Culture

Four Years Later, Players Are Still Digging Up New Black Ops 3 Easter Eggs

Call of Duty fans are still finding Easter eggs that were squirreled away deeply in Black Ops 3, four years after its release, thanks to dedicated data miners. Over the years, Call of Duty Zombies has become much more than simply a horde mode for surviving endless waves of the undead. Today, it’s well-known for…

The Treacherous Tales Of The Red Dead Online Player Who Takes Pictures Of Strangers

More than half a year after release, Red Dead Online is still mostly what you make of it. As players await fresh content, it’s hard for some not to seethe in envy when they catch a glimpse of, say, Grand Theft Auto Online’s glitzy new casino. One Red Dead player, however, is making his own…

Samurai Shodown Competitor Shows Off By Dropping His Character’s Sword, Gets Wrecked

Samurai Shodown is a brutal fighting game, where matches often hinge on landing one good attack. That said, Samurai Shodown also gives players a few cheap ways to mercilessly style on an unsuspecting foe, one example of which blew up spectacularly in a competitor’s face during a major United Kingdom tournament last weekend. VSFighting is…

Video Game Characters Are Terrible At Archery

Video game characters love their bows and arrows, but I hate to be the bearer of bad news—almost all of them are terrible at archery. As an archer myself, I’ve had to spend a lot of time teaching and observing the sport, so I thought it might be appropriate to explain why, in real life,…

I Brought My Switch To A House Full Of Kids And All Hell Broke Loose

I’m visiting my twin sister in Texas this week, where she has a lot of cool stuff: a swimming pool, the world’s most perfect dog, two horses, and my four nieces and nephews, aged 5 to 11. I have one very cool thing that I could offer to them: a Nintendo Switch. I thought it…

The Inevitable Dead Or Alive 6 Swimsuit DLC Is Here

It’s been nearly five months since the release of Dead or Alive 6. Five months full of solid fighting with few distractions outside of some crossover characters and pirate and wedding costumes. Enough of that. Bring on the swimsuits. The first installment of Dead or Alive 6‘s second season of downloadable content is called Seaside…

Check Out The First Switch Controller With A Headphone Jack

Is it weird that I hadn’t noticed before now that no existing controller for the Nintendo Switch included an audio jack so I could plug in a pair of headphones? Not counting the Switch itself, of course. Weird. Well, either way, now there is a Switch controller with a headphone jack in PDP’s Faceoff Deluxe+…

Track: Zankoku na Tenshi no Teeze | Artist: Yoko Takahashi | Album: Neon Genesis Evangelion OST Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment. 

Onbashira Festival. Suwa, Nagano. By JC Fang. JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line!

Track: On Point | Artist: Saib | Album: Basement Grooves Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment. 

Beware The Lord Of Bones

Aric Athesis is a freelance concept artist from China. You can see more of Aric’s stuff at their ArtStation page.

Let Us All Celebrate NBA 2K’s Terrible Voice Acting

Things have mostly improved in recent years, but there was a while there 3-5 years back where the developers of NBA2K were more interested in getting NBA players into the recording studio than in checking whether they were actually any good at voice acting first. As an example, here’s how excited everyone was at getting…

Nintendo Responds To Sufferers Of Joy-Con Drift

Although it’s been an issue for some players since shortly after launch, recently more and more Switch owners have been talking about their issues with “Joy-Con drift,” a condition where the joystick on a controller detects movement even though you’re not touching it. In response to players’ Joy-Con woes, Nintendo advises Switch owners experiencing Joy-Con…

Destiny Players Are Getting Fed Up With A Ridiculous Grenade Launcher Quest

For months, hardcore Destiny 2 players have been trying to scale their way up to a seemingly impossible mountaintop. The Mountaintop, in fact… because that’s the name of a Legendary grenade launcher in Destiny 2 that many players have coveted for a long time. It is, as its name implies, incredibly labor-intensive to get, with…

My Overpowered Dota Underlords Build Makes Me Feel Like A Glorious Scumbag

It’s another week in the world of Dota Underlords, which means there’s been yet another drastic balance shift that’s turned the still-early Auto-Chess-alike on its head and scattered pieces all over the floor. This time, it’s the freaky, amorphous Primordials who’ve risen to the top of the pile. My dilemma: I love playing Primordials. It’s…

Fighting Game Community Mourns Death Of Prominent Louisiana Player [Update]

A weekend that was supposed to be full of fun and excitement took a decidedly tragic turn when it was announced that fighting game competitor Bryand “Krucial B” McIntosh, 34, passed away shortly after competing at Defend the North in New York City. McIntosh was a prominent member of the Louisiana fighting game community, and…

Sigma vs. Sigma: The Comparison We Had To Make

A new hero is coming to Overwatch: the robot-suit wearing, evil scientist Sigma. His chunky robo-bod and nefarious allusions to power and control raise an important question: Is this the same Sigma from the Mega Man X series? Kotaku dives deeper in this very serious report. In order to determine if Sigma is that Sigma,…

Streamer Apologizes For Throwing Her Cat

Natalia Mogollon, who streams under the name “Alinity Divine” on Twitch, was playing Apex Legends on camera on July 18 when she took her cat from off her desk and threw it behind her, a clip that soon went viral. Mogollon has since apologized for it, while others, including from inside Twitch, are calling for…

The Video Game Industry Can’t Go On Like This

At about this time next year, we’ll have a pretty good idea of what the next generation of video games will look like. New consoles will likely be shown off, bold new streaming initiatives will begin to launch, and we’ll see all the wonderful kinds of games they will bring us. All these new things…

Overwatch‘s New Hero Is Sigma, An Astrophysicist Who Doesn’t Know He’s A ‘Living Weapon’

After a series of teases that culminated in the apparent demise of Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan, Blizzard has revealed the game’s latest hero. His name is Sigma, and he has the power to see math. Also, perhaps related to that, he can control gravity. Today, Blizzard introduced Sigma in an animated story trailer. “Gravity is…