Culture

The Cutest Little Arcade Cabinet

Hello! This week we check out the new Streets Of Rage trailer, learn how most games on Steam don’t make much money, watch a cat bring someone their slippers, check-in on Gears 5 and play a tiny arcade machine. Great Kotaku Content From The Past Week As someone who hates dealing with spiders in games…

Nintendo Says Stop Using Alcohol To Clean Your Joy-Cons

You might have heard there’s currently a global pandemic going on. As a result you might be using things like alcohol and disinfect wipes to clean off your stuff, including your Switch. Nintendo says don’t, at least if your priority is not damaging the system’s finish. For many, it probably isn’t. “Recently, customers have been…

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, As Told By Steam Reviews

Eight years after its announcement, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is finally out. Sorta: The long-awaited sequel to cult classic open-world lord sandbox Mount & Blade entered early access last week. For the most part, Steam users love it, despite some girthy warts that are hard to ignore. In his impressions, Kotaku’s Ethan Gach said…

Animal Crossing Speedrun Shows K.K. Slider Isn’t That Picky After All

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is about luxuriating by a fishing hole or meticulously planning out your town’s layout. That is, unless you’re a speedrunner. While some runners race to pay off their loans to Tom Nook, others are plotting the most efficient way to get K.K. Slider to come to their island and thereby kick…

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Pulled From Some Chinese Stores After In-Game Hong Kong Protests

Listings for Nintendo’s adorable life sim Animal Crossing: New Horizons have been taken down from online Chinese stores Pinduoduo and Taobao. This comes on the heels of some players using the game to share pro-Hong Kong protest messages. Reuters reported earlier today that searching for the Switch game on Pinduoduo and Taobao no longer returns…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for trying to figure out how to watch a movie at the same time as some of my friends. After a long back and forth about technology, we realized we could just call each other on the phone, the way nature intended. The weekend is also for playing video games. I woke…

Covid-19 Concerns Delay Final Fantasy XIV‘s Next Big Update

Originally scheduled for release in mid-June, Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers’ update 5.3 is being pushed back several weeks due to issues stemming from the covid-19 crisis. In a letter to the community, game director Naoki Yoshida detailed the difficulties involved with managing MMO development during a global pandemic. Update 5.25, which introduced new relic hunts…

The Pokémon Company Is Investigating Sword And Shield Cheaters

Pokémon Sword and Shield players recently discovered an exploit they can use to inflate their competitive rankings, and the Pokémon Company is now threatening to ban anyone who doesn’t stop doing it. The exploit revolves around quitting an online match right before you lose by holding down the power button on the Switch. It was…

If You’re Scared Of Spiders, Obsidian’s Upcoming Game Will Have A Mode Just For You

Let’s face it: spiders are scary. Even more so if they get blown up to monstrous proportions. Grounded, the upcoming survival adventure from Obsidian Entertainment, will apparently feature a special “arachnophobia mode” to help players avoid coming face-to-face with the game’s giant eight-legged monstrosities. What exactly this mode will entail is still a mystery Grounded…

Cat Calmly Ruins Twitch Stream

Most cat content on Twitch runs the gamut between harmless use of the animals as cute props and outright abuse. Very rarely does the mischief that these creatures house within their small frames get put on display as it did during a recent broadcast by fighting game streamer David “UltraDavid” Graham. While playing some Killer…

How’s It Going?: Outdoors Edition

It’s Thursday, which makes it almost Friday. Welcome back to our daily open thread. I live in a very crowded city, and it’s been tough not to be able to go outside much. I belong to a Facebook group for trail-runners, which a friend invited me to when I expressed interest in learning to do…

It’s A Good Day For A Final Fantasy VII Electronic Dance Album

Here are three things to do while waiting for tomorrow’s official release of the Final Fantasy VII Remake. Dance, dance, dance. From RoboRob, producer of last year’s Billboard-charting Kingdom Heartbeats, One-Beat Angel is an album that transforms Final Fantasy VII’s most iconic music into danceable electronic tracks. Well, more danceable that before. It’s amazing what…

Track: Let Down (Remastered) | Artist: Radiohead | Album: Ok Computer Ok Not Ok 1997 – 2017

Taking a break. Nara, Japan. By David Parham. 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 

Lunch Break

Alex Andreev is a freelance illustrator and concept artist from Russia. You can see more of Alex’s stuff at his ArtStation page

Next-Gen Consoles Reignite An Old Argument Over Controller Batteries

Without electrical juice controllers are just paperweights, and Sony and Microsoft continue to take dramatically different approaches to solving that problem. Yesterday Sony revealed its PlayStation 5 controller: the DualSense. It’s chunkier than the current-gen DualShock 4 and comes loaded with a number of new features, including haptic feedback and a built-in microphone. People wasted…

‘OK, Boomer’ Girl’s Rise To Twitch Fame Was ‘A Perfect Storm’ Of Memes And Politics

Several decades ago, at the beginning of March 2020, when Bernie Sanders was still in the race for president, a streamer who goes by the handle Neekolul posted a short video of herself lip syncing and dancing along to a song by YouTuber Senzawa made up entirely of variations on the phrase “OK, boomer” to…

Google Stadia Pro Goes Free For Two Months

Google announced today that it’s making its Stadia Pro video game streaming service free to everyone for the next two months, as people stay home to limit the spread of Covid-19. “Video games can be a valuable way to socialize with friends and family when you’re stuck at home, so we’re giving gamers in 14…

How’s It Going?: Simple Pleasures Edition

We’re halfway through the week, if time still has meaning for you. Welcome back to our daily open thread. As I wrote yesterday, I’ve been struggling to do much besides worry lately. Nevertheless, I’m trying to force myself to notice the good things that I can still access, or that this situation is bringing out.…

Gaming PC Builder Maingear Is Now Making Emergency Ventilators

New Jersey-based computer company Maingear announced today that it is retooling a significant portion of its manufacturing facilities, normally dedicated to making very pretty gaming PCs, to create very pretty emergency ventilators to aid hospitals in the fight against covid-19. Emergency ventilators are an important tool in the fight against covid-19, which can severely impair…