Culture

Dota Underlords‘ Meta Is In An Awkward Spot

Ideally, Dota Underlords, like its auto-battler kin, plays out as a game of slow-build strategy in which you amass an army of heroes based on synergies between them. Maybe that means a chanting brood of surprisingly survivable warlocks. Maybe that means a beefy team of brawny boys who are even beefier together than they are…

Former Magic: The Gathering Pro Arrested On Sexual Assault Charges

Conley Woods, a former Magic: The Gathering pro and contributor to the game’s official website, has been arrested in Santa Fe on charges of “criminal sexual penetration, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and other crimes.” The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that Woods had spent Saturday with a woman he claims he had been…

Bernie Sanders Finally Appears On His Own Twitch Channel—During Amazon Boycott

Last time we checked in on endearingly grouchy democratic socialist uncle and presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders’ Twitch channel, it was notably lacking in Bernie Sanders himself. It also felt more like a campaign commercial than any sort of broadcast Twitch viewers were used to seeing. Yesterday evening, Sanders and company finally addressed one of those…

Switch Owners Share Horror Stories Of Trying To Fix Joy-Con Drift

“Joy-Con drift,” which results in a thumbstick that reads movement without player input, has been an ongoing problem for Nintendo Switch owners since the console’s launch back in early 2017. Without large-scale fixes from Nintendo, however, players have taken to fixing their $80 controllers themselves, sometimes with disastrous results. The jury is still out on…

A Mysterious Storm Is Brewing On Anthem‘s Horizon After Weeks Of Nothing

BioWare hasn’t announced when Anthem’s upcoming Cataclysm event will begin in earnest, but recent clues have players hopeful the game’s next phase is imminent. It doesn’t take much these days to get Anthem’s remaining players excited. On Monday one player discovered a countdown timer in the game that indicated that it was seven days and…

Bug-Riddled Update Shows Why Fallout 76 Needs A Public Test Server

This week marks eight months since Fallout 76 released as a buggy mess. Since then, Bethesda’s online survival game has improved a lot. But while it has had a lot of good days, the arrival of patch number 11 yesterday was not one of them. Instead, it’s renewed players’ calls for Bethesda to try updates…

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Just Got A Completely Bananas Backstory

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the 2017 Early Access hit that kicked off gaming’s battle royale craze, has never really had a backstory. Why bother? The appeal was immediate: You’re thrown from a plane with 99 other people onto an island full of weapons. This being a video game, everyone is going to try and kill one another.…

How Japanese RPGs Inspired A New Generation Of Fantasy Authors

When I think back to my childhood and teenage years, when my literary tastes were being forged in the crucible of youthful emotion and impressionism, particular scenes come to life: Sam carrying Frodo up Mt. Doom. The Reaper chasing Wil Ohmsford through the Westland. Marle hugging Crono on top of Death Peak. Most fantasy readers…

Sometimes It’s Nice To Stop Mid-Game And Watch The Players Around You

Yesterday I logged on to Destiny 2 for the first time in a very long while, intent on clearing out a chunk of the massive to-do list my character had accrued since this summer’s Season of Opulence update began. One of my many bounties and challenges involved killing a bunch of Fallen enemies on the…

Nintendo Announces New Joy-Con Colors, Which Look Pretty Damn Nice

This morning, in addition to a new Switch with longer battery life, Nintendo announced some fresh new Joy-Cons. As a plebeian stuck with drab grey controllers, these neon wonder-cons have literally brightened my day. The new Joy-Cons will come in two colors: the somewhat less impressive Blue/Neon Yellow combo and the actually super great Neon…

Playing As Luigi In Super Mario Maker 2 Probably Won’t Help You Complete Levels Faster

Last week, after a few individual level records were broken in Super Mario Maker 2 using Luigi, a question began to form: Was Mario’s lanky brother somehow faster? Was playing as the Big L essential for getting records? After some investigating, there’s now an answer: probably not. Questions about Luigi’s efficacy started after Mario speedrunner…

Nintendo Releasing New Switch Model With Better Battery Life

This August, Nintendo is releasing a new Switch model with a longer battery life. It will be priced the same as the current model and, aside from the improved battery, feature the same specs. The new model’s battery life will last between 4.5 and 9 hours, depending on the game. For Breath of the Wild,…

Track: Mayor Of Simpleton | Artist: XTC | Album: Oranges & Lemons Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment. 

Mike Tyson Says He Just Learned About Balrog In Street Fighter II

In 1991, Street Fighter II was released. Now, in 2019, Mike Tyson just heard about Balrog, a character who also boxed and originally had a name that rhymed with Tyson’s, for the very first time. As EventHubs points out, EPSN asked the former heavyweight champ if he knew the story about the character. Tyson replied,…

Chicago Riverwalk. USA. By Martin Tan | Instagram 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!

Holy Shit Jet Set Radio Cosplay

Look! Jet Set Radio cosplay! In 2019! Bless all of these cosplayers and keep them safe until the ending of the earth. This group was at Blerdcon, which was held in DC over the weekend. As he was last year, Legend of Micah was there shooting video, and managed to capture this group outside, who…

Some Cosplay From Germany’s Biggest Anime Con

DoKomi is Germany’s biggest anime show, with over 45,000 people turning up in Düsseldorf last month for video games, panels, music acts and cosplay. So Say We All photography took the trip over from the UK to be there, and was kind enough to share some pics with us (you can see more at his…

A Slightly Different Take On Metroid’s Samus Aran

Trevor Carr, an artist at Riot, has been working on this version of Metroid’s Samus Aran for a while now. Originally wanting to “deviate pretty wildly from the core design,” he eventually settled on something closer to her original appearance, “or you’d lose what was so iconic about that classic look.” You can see more…

When City-Builders Meet Mario Galaxy

Not too long after Islanders, there’s another peaceful, cute-as-hell city-builder on the way, only this times things are on a more planetary scale. This is Before We Leave, “a non-violent city building game set in your own cozy corner of the universe.” “Rediscover and rebuild civilization,” the game’s official description continues. “Create a multi-planet resource…

The Internet Reacts To Hanzo’s Abtacular Summer Skin

We’re once again in the midst of summer’s steamiest months, and you know what that means: Blizzard has made yet another Overwatch character hot. Also, Lucioball is back for the fourth year in a row. Between those two things, it’s unsurprising that it’s Hanzo “Hotzo” Shimada who’s the talk of the balmy beach town right…