break into a corpse-littered facility. They come upon four corpses sat around a table, the center of which sits a device that opens to reveal glowing vials of an unknown substance. “They’re actually real, they’re actually here,” an operator says, removing his gas mask to reveal that he’s Viktor Zakhaev, iconic Call of Duty antagonist who will be the chief baddie in the main Modern Warfare III campaign. Once his team swipes the vials, they, head out of the building and run directly into a police force—this nods to the brand-new feature in this upcoming Zombies mode: You’ll duke it out against human and nonhuman enemies.

Call of Duty zombie players will recognize the serum asAetherium, an element in the Call of Duty franchise used for techno-biological warfare. The trailer ends with John “Soap” MacTavish , a member of the multinational special operations unit Task Force 141, and fellow familiar face Kate Laswell preparing for the incursion against Zakhaev.

This sets up the open-world experience that Modern Warfare III’s zombie mode will offer, and its player-versus-environment that takes place across different regions that scale in difficulty and density. The official blog post accompanying the trailer promises “a greater quantity of undead than ever before,” that combines “the very best of Modern Warfare map features and systems with the tried-and-true core features of Treyarch Zombies.”

Read More: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III Will Bring Back Every OG MWII Multiplayer Map
Pre-order Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

The new take on the classic Zombies mode will be available when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III launches on November 10 for PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. In typical Call of Duty fashion, if you preorder Modern Warfare III, you’ll get access to the beta whenever that starts.

Mortal Kombat 1 on the Nintendo Switch isn’t the best version of the game. Players have shared numerous visual bugs, performance problems, long loading times and low res textures in social media posts and forums. And now, some of them are angry that an official launch trailer for the Switch version of MK1 seems to show footage from the PC version of the game, not the Switch port, based on a Steam notification pop up that briefly appears in it.

Out now on Xbox, PlayStation, PC and Switch—following a brief period of paid early access—Mortal Kombat 1 is the latest entry in the long-running, super popular, and ultra-violent fighting game franchise. This time around, the entire universe has been rebooted following the events of Mortal Kombat 11, hence the “1” in the title. This new version of the universe features familiar faces in new roles, a kinda bad Megan Fox as Nitara performance, and rebooted origin stories for popular fighters. And while the PC, Xbox and PlayStation ports of MK1 have received mostly positive reviews, the same can’t be said for the game’s messy $70 Switch port.

Now, some Mortal Kombat 1 players are upset after spotting a Steam notification in its official Switch launch trailer. Many believe the visuals and performance in the trailer isn’t representative of the final version of the game running on actual Switch hardware, and the Steam pop up that appears at 1:52 confirms that at least some of the footage in this trailer wasn’t captured on a Switch or a Switch dev kit. It should be noted that the trailer mentions “Footage Not Final” at the start.

Kotaku reached out to WB Games and NetherRealm for clarification.

To be clear: A lot of trailers you see for video games include footage that was captured on a PC or dev kit and not the actual console hardware. However, this instance is under more careful scrutiny as the trailer footage is at-odds with the actual game’s performance on Switch. And the Steam notification, besides just being sloppy, gives away a possible explanation for why the game and trailer don’t match up. The trailer is still live on Nintendo’s Youtube channel as of 12:50 p.m EST on September 20.

The Switch port received so much online criticism that Mortal Kombat creator and series producer Ed Boon actually responded, telling the BBC that the maligned port will “absolutely be getting an update” that will address “a number of the concerns” seen online.

“It would have been ideal for us to have released the version that we absolutely wanted,” said Boon. “But anything that we’re finding a problem with is on our list and is going to be fixed. Anything that we see that is not acceptable will absolutely be addressed.”

  .

A teaser for a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake coming to PlayStation 5 nearly stole the show at Sony’s September 2021 showcase. But reports surfaced last year that the project was already in trouble. Now Star Wars fans have noticed that Sony recently deleted tweets about the game and has hidden the trailer from its official YouTube channel.

Word that the teaser trailer had been removed from PlayStation’s channel first began to spread on September 28 on the Gaming Leaks and Rumors subreddit. Twitter user Crusader3456 later shared a thread showing that Sony’s tweets about the teaser from the original 2021 PlayStation Showcase had also been deleted. The only official mention left appears to be a single tweet promoting multiple games from the livestream.

It’s possible the highly anticipated KOTOR remake is still alive and this is just some weirdness on the part of Sony’s social media department. It also might be the case that the project, which debuted as a PS5 exclusive, has all but been canceled amid ongoing development issues and massive budget cuts at parent publisher Embracer. Sony and Embracer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bloomberg reported in July 2022 that the developers has spent a significant amount of time and resources on a proof-of-concept demo that failed to past muster at a review meeting. Several senior leads were let go from the project, and the following month development on the KOTOR remake shifted to Saber Interactive in Europe (Aspyr is based in Texas).

Fast-forward a year, and parent company Embracer is instituting cuts across its sprawling portfolio, including canceling games and shutting down entire studios like Volition, after reportedly losing out on a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia. Aspyr also announced in June that it would bail on shipping a promised DLC pack for its Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 remaster on Switch. A fan is now suing.

A successful remake of KOTOR would be a lynchpin project for any publisher, especially as new Star Wars shows flood Disney+ every year. It would also be an incredibly ambitious and challenging endeavor for even the best studio. It’s not yet clear if Embracer has given up hope on the project. Fans certainly still haven’t.

Update 9/29/2023 11:54 a.m. ET: A spokesperson for Sony said the KOTOR remake trailer was delisted over licensing issues. “As part of normal business, we delist assets with licensed music when the licenses expire,” they told Kotaku in an email. The only music in the trailer seems to be the main Star Wars theme which is owned by Disney.

A Pokémon live-action series is coming to Japan, but it’s not of the Detective Pikachu variety. No, the next Pokémon live-action project will be a drama about a woman trying to find adventure in her life through playing Pokémon, rather than it being set in the Pokémon universe.

The first episode of Pack Your Pocket With Adventure (abbreviated to PokéTsume) is set to premiere in Japan on October 19. It follows Madoka Akagi, a young woman who starts working for an advertising agency in an effort to expand her resume and pivot into content creation, but is hit with the same realizations we all have about capitalism: Working for others sucks, as you feed your body, mind, and soul to the beast. But then she receives a package from her mother containing some of her old stuff, including a Game Boy and a copy of Pokémon Red.

Madoka wasn’t like the rest of us who started playing Pokémon at a young age and then never stopped. She hasn’t played Pokémon since she was very young, so going back is pretty nostalgic for her. From the looks of the first trailer, the show will frame a lot of key moments and relationships through her playing Pokémon Red, such as one scene where she’s shown entering a battle with a character made to look like her boss.

Check out the trailer here, courtesy of Serebii:

Pack Your Pocket With Adventure is one of a few TV projects Pokémon has right now. On top of the new anime series starring Liko and Roy, The Pokémon Company has also partnered with Netflix for a stop-motion series called Pokémon Concierge set to premiere in December. The series will follow a young woman named Haru working at a resort alongside her partner Pokémon Psyduck. Actress Rena Nōnen says she hopes the show will be therapeutic for long-time fans.

Diablo IV’s vampire-infested new Season of Blood goes live on October 17. In addition to new quests and gear, season 2 also promises a big overhaul of how XP and damage are calculated. The math can get pretty complicated. Even Blizzard’s own trailer got it wrong, which the studio ended up pulling after it was roundly mocked online.

“Check out some of the best quality-of-life changes coming with Season of Blood,” read the description of a nearly two-minute video posted on Diablo IV’s social media channel on October 13. As first spotted by PCGamesN, it was quickly taken down after fans noticed a bunch of errors in the footage. However, it has since been immortalized in a reaction video by Diablo YouTuber and streamer Raxxanterax. “I’m trying to build some hype for your new season, but you’re making it real hard.”

One section mixes up the “before” and “after” comparisons of a rework that will streamline Nightmare Dungeons and increase enemy density within them, and another touts overhauled mounts without really showing what’s changing. But the main section of the video that drew the ire of fans was a part breaking down how the math calculating XP earned and damage dealt will change starting in Season of Blood.

A before and after slide shows a switch from “1,000 x 40% = 1,040 XP” to “(1,000 x 1.2 = 1,200) 1.2 = 1,400 XP.” Unfortunately, neither is mathematically correct. What it’s intended to show is that rather than XP percentage bonuses being purely additive they will be multiplied, providing additional gains. It was hardly the biggest of blunders, but combined with everything else it became easy fodder for internet dunks.

When Season of Blood goes live it will fundamentally change how stats like damage and resistance are calculated as well. The patch notes are 10,000 words long. If everything goes off without a hitch it could be the second wind Diablo IV needs right now. Then again, with so many changes going into effect simultaneously, I’m sure more than a few bugs will be discovered after season 2 begins.

Update 10/17/2023 2:36 p.m. ET: Blizzard announced that the official start of the season has been delayed by a few hours due to some complicaitons with the build. Today is also Diablo IV’s debute on Steam.