Culture

‘Shop Contest: Let’s Make Our Own Splinter Cell Sequel, Winners!

Last week I asked you, fine folks of Kotaku, to pitch some Splinter Cell sequel ideas, but only crossovers. That’s how we make this series big again. I got some wonderful entries this week and hopefully, Ubisoft is watching. I think we got some really good ideas in here. The winning image this week comes…

Spoink Will Die If It Ever Stops Bouncing

Every Pokemon is interesting and worth talking about. I don’t play a ton of Pokemon, but I do enjoy the universe and I love learning more about the creatures in it. So, Here’s Another Pokemon! It’s Spoink! Spoink Details Type: Psychic Average Height: 2‘04“ Average Weight: 67.5 lbs. First Added In Generation III Sometimes, Pokemon…

Shhh! Don’t Wake The Whales

Hello! Today we try to figure out what Death Stranding is, discuss pornography playing cards, prank The Master Chief, watch creepy whales and kill some Nazis. It’s Morning Checkpoint! Great Kotaku Content From The Past Week Like most weeks, Kotaku was filled with some great stories. Here are a few of my favorites! I can…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for it not raining anymore, hopefully. It’s also for playing video games if it does rain (or even if it doesn’t). I’m super excited to start playing Outer Wilds, a game I’ve been following for years. There’s also, of course/always, so much more Witcher 3. Looks like I’m in for a fun…

Deciding Whether To Restart A Video Game Is My Latest Debilitating Crisis

Sometimes, life presents you with a choice that you just know is going to Change Everything. It’s in these moments that we must take decisive action, plunge headlong into the abyssal unknown with nothing but resolute self-belief to shield us from the grasping black. Anyway, it’s with this in mind that I tell you I’ve…

Track: Harunohi | Artist: AIMYON | Album: Harunohi (single) 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!

The Gate. Kyoto, Japan. By Leonis Notes | Instagram | 500px 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! 

Some Of The Art Behind Game Of Thrones: The Final Season

Kieran Belshaw is an artist who has worked on Game of Thrones for a few years now, including the eighth and final season, where he helped out on some of the series’ most iconic moments. He’s also worked on movies like the upcoming Terminator: Dark Fate, Prince of Persia, Clash of the Titans and Guy…

Twitch Buckles Down On Security After Artifact Page Gets Spammed With Memes And Porn

Earlier this week, the Twitch category for Valve’s card game Artifact made a miraculous resurgence—but not for the right reasons. A horde of slavering meme lords were laying siege to Artifact’s abandoned e-fortress, flooding the Twitch category with streams of other games, jokes, porn, and in one especially ugly moment, a recording of the Christchurch…

The Internet Reacts To Whatever That Death Stranding Trailer Was

We now know when the highly anticipated Death Stranding comes out and what it’s about (kind of), which ends some of the mystery around this absurd and fascinating-looking game. But not all of the mystery has been unraveled yet, so we can all still make jokes about it. After Kojima left Konami in 2015, people…

Ask Dr. NerdLove: Is There Any Point In Dating When The World Is On Fire?

Hello all you frightening nipplybeasts, and welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the only dating advice column to help you speed run through the worst parts of dating and start the New Game Plus of your love life. This week, we’re diving into the weird corners of relationship drama, the sorts of questions you never thought…

The Division 2 Replaced A Mystery With An Anticlimax

I don’t play games for rewards. I never minded much that collecting the flags in the first Assassin’s Creed gets you nothing, didn’t mind that grabbing all the stars in Mario 64 lets you talk to Yoshi but not ride him. The journey’s the fun and whatnot. There was, however, this one mission in The…

Death Stranding Is Going To Make No Sense And That’s Just Fine

This week on Kotaku Splitscreen, how could we not dive into the delicious insanity of yesterday’s nine-minute Death Stranding trailer? First we talk about some video games we’re playing, from Dark Souls 3 to Observation, then dive into news of the week (29:00) including Death Stranding’s ridiculous new trailer (and 2019 release date!), Call of…

Track: 2045 | Artist: Man with a Mission | Album: Chasing the Horizon 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!

KFC Is Now Serving Chicken Skin In Indonesia

As far as ideas go, KFC serving bags of crisp, fried chicken skin is an excellent one. Who doesn’t love the skin? KFC is offering bags of chicken skin at six locations in Indonesia: MT Haryono, Salemba, Cideng, Kemang, Kalimalang and Kelapa Gading. One order is the equivalent of 95 cents. This isn’t a first…

Osaka Nights. Osaka, 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! 

Gato Roboto is a Metroidvania where you play as a cat in a mech suit. In space. However, there are locations that your mech suit—and I’m sure all the cats in mech suits out there can identify with this—is too bulky to traverse, forcing you to pop out and be a regular little kitty in…

Tough Day At The Office

Vladyslava Hladkova is a concept artist based in the UK who works in the games business. You can see more of Vladyslava’s stuff at her ArtStation page.  

The Internet Reacts To Pokémon Sleep

At a press conference in Tokyo Tuesday, the Pokémon Company announced some unexpected Pokémon-related games and services, mostly on mobile devices. Pokémon Home is a cloud service that allows players to save and transfer their monsters. Great! There’s also a new Pokémon Go peripheral called the Pokémon Go Plus+. It is pronounced “plus plus.” Sure!…

Feedback Makes Me A Better Gamer–When You’re Not An Asshole

I’ve begun to think of my weekly, local Super Smash Bros. tournament as a sort of doctor’s appointment for my ego. Regulars tell me that it’s normal to just win one or two games at these things, yet selection bias mandates that the people who attend a lot tend to be confident that they’re really,…