Culture

Twitch Re-Suspends Alleged Domestic Abuser After Fan Outcry

Last month, Twitch streamer Luke “MrDeadMoth” Munday was arrested by Australian authorities after a Fortnite stream during which he seemed to be hitting his partner. Twitch suspended his account shortly after. At the start of this week, however, Twitch viewers were surprised to find that Munday’s channel was already back. His suspension, which some presumed…

Wolf Is One Of Competitive Smash Ultimate‘s Most Popular Fighters So Far

Some of the winter’s biggest esports tournaments are still a ways off, but Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which ended 2018 on a Donkey Kong smackdown, begins 2019 strong with a handful more events taking place across the globe this weekend. Last weekend, I noted that the still-evolving meta around Smash Ultimate meant the Let’s Make…

How I Killed My Switch Charger

It was 11:54 p.m. on New Year’s Eve when people started screaming at me to put the big ball drop in Time Square on my TV. It’s sort of the “you had one job” of throwing a New Year’s party, and I had completely forgotten about it. Many gin and tonics deep, I made my…

Track: Linger (Acoustic Version) | Artist: The Cranberries | Album: Something Else Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

The Deadly Japanese Food That Kills At New Year’s

During the New Year holidays, Japanese people traditionally eat mochi, which is typically translated as “rice cakes” and is incredibly dangerous for older folks. In the West, people might know mochi ice cream, which uses thin pieces of mochi, but in Japan during the New Year’s holidays, people might put bigger (and stickier) pieces of…

The Eternal Castle [Remastered] is a new game based on an old game lost to time. As a kid, one of its creators fell in love with a label-less game he found in his dad’s office, but then it broke. Eternal Castle is an homage to “what could be remembered” about that game, as well…

Why I Now Have To Play All Of Bloodborne To Completion

Starting this weekend, I will be picking up the PlayStation 4 game Bloodborne and starting a new playthrough. For the next few months, I will be finishing it. I don’t really want to, but I must. For Kotaku Splitscreen It’s not that I don’t like Bloodborne. I played through the first few bosses when it…

Ask Dr. NerdLove: Should I Tell My Wife I’m Having An Affair?

Hello all you frightening post-Yuletide skinsacks, and welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the only dating advice column to top the list of best games of the year. This week, we’re answering the hard questions to help you go into the new year with clean consciences and dirty minds. How do you tell your girlfriend that…

The Fighting Game Capcom Tried To Get Pulled From Arcades

Capcom once filed suit in an attempt to get Fighter’s History pulled from arcades. And today, you can play it on Switch! So, clearly, the lawsuit didn’t work out. The explosion of the fighting game genre after the release of Street Fighter II in 1991 raised some legal questions. The avalanche of one-on-one martial arts…

The Sims Is Teaching Me To Appreciate Architecture

When I was in the suburbs with my family over the holiday, I saw my old hometown with new eyes. It has some fantastic architecture—lots of old Colonials and some fancy Victorians. Part of my change of heart has to do with getting older and no longer being resentful of growing up in a small…

Artist: Towa Tei with Ringo Sheena | Track: Apple | Album: Lucky Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Track: Real Magic | Artist: Anthony Green | Album: Would You Still Be In Love  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Bright Memory is a shooter/action game made primarily by solo developer Zeng Xiancheng in his spare time. Despite that, it looks nearly as over-the-top as some triple-A games, marrying shooting and swordplay to movement that’s akin to what would happen if a Kung-Fu flick took place entirely inside a tornado. It’s coming to Steam early…

I Unexpectedly Made A Lot Of Money Telling Fortunes In Final Fantasy XIV

Lately I’ve spent a lot of time in Final Fantasy XIV, Square Enix’s most recent massive multiplayer entry into the legendary game series. Often that means running dungeons for loot or fighting difficult bosses. Yesterday, it meant accidentally becoming a paid fortune teller in one of the game’s bustling metropolises. There are numerous servers to…

Track: Love Is Blindness | Artist: U2 (Edge Solo Performance) | Album: NA (From The Sky Down doc) Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

It’s Much More Fun To Play Phantasy Star On Switch

Over my holiday vacation, I played all the way through Phantasy Star, Sega’s classic 1987 Master System role-playing game. I did this by way of playing the new Sega Ages release of the game for Switch—and now that I’m finished, I realize that I’d never have played it any other way. RPGs for 8-bit game…

Fortnite‘s New Year’s Eve Event Catches Some Players By Surprise

It’s starting to be 2019 around the world, and Fortnite’s in-game New Year’s party has begun. Some players were surprised to see a New Year’s ball drop when it wasn’t New Year’s in their time zone. Hints of an in-game Fortnite event for New Year’s leaked earlier in December, but now we get to see…

Don’t Miss Out On CrossCode, An Excellent Action-RPG

What I love about CrossCode, an action-RPG that came out on Steam earlier this year, isn’t just that it’s charming as heck and feels great to play. No, what I love about CrossCode is that it’s secretly a puzzle game. Don’t miss out on this one, folks. CrossCode, which I started playing last week after…

Top Speedrunner Outlines Perfect Dark‘s Wildest Skips

Rare’s 2000 shooter Perfect Dark is a classic game, building upon Goldeneye 007’s frame to create a more robust shooting experience. Speedrunners are good at finding the cracks in even the best games, and one runner has collected some of the game’s biggest skips and breakthroughs into a video, showing how some of the trickiest…

The Week In Games: Human Boxing

Another light week at the end of the year, but some neat games are showing up on the Switch. Developers are clearly avoiding the post-holiday release window, and it shows, but Switch owners who are into smaller games are still getting an interesting trickle of stuff to check out. Some highlights are obviously The Aquatic…