Culture

Raiders Of The North Sea Is A Really Good Digital Board Game

As I’ve recently put on record here, I think Tokaido is the best digital board game. Its stay at the top might be short-lived, though, because Raiders of the North Sea, out this week on PC, Switch and mobile, is very good. I reviewed the board game last year, and loved it; it’s since become…

So There’s Trash Talk And Then There’s Casual Bigotry

How far is too far when it comes to gaming trash talk? And how do you go about confronting a friend, or a stranger, for some seriously uncool comments in chat? On this week’s episode of Kotaku Splitscreen, we brought in Kotaku senior reporter and trash talk aficionado Cecilia D’Anastasio to discuss gaming etiquette. First,…

Amidst Controversy, Twitch Confirms That Breastfeeding On Stream Is Allowed

Last week, Twitch partner Heather “HeatheredEffect” Kent breastfed her baby while talking to a friend and streaming on Twitch. She didn’t try to draw attention to the act; she did it then and there simply because babies gotta eat, too. However, Twitch ended up deleting a clip of the moment, and the incident sparked a…

GameStop Lays Off Dozens Of Regional Managers As It Searches For A Future

On Tuesday, several GameStop employees took to Reddit to report that their regional sales supervisors had been laid off. These anecdotal reports, combined with tips to Kotaku about some layoffs, have since been bolstered by an email from GameStop management, whose authenticity Kotaku has confirmed, that surfaced stating more than 50 people had been let…

Destiny 2: Shadowkeep Delayed Two Weeks

There are some big changescoming to Destiny 2 with its next expansion, Shadowkeep, and those changes are going to take a little more time to get here. Today, Bungie announced that Shadowkeep and the new, free-to-play version of Destiny 2, New Light, are being delayed from September 17 to October 1. “Being independent means that…

Ninja To Stream Exclusively On Mixer, Not Twitch

Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, the patron saint of Twitch, announced today that he is moving his channel over to the significantly less popular streaming platform Mixer. News of the frankly shocking transition comes the day before Blevins’ Lollapalooza stream, which will now take place here on Mixer. “I know this may come as a shock to…

The New Call Of Duty‘s Breezy Multiplayer Feels At Odds With Its Gritty Campaign

Earlier this week, the Call of Duty Twitter account tried to build hype for today’s Modern Warfare multiplayer reveal by announcing the return of killstreaks, which grant players access to tide-turning super weapons if they play well enough. Among these super weapons is white phosphorus, a chemical substance that can be used as a self-igniting…

An Investigation Into Whether Two Statues In The Division 2 Appear To Be Having Sex

Video games can inspire us to do strange things. For example, there I was yesterday playing The Division 2, checking whether the shadow or reflection of an obelisk in the game fell upon the statue of a naked woman in a certain sexual way. It wasn’t my idea. It was in the game. This misadventure…

New Fortnite Season Adds Titans (I Mean Mechs) [Updated]

The new season of Fortnite started earlier today and brought a new round of surprise changes. The most titanic one to drop? A new two-player mech called the B.R.U.T.E. The new vehicle is showcased in a trailer for Fortnite Season 10 (or X, as they’re calling it). An official blog post outlining the seasonal changes…

Cyberpunk Skylines

Alexander Dudar is an artist at CD Projekt Red, the developers of The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 You can see more of Alexander’s work at his personal site and ArtStation page

Pioneering Open World PS1 Game Is Now Finally Playable In English [Update]

Mizzurna Falls, a Twin Peaks-ish open world game developed for the PS1 and only ever released in Japan, is now 20 years later available to play in English for the first time. While the script itself had been translated by Resident Evie a few years back—you can read more about that in this excellent Vice…

Kill la Kill Game’s Publisher Has “Prohibited” People From Streaming Its Story Mode

Kill la Kill the Game: IF, released earlier this week, is a fighting game with a story. And publishers Arc System Works are so protective of it that they’ve stated “all streams and uploads” of the game’s story mode “are prohibited indefinitely”. It’s not the first time the publisher of a Japanese video game has…

E. Honda, Poison, and Final Fight‘s Lucia Are Coming To Street Fighter V

A video uploaded to the Street Fighter V Steam page revealed that E. Honda, Poison, and Lucia are the three new characters that will be added to the PlayStation 4 and PC game. The trailer, which seems to have gone live prematurely in advance of this weekend’s Evo tournament, was taken down from the Steam…

The Original Diablo Is Now Playable In Your Browser

The sanctity of this place has been fouled! Released back in 1996, the original Diablo has never gotten as much attention as its successors. That’s one of the reasons a group of programmers took it upon themselves to reverse engineer the game’s source code to make it possible for others to port it to web…

Electronic Arts Says Its Customers Just Aren’t That Interested In Switch Versions

The Sims on Switch seems like a no-brainer. It’s a chill game about managing the daily life of virtual human beings where high-end graphics and framerate don’t really matter. In a recent earnings call, however, the head of Electronic Arts explained why the publisher sees things differently, and why it hasn’t brought The Sims—or much…

Monster Prom Team Says Papa Roach Stole Game Art For Tour Poster

This past week, the video game Monster Prom had its promotional art reused without permission by the band Papa Roach for a tour poster. In case you forgot who Papa Roach are, which is understandable, they had this hit song in the year 2000: Right now, developers of the game Monster Prom say that they…

I Didn’t Think The Surge Was For Me Until I Saw It In A Netflix Show

I had no intention of ever playing The Surge. It looked boring, overly familiar, and mostly desolate, like a dozen other third-person action games by studios I’d never really heard of in which some dude, always some dude, is on a mission to wreck shit up because that’s what’s supposed to make for a cool…

Breaking Down The Animation Of Guilty Gear and Dragon Ball FighterZ

With games like Guilty Gear Xrd and Dragon Ball FighterZ, Arc System Works has managed to basically make playable anime games. It looks like hand-drawn animation even if it’s really complex 3D. Daniel Floyd of YouTube channel NewFramePlus took a closer look at how it all works. It’s a fascinating dive into some of the…

It’s Time To Bring Back Suikoden

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is full of political intrigue, massive wars, and multiple perspectives on the same conflict. As the narrative unfolds, I can’t help being reminded of one of the best JRPG series: the fantastic and long-absent Suikoden. Suikoden is a series owned by Konami. The first game was released in 1995 on the Sony…

Track: Sister Buddha | Artist: Belle and Sebastian | Album: Days of the Bagnold Summer