Culture

A God Of War Fan Has Sketched Out A Sequel

God of War fan (and professional games artist) Yong Yi Lee has some ideas for a God of War sequel, and instead of writing them down in an overly-long Reddit/Tumblr post, has instead sketched it out. The gist: Kratos seems upset and is caught up in Ragnarök, and has to kill a lot of Gods.…

Another Popular Twitch Streamer Is Trying To Leave FaZe Clan

Last month, popular Fortnite streamer Turner “Tfue” Tenney sued FaZe Clan, the esports organization whose banner he plays under, over a supposedly restrictive contract. The lawsuit sent shockwaves in all directions, resulting in, among other things, FaZe player H1ghSky1 getting banned from Twitch after it came to light in Tenney’s legal complaint that he was…

Outer Wilds Is One Of The Best Games I’ve Ever Played

If you put me in a room with ten executives and asked me to pitch Outer Wilds, here is what I would say: “It’s got the exploration of a Metroid game and the structure of Majora’s Mask crossed with the interstellar wonder of No Man’s Sky and the narrative framework of Return of the Obra…

Week In Games: Let’s Go Make Another Mario

Perhaps the best-known game coming out this week is Super Mario Maker 2, a sequel much anticipated by many of us here at Kotaku, not to mention Mario fans everywhere. But that’s not the only cool game on the docket this week. There’s a Switch port of the original Devil May Cry, plus the 2019…

Track: This Is How I Feel | Artist: DedachiKenta | Album: Breakfast for Dinner Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment. 

Clouds, A Cathedral And A Cone. Edinburgh, Scotland. By Nathan Seyler. 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!

Evangelion Dreams

Huang Fan is a freelance artist and illustrator who has worked on things like the Rampage movie and Blur’s Destiny 2 animation. You can see more of his stuff at his ArtStation page

How The Choose Your Own Adventures Of 428: Shibuya Scramble Reminded Me Of My Past

I’ve visited Shibuya before, but never like this. 428: Shibuya Scramble, which was developed for the PlayStation 4 by Chunsoft, released in September 2018 outside Japan. It’s kind of like those old full motion video (FMV) games. But instead of telling the story through badly compressed and grainy video, it uses a series of high…

Sunday Comics: You Look… Different.

Hello! It’s time for Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published June 17. Read more of Awkward Zombie Corpse Run by Alex Di Stasi. Published June 20. Read more of Corpse Run Clueless Hero by…

Final Fantasy V Reminds Me Of What I Loved About The Series

Talking about Final Fantasy has become complicated. A lot of my favorite Final Fantasy memories are from games in the series that are over a decade old. I’ve played through most of the main series Final Fantasy games, aside from FFV and the online ones. I genuinely enjoyed most of them (even XIII), though none…

John Wick Hex Is A Portal Into John Wick’s Mind

At a Keanu Reeves-filled E3 last week, I played a demo of John Wick Hex, a forthcoming action game directed and written by Mike Bithell, the creator of acclaimed indie games Thomas Was Alone and Volume. Playing John Wick Hex was like being transported inside of the titular assassin’s mind via a mashup of the…

Valve’s New Auto Chess Game Is Already Way More Popular Than Artifact Ever Was

The failure of Dota-themed trading card game Artifact might have left Valve with egg on its face, but the company has now scraped off that egg and made an omelette with Dota Underlords. Valve’s take on the obscenely popular Auto Chess genre hit a peak of nearly 180,000 concurrent players today, almost tripling Artifact’s all-time…

Xbox Boss On Microsoft’s Struggles With Game Quality And Efforts To Improve It

Whatever the strengths of the Xbox platform, it’s long lagged behind Nintendo and Sony in terms of homegrown, exclusive video games. There have been highlights in its history and even some stellar games of late, such as last year’s Forza Horizon 4, but the Xbox One era has been rough. There have been prominent cancellations,…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for going rock climbing! I’m taking a class to learn to belay people so I can say “no, no, I’ll hold the rope” and cover up my ridiculous fear of heights. The weekend is also for playing video games. I’m really enjoying Lovely Planet 2, which looks relaxing but is actually twitchy…

I’m The Only Person Playing Harry Potter: Wizards Unite In My Area

The first week that Pokémon Go came out, it was all my friends wanted to do or talk about, and we weren’t the only ones. Whenever I went on a jog around my neighborhood, I’d run into people of all ages and backgrounds at every PokéStop and gym on my journey. I expected the same…

We Went Hunting In Monster Hunter: Iceborne

Just in time for the beta this weekend, here’s a brand new video from E3 in which Tim and I play the upcoming Monster Hunter World: Iceborne expansion. We take a photo with one of the monsters that you’ll get a chance to slay in the game, lob off a couple tails, and then try…

Tokyo Tower. Tokyo, Japan. By ShuYung Wu. 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!

In case you missed me triple front flipping over haters, explaining what a “skrrrt” button is, and dropping some delicious movie references while playing My Friend Pedro earlier, here’s the YouTube archive. Follow us on Twitch for more streams.

Steam Finally Adds Official LGBTQ+ Tag For Games

The process of finding games on Steam has become increasingly driven by a tag system. Mouse over, say, Sekiro on Steam’s front page, and you’ll see descriptor tags like “Souls-like,” “Difficult,” and “Action.” Click on one of those tags, and you’ll be taken to a hub page for that game category. But that’s just the…

‘Xbox Live Is Not A Free Speech Platform’: Xbox Boss Promises New Features To Make Online Gaming Less Hostile

You can learn a lot about a person by the values they express, and possibly something about an entire gaming platform by the blog posts the person running it writes. That’s why I was so eager at E3 last week to ask the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, why he recently wrote a 1200-word essay…